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.

Interview

Yazz Ahmed: Bridging Worlds Through Sound

by Marco Iacoboni
May 22, 2026

Yazz Ahmed is one of the most compelling and innovative voices in contemporary jazz, an Anglo-Bahraini trumpeter and composer acclaimed for her fusion of jazz, avant-garde electronics and Middle Eastern musical traditions. Her music creates soundscapes that feel at once ancient and futuristic, deeply rooted yet constantly searching for new directions. Rather than using music simply as a vehicle for performance, Ahmed approaches it as a means of building bridges between cultures and reshaping perceptions--through a musical language ...

Festivals Talking

Moers Festival Interviews: Lakecia Benjamin

by Martin Longley
May 22, 2026

The last day of the Moers Festival is also the Monday holiday of Whitsun, still marked in Germany, even if it's dormant in England, but still technically observed in the USA, although not granted a public day off work. As a climax of both the five-day festival and the (Pentecost) holiday, the NYC alto saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin will storm the Moers castle, filling this main stage with extreme jazz hyperventilation, patterned with some elements of funk, hip-hop and poetic-narrative rhyming. ...

Album Review

Whatever Happens Don't Be Yourself: Tales of Consequence

Read "Tales of Consequence" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
May 22, 2026

The name sounds less like a band title than advice shouted across a dimly lit house party: Whatever happens, do not be yourself. Absurd, funny, and strangely apt, the moniker sets a subversive tone for Tales of No Consequence, the fifth album from this Bergen-based nonet led by the drummer and composer Nils Are Drønen. Drønen treats the group less as a conventional jazz ensemble than as a volatile improvisational organism. What might look on paper like a ...

Album Review

Ingeborg Gravem Sollid: The Aftermath

Read "The Aftermath" reviewed by Daniel Mège

by Daniel Mège
May 22, 2026

Some albums feel like an invitation to join a benevolent planet where things are effortlessly explained through poetry. So does The Aftermath (Fjordgata Records, 2026), where a sense of well-being rapidly settles in, nourished by the beauty of the compositions and the sustained intelligence of the interpretation. The group is a quartet led by vocalist Ingeborg Gravem Sollid, who graduated in 2023 from the prestigious jazz programme (Jazzlinja) at the University of Trondheim. Before this first album under ...

Album Review

Warren Wolf: Smoove Vibes

Read "Smoove Vibes" reviewed by Pierre Giroux

by Pierre Giroux
May 22, 2026

There is something quietly disarming about Smoove Vibes. It is the kind of album that does not shout its ambitions but simply settles into the room with you. Warren Wolf working from his basement, handles an impressive range of musical duties, including vibraphone, marimba, drums, keyboards, vocals, and sampled elements that shape the music from its rhythmic foundation to its final polish. You can hear him thinking like a band, not just a soloist, building each arrangement piece by piece ...

Radio & Podcasts

Carlo De Rosa Trio

by Daniel Peck
May 22, 2026

Bassist Carlo De Rosa is a veteran of both the New York and Miami jazz scenes. The Michigan native performed on Yo-Yo Ma's 2009 Grammy Award -winning album Songs of Joy and Peace and two other Grammy-nominated albums. For this trio performance, he's joined by pianist Luis Perdomo, whose work with Miguel Zenon has yielded 12 albums. They're also joined by drummer and composer Adam Cruz. An in demand and critically acclaimed drummer, Adam's most noteworthy ...

Radio & Podcasts

Reflections on the state of the State and other things

by Hobart Taylor
May 22, 2026

New music from Joe Lovano, Kalia Vandever and Nicholas Payton + Anggie Obin, Phillip Golub and Anthony Tidd.Playlist Host Speaks 00:00 Anggie Obin “Ballot or the Bullet" from Luz (Self--Produced) 00:12 Host Speaks 10:58 Joe Lovano/Julian Lage/Santi Debriano/Will Calhoun"Fanfare for Unity" from Paramount Quartet (ECM) 11:51 Miggy Augmented Orchestra} I Will Make a Change" from <em>Unbreakable (Hope and Resilience) </em> (SoundSpore) 16:02</li> <li> {{m: Nicholas Payton/Butcher Brown “Pursuance" from A Supreme Blue (Concord) 23:05 Alden Hellmuth “Good Intentions" ...

Album Review

Pink Floyd: Live from the Los Angeles Sports Arena, April 26th 1975

Read "Live from the Los Angeles Sports Arena, April 26th 1975" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
May 22, 2026

One of the main selling points of the large(st) package available for the 50th Anniversary of Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here (Columbia, 1975), Live from the Los Angeles Sports Arena, April 26th, 1975 became available as a stand-alone release on vinyl for Record Store Day April 2026 and was issued the following week in a double-CD package. The live recordings of this complete, roughly two-hour-and-a-quarter concert--the next to last of a five-night run at the California venue--were ...

Radio & Podcasts

Miles on Miles: the first great quintet

by Larry Slater
May 22, 2026

In 1955 Miles Davis formed his first great quintet withJohn Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones. By the end of the decade, the quintet became a sextet with the addition of Cannonball Adderley and Bill Evans replacing Red Garland.In this hour, we'll hear Miles discuss his recordings from the 2nd half of the 1950s--his first great quintet and Miles' seminal recording Kind of Blue.Miles narration in this hour comes from his autobiography. Miles: ...

Interview

Johnathan Blake: 'My Life Matters'—Genesis of a Small Masterpiece

by Marco Iacoboni
May 21, 2026

Johnathan Blake is among the most authoritative drummers on today's international jazz scene. His playing embodies the energy, sophistication and restless curiosity of contemporary New York jazz, shaped through collaborations with artists such as Kenny Barron, Bill Frisell, Dr. Lonnie Smith and Tom Harrell. At the helm of a quintet of remarkable depth and sensitivity, Blake combines technical command, compositional vision and collective interplay with striking naturalness. We met him during the European tour presenting My Life Matters ...