Jazz Articles
Our daily articles are carefully curated by the All About Jazz staff. You can find more articles by searching our website, see what's trending on our popular articles page or read articles ahead of their published dates on our Coming Soon page. Read our daily album reviews.
Sign in to customize your My Articles page —or— Filter Article Results
Mike Clark: Itai Doshin
by Jack Bowers
Itai Doshin is a Buddhist term that, translated from Japanese, refers to a state of harmony wherein individuals share a common goal and purpose, or “many in body, one in mind." That is the level California-based drum legend Mike Clark's quintet strives for on Clark's second album on Gregory Howe's Wide Hive label. Is the mission accomplished? That is for the listener to decide. What can be said is that everyone gives it his (or her) best ...
Continue ReadingRoscoe Mitchell: One Head Four People
by Fran Kursztejn
"I'm always trying to take what's there and, in the end, make it sound like nothing's missing from it," Roscoe Mitchell relates in a 2016 interview, in relation to his string of European solo concerts, yet the statement is just as relevant to the jazz giant's newest studio release, One Head Four People, as any other. The recording comes just as Mitchell's 2014 performance (released on ugEXPLODE, 2021) A Railroad Spike Forms the Voice celebrates its ten year anniversary, and ...
Continue ReadingDaggerboard & The Skipper: Daggerboard And the Skipper
by Dan McClenaghan
For those who think they can tell an album's sound by its cover, think again in the case of Daggerboard and The Skipper. That cover art seems to have come from the walls of an inner sanctum of a Pre-Columbian pyramid. So what kind of music will that be? It is hard to find information on this release. Daggerboard seems to consist of the workings of percussionist/songwriter Gregory Howe and trumpeter/flugelhornist/songwriter Erik Jekabson, of Throttle Elevator Music fame, ...
Continue ReadingRoscoe Mitchell: Dots - Pieces For Percussion And Woodwinds
by Mark Corroto
While Dots, a solo recording by Roscoe Mitchell, is divided into nineteen separate tracks, this entire hour plus recording might be best consumed as a single unit. Mitchell's use of silence here is as essential as the woodwind notes blown and the percussive objects struck. One track leading into the next might be marked by silence, but that soundlessness communicates the recurring themes of this outing. Mitchell, active since the 1960s, has performed solo both alone and as ...
Continue ReadingThrottle Elevator Music: Final Floor
by Chris M. Slawecki
Final Floor marks the last stop of a band that one might say never really was. Throttle Elevator Music was the name given to a jazz-punk studio cooperative project organized and operating from 2011 through 2017 around saxophonist Kamasi Washington, drummer Mike Hughes (aka “Lumpy") and composer and guitarist Gregory Howe. Howe also founded and serves as producer and engineer for Wide Hive Records, the label that recorded and distributed their music. He notes on the back jacket ...
Continue ReadingRoscoe Mitchell with Ostravska Banda: Distant Radio Transmission
by Mark Corroto
Sometimes music makes you want to become a better dancer, or maybe even a better lover. With Roscoe Mitchell's music, you can't help but aspire to be a better listener. The co-founder of the Art Ensemble of Chicago and the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians creates sounds that transcend jazz, new classical, and avant-garde musics. With Distant Radio Transmission he presents music that he previously recorded (solo or in small improvising groups) and reworked for a 33-piece orchestra, ...
Continue ReadingRoscoe Mitchell with Ostravska Banda: Distant Radio Transmission
by Karl Ackermann
Roscoe Mitchell, a co-founder of the AACM and Art Ensemble of Chicago, continues to discover new intersections of jazz, classical and avant-garde music with Distant Radio Transmission. As he approaches eighty years of age Mitchell has waved off time and tradition, reinventing the AEoC brand with the orchestrated--sometimes operatic--We Are on the Edge: A 50th Anniversary Celebration (Pi Recordings, 2019), a project that bore little resemblance to the group's historical discography. On this album, he draws on past compositions to ...
Continue ReadingErik Jekabson Sextet III: One Note At A Time
by Dan Bilawsky
By the time One Note At A Time's first two songs have finished, it's been made abundantly clear that trumpeter Erik Jekabson appreciates a groove as much as he values space. The opener—"Days of Haze"—provides an introductory shot of adrenaline in the form of a tight, funk-framed blues, and “Dusk," in contrast, looks to open vistas, with longer lines and a less-is-more attitude reflecting the liminal spirit in its name. Foreshadowing what's to come, those early offerings prove complementary through ...
Continue ReadingPhil Ranelin: Phil Ranelin Collected 2003-2019
by Chuck Koton
One day, in Indianapolis in 1948, a nine year old Phil Ranelin made a fateful visit to his paternal grandmother's home. She was a real music buff and that afternoon, before she went to do some work out back, she told young Phillip, “Any of these records, feel free to play 'em and see what kind of music you like. Just don't scratch 'em!" That afternoon, Phillip discovered “everything from Big Maybelle to Charlie Parker." A couple of ...
Continue ReadingRoscoe Mitchell: Discussions
by Glenn Astarita
Saxophonist, composer, supreme improviser and a seminal artist for modern times, Roscoe Mitchell's (AACM, Art Ensemble of Chicago) illimitable inventiveness shines forth on this outing that encompasses a 20-piece orchestra, bridging experimentalism and counterbalancing song forms with nouveau classical music applications. The final piece is seemingly derived from a New Orleans slang expression “Who Dat," which is a mind-bending 22-minute opus. Commencing with somber strings and crosscutting percussion patterns, James Fei's synth articulations signal impressions of nature, paralleling ...
Continue Reading
