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.

Album Review

Chris Potter: Alive With Ghosts Today

Read "Alive With Ghosts Today" reviewed by Kevin Poindexter

by Kevin Poindexter
June 5, 2026

The history of America is haunted by ghosts of the past. These ghosts transform our present-day landscape, our everyday lives, and inform the very core of our existence. On Alive With Ghosts Today (Edition Records, 2026), saxophonist Chris Potter steps away from the normal high-adrenaline jazz that has signified his recent outings and has instead put together a band designed to feel more like a small-town ensemble, a mixture of jazz and folk, to lead through a suite of tunes that examines ...

Catching Up With

Bluesman Kenny Wayne Shepherd balances past, present

by Jim Trageser
June 5, 2026

Blues guitarist, singer, composer and bandleader Kenny Wayne Shepherd is marking the 30th anniversary of the release of his debut recording with a national tour in which he and his band perform that album, Ledbetter Heights (Giant Records, 1995), in its entirety. They also re-recorded the album track-by-track with longtime vocalist, Noah Hunt, who only joined the band for the second release. It was only a few months after his 18th birthday that his debut came out, and ...

Take Five With...

Take Five with Gary Van Miert AKA The Psychedelic Cowboy

by AAJ Staff
June 5, 2026

Meet Gary Van Miert AKA The Psychedelic Cowboy Gary Van Miert is a New Jersey-based musician and performer best known as the frontman of The Sensational Country Blues Wonders!, a band that blends classic American musical styles like country, gospel, and blues with a distinct vintage flair and theatrical presentation. The Sensational Country Blues Wonders! were designed to replicate the original instrumental lineup of acoustic rhythm guitar, electric lead guitar, and upright acoustic bass used on the first rock and ...

Album Review

Elsa Nilsson: Liminal

Read "Liminal" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
June 5, 2026

If, for just 52 minutes, one needs to step away from the breach, do not hesitate to push play on Liminal. A Brooklyn conceptualist by way of Sweden and Seattle, “Andetag" (Swedish for “breath") opens flautist/composer Elsa Nilsson's Liminal. But, all things considered, it could have been sequenced anywhere in the playlist given Nilsson's nod to late-night dance floors. Elusive, bluesy and a very danceable dance of equals, Band of Pulses--Nilsson, fellow piano arsonist Santiago Leibson, wiry bassist Marty Kenney ...

Radio & Podcasts

Reclamation Band

by Daniel Peck
June 5, 2026

Founded in Chicago and led by bassist Kevin Robert Martinez, Reclamation Band is modern jazz with an open rural backdrop. Its unique combination of composed and improvised elements evokes an array of moods and styles such as Americana, avant-garde and blues.A number of things make this group's sound unique. The first is the equal division between a guitar and two saxophone leads versus a rhythm section that includes bass and bass clarinet along with drums. The second is ...

Album Review

Christine Fawson: It Could Happen to You

Read "It Could Happen to You" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
June 5, 2026

A trumpet player who sings or a singer who plays trumpet? Christine Fawson puts those questions to the test (again) on It Could Happen to You, the fifth recording under her leadership, playing trumpet and singing on every one of the album's 11 carefully-mined selections from the Great American Songbook. The obvious answer is that Fawson is both a trumpet player who sings and a singer who plays trumpet, which would be beside the point if she did not do ...

Album Review

Mick Goodrick & Fred Hersch: Feebles, Fables And Ferns

Read "Feebles, Fables And Ferns" reviewed by Neil Duggan

by Neil Duggan
June 5, 2026

Feebles, Fables and Ferns captures a rare duo session between guitarist Mick Goodrick and pianist Fred Hersch. Recorded in August 1988 at Hersch's studio in New York, the album provides an intimate display of the superbly matched improvisational skills of two musicians in full flight. During his career, Goodrick perfected the art of avoiding the spotlight, even when collaborating with artists such as John Surman, Charlie Haden and Gary Burton. He was not prolific as a composer or ...

Interview

Stevie Holland: Finding the Pocket

by Sherry Rubel
June 4, 2026

Great vocal jazz relies on a delicate balance between absolute structure and spontaneous freedom. On her album, Talk to Your Tomatoes (150 Music, 2025), singer and lyricist Stevie Holland strikes that perfect balance, delivering a masterclass in narrative swing. At the heart of this “California Cool" sonic landscape is her longstanding creative partnership with her husband, award-winning composer and arranger Gary William Friedman. Together, the duo has spent years carving out a distinct artistic lane, treating each arrangement not as a ...

Live Review

The Gil Evans Project at Birdland

by Paul Reynolds
June 4, 2026

The Gil Evans Project Birdland Sketches of Spain and Porgy and Bess New York NY May 27 and May 30, 2026 Among the many celebrations of Miles Davis during his centennial week, it's hard to rival the ambition of Ryan Truesdell's fine five-night takeover of the main room at Birdland to present Sketches Of Spain (Legacy Recordings, 1960) and Porgy and Bess (Columbia Records, 1959), two of the classic big-band collaborations between the trumpeter and ...

Album Review

Alex Wintz: Collage

Read "Collage" reviewed by Joshua Weiner

by Joshua Weiner
June 4, 2026

Grammy-nominated guitarist Alex Wintz is not only a frequent performer, both with his own group and with artists such as the trumpeters Etienne Charles and Jeremy Pelt and trombonist Nick Finzer, but also an educator on the faculty of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center Jazz for Teens program and a clever composer. Collage features six excellent original tunes along with the jazz standard “The Shadow of Your Smile" and George Harrison's “Isn't It A Pity" and follows Wintz's two ...