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

Unearthing Dolphy & Ornette: Inside Jeff Lederer’s There’s A Yearnin’

by David Bixler
June 19, 2026

In this episode of LINER NOTES we are diving into a monumental new release from saxophonist and composer Jeff Lederer called There's A Yearnin,' out on Little “i" Music. This record is a boundary-blurring project for winds and voice that features the Wildebeest Wind Quintet and vocalist Mary LaRose. Together, they tackle unissued and rare archival scores by Eric Dolphy and Ornette Coleman, alongside several of Jeff's brilliant arrangements of the music of Oliver Nelson. In our conversation today, Jeff ...

Radio & Podcasts

Miles the Composer in the '50s: Jazz Musicians Play Miles, Part 2

by Larry Slater
June 19, 2026

Miles Davis is justly celebrated for his harmonic sense, his tone, his style, and his ever-changing musical career. However, we rarely hear about Miles the composer. Miles certainly wasn't a prolific composer, and he wrote even less in his later years. He often surrounded himself with gifted writers including Gil Evans,, Bill Evans, Wayne Shorter and Marcus Miller. Nonetheless, many of his compositions have stood the test of time to become jazz standards.. Many of these ...

Live Review

Steve Swell Quartet & Michael Foster / Chuck Roth Duo at P.I.T.

by Fran Kursztejn
June 19, 2026

Steve Swell, Michael Foster, Chuck Roth P.I.T. Brooklyn, NY June 14, 2026 In the microcosm of the Greater New York Improvised Musics scene, Arts for Arts' Vision Festival, kicking off June 22nd at the Abrams Art Center in the Lower East Side, dominates the attention of artist and dilettante alike. While unlikely to rival the World Cup games or eclipse the citywide high of the Knicks' win, there is a coalescing enthusiasm that cannot be ignored. ...

Take Five With...

Take Five with Saxophonist Bernell Jones II

by AAJ Staff
June 19, 2026

Meet Bernell Jones Originally from Memphis, TN, Bernell Jones II is an NYC-based genre-fluid saxophonist and songwriter. His music showcases a variety of influences from his upbringing such as gospel, jazz, blues, r&b, etc. As a performing artist, he has worked alongside artists such as Ms. Lauryn Hill, Olivia Dean, Wyclef Jean, Philip Harper, Eric Bellinger, and more. As an artist, Bernell has three albums under his belt, including his acclaimed 2024 debut album Typewriter. In his music and his ...

Big Band in the Sky

Abdullah Ibrahim: 1934–2026

by Kofi Adjepong-Boateng
June 18, 2026

Abdullah Ibrahim , the South African pianist, composer and bandleader, died in Bavaria, Germany, on 15 June 2026. He was born Adolph Johannes Brand in Cape Town on 9 October 1934. Frail but undimmed, Ibrahim last performed on 27 March at the Cape Town International Jazz Festival, in the city that made him. He grew up around District Six, the inner-city quarter--mixed, Muslim, musical--that the apartheid state would later try to erase. As a boy he ...

Live Review

The Rite Festival 2026 — Third and Final Day

by Artur Moral
June 18, 2026

The Rite FestivalLaboratori D'Arts ContemplativesLlinars del VallèsBarcelonaMay 31, 2026 There are small miracles that happen daily and discreetly. They are of a prosaic and absolutely earthly nature, with no divine or supernatural intervention of any kind, and the vast majority of them tend to go completely unnoticed by the eyes of those who don't live those realities: from surviving a journey of thousands of miles to escape the most appalling misery toward a false ...

Album Review

Wolfgang Muthspiel: ATLAS

by Tyran Grillo
June 18, 2026

There is a special kind of intimacy that can arise when a trio dispenses with the obvious rhythmic anchor of drums. In the right hands, that absence makes every gesture structurally important. On Atlas, guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel, trumpeter Mario Rom, and pianist Colin Vallon make precisely that kind of space. Their music is chamber-like in its balance and jazz-rooted in its freedom, with several traditions moving easily through the frame. The album's title is apt not because these pieces try to ...

Live Review

Chucho Valdés and His Royal Quartet at Miner Auditorium

by Steven Roby
June 18, 2026

Chucho Valdés Royal Quartet Miner Auditorium San Francisco, CA June 14, 2026 Sunday night at Miner Auditorium marked the fourth and final night of a residency four months in the making. Chucho Valdes and his Royal Quartet were originally booked for late February 2026, then rescheduled to June--and by the time the maestro finally took his seat at the Steinway, the anticipation in the room had the particular charge of something long awaited.

Album Review

Bobby Wiens: Focus

by Kyle Simpler
June 18, 2026

Even though a recording is a finished product, it still captures the feeling and intensity of the session. When players have a good working rapport, everything translates through the music. Clearly, the musicians assembled by drummer Bobby Wiens for his second album, Focus, share a strong rapport, and that chemistry is evident throughout the recording. Originally from Calgary, Wiens grew up surrounded by music. He developed an interest in drums during middle school, which ultimately led to years ...

Album Review

Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra: Ellington Masterworks

Read "Ellington Masterworks" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
June 18, 2026

When the topic of Duke Ellington's masterworks arises (rarely, it is true, but not implausibly so), the leading candidates usually comprise such popular standards as “Sophisticated Lady," “Mood Indigo," “Prelude to a Kiss" and “Satin Doll"--not one of which is included in the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra's chronicle of Ellington Masterworks, recorded live in April 2024 at MCG Jazz in Pittsburgh, PA. With more than a thousand of Ellington's compositions from which to choose, the SJMO and its ...