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.

Radio & Podcasts

Nduduzo Makhathini, Darryl Jenifer, Anthony Almonte, Onilu, Shapiro 17

by Cheryl K.
July 10, 2026

During this week's two-hour program of jazz and improvised music--pianist Nduduzo Makhathini; bassist and founding member of Bad Brains Darryl Jenifer; singer/songwriter Sarah Sharp; vocalist Anthony Almonte; guitarist/composer Luca Crispino; The Milky Way (1979); the percussion quartet Onilu; and the big band Shapiro 17.Playlist Randy Weston “Night in Medina" from Blue Moses (CTI) 6:51 Nduduzo Makhathini “Umbono" from The Myth We Choose (Blue Note) 5:03 Steve Khan “Green Room" from Ralph Towner: A Tribute (Blue Canoe) 8:20 George ...

Album Review

Kevin Kastning: Unreal City

by Sue Yang
July 10, 2026

Unreal City opens as though the room itself has begun to listen. Before theme, pulse, or recognizable structure settles into place, Kevin Kastning and Phil Grenadier direct attention toward the grain of musical events: the weight of a string attack, the bloom of a brass tone, the residue left by resonance, and the silence that follows, quietly changing the next sound. The album's intensity comes less from volume or density than from the precision with which two musicians make each ...

Radio & Podcasts

Altin Sencalar

by Daniel Peck
July 10, 2026

Hailed by Stereophile Magazine for “sounding like the 21st-century grandchildren of JJ Johnson and Kai Winding" and praised by the International Trombone Associations Journal for his “virtuosity and melodic and harmonic mastery," Altin Sencalar is in high demand across the country as a performer, educator, and composer. We caught Altin on tour in support of his 2025 release Unleashed. Featuring Altin on trombone, Matt Twaddle on piano, Leland Nelson on bass and Sofia Goodman on drums, and from ...

Album Review

Mick Goodrick: In Pas(s)ing

Read "In Pas(s)ing" reviewed by Jack Kenny

by Jack Kenny
July 10, 2026

Let us start with the recording itself. For this album the quality of the recording is as important as the playing. It was made at Talent Studio in Oslo by Jan Erik Kongshaug--and is typically in the style of ECM Records: spacious, detailed, each instrument given room to breathe without being isolated from its neighbor. But here it genuinely enhances the music's atmosphere. The recording never feels artificially distant; instead, it amplifies the sense that the quartet is improvising inside ...

Interview

Sullivan Fortner: Nothing's Ever Finished

by Andrew Schinder
July 9, 2026

Modern jazz musicians are often faced with the impossible, and frankly unfair, task of honoring the music's history and traditions while adding modern elements and contemporary facets to make a 125-year-old musical genre sound fresh. This burden falls even more acutely on musicians hailing from, or who are particularly associated with, the City of New Orleans. New Orleans is celebrated as the birthplace of jazz, but its ongoing connection to the music is complicated. Cities such as New York and ...

In Pictures

Bennie Wallace Quintet at The Jazz Loft

by Dan Bilawsky
July 9, 2026

Tempus Fugit (Time Flies). In May of 2026, Dr. Tom Manuel, the President and Founder of The Jazz Loft in Stony Brook, NY, celebrated that museum/performing arts venue's 10th anniversary. And in June, saxophonist Bennie Wallace, who'll turn 80 before year's end, dropped in with an all-star quintet featuring longtime collaborators--Anthony Wilson, pianist Donald Vega, bassist Peter Washington and drummer Herlin Riley. Together, those five (plus rising star vibraphonist Simon Moullier) appear on Wallace's French Postcard (BackCountry Jazz, 2026), essentially ...

Album Review

Serge Rogalski: This Is Not a Blues

Read "This Is Not a Blues" reviewed by Sue Yang

by Sue Yang
July 9, 2026

A title can sometimes work like a trapdoor. This Is Not a Blues begins by denying a form that never quite disappears. Serge Rogalski's live studio EP does not play blues in any conventional sense, but the blues remains present as residue: in the bent pressure of the guitar, in the blunt force of repeated figures, in the bodily insistence of pulse, and in the refusal to let abstraction become weightless. The title is therefore less a disclaimer than a ...

Radio & Podcasts

Gabriel Mark Hasselbach, Nduduzo Makhathini, Conrad Herwig, Seamus Blake and more

by Benjamin Boddie
July 9, 2026

Today's Music--Right Now! Fantastic music by The Amstel Jazz Ensemble, Gabriel Mark Hasselbach, Early Times, Amanda Tosoff, Tobin Mueller & Tomas Martinez, Ardeshir, Zen Zadravec Quintet, Nduduzo Makhathini, Tom Teasley, Conrad Herwig, Seamus Blake, Schapiro 17, Alternative Guitar Summit, Tom Ricci, Tal Mashiach, Jeff Rupert, Ben Patterson, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Carlos Henriquez, Will Lyle, Helen Sung Big Band, Jan Harbeck Quartet, Charlie Wood, Jennifer Madsen, Le Boeuf Brothers, Reid Hoyson Project, Emmet Cohen, Anthony Caceres, Virginia MacDonald, Paul Silbergleit Trio, ...

Album Review

ContraPunctus: ContraPunctus

Read "ContraPunctus" reviewed by Bret McCabe

by Bret McCabe
July 9, 2026

The New York quartet ContraPunctus eases into the third track on its 2026 self-titled debut with about 15 seconds of musical suggestion. Bassist Gui Duvignau and drummer Hamir Atwal respond to pianist Carmen Staaf's gentle Fender Rhodes melody with a tempo that starts at a comfortable clip. Staaf eloquently establishes the melody in the next few seconds--Juan Tizol and Duke Ellington's “Caravan"--that clarinetist Mike McGinnis picks up and continues. McGinnis and Staaf trade the tune's theme as the quartet establishes an elastic, rollicking synergy. ...

Album Review

Mick Goodrick: In Pas(s)ing

Read "In Pas(s)ing" reviewed by Frank Housh

by Frank Housh
July 9, 2026

In Pas(s)ing, originally released in 1979, was Mick Goodrick's first and last ECM Records recording as a leader. Indeed, aside from an appearance on Charlie Haden's recording of ECM's musical manifesto The Battle Of The Fallen (1983) by the Liberation Music Orchestra, Goodrick never again appeared on an ECM recording. In Pas(s)ing will be re-issued July 10, 2026 as part of ECM's Luminessence series.The album's title is a homonym, referring to the title song and “Pasing," the name of the street and district of Munich ...