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

Yusef Lateef: Alight Upon the Lake: Live at the Jazz Showcase

Read "Alight Upon the Lake: Live at the Jazz Showcase" reviewed by Pierre Giroux

by Pierre Giroux
May 18, 2026

Some nights vanish into the ether, while others wait, patiently, until the world is ready to hear them. Such is the case with Alight Upon the Lake: Live at the Jazz Showcase. Resonance Records has released this adventurous 1975 recording as a limited-edition 180-gram 3-LP set and a 3-CD release, which feels less like an archival project than a living document. Yusef Lateef, ever the seeker, arrives here not merely as a saxophonist and flutist but as a guide through ...

Album Review

Trombocalist Big Band: The Vigil and the Sleeping Giant

Read "The Vigil and the Sleeping Giant" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
May 18, 2026

Even those whose batting averages are high are not immune from life's unforeseen and often disastrous curve balls. Low-brass multi-instrumentalist Ron Wilkins, riding the wave as a successful musician and bandleader, learned that the hard way when he was struck by Covid in 2020 and spent more than a month in a medically induced coma with the outcome clearly in doubt. As it turns out, fortune smiled on Wilkins, and after relearning such basics as breathing normally, walking, ...

Radio & Podcasts

Sharon Minemoto, Yvonne Rogers, Jody Redhage Ferber, Eliane Elias, Mark Winkler, Mothers Day & More

by Mary Foster Conklin
May 18, 2026

This broadcast celebrates Mothers' Day with new music from Mark Winkler, Sharon Minemoto, Yvonne Rogers, Jody Redhage Ferber, Eliane Elias and Marcus Goldhaber, with birthday shoutouts to Jazz Foremother Mary Lou Williams, Tania Maria, Gunhild Carling, Jill McCarron, Tawanda, KJ Denhert, Lincoln Briney and Andrea Superstein, among others. Happy listening and please support the artists you hear--see them live, buy their music so they can continue to comfort, distract, provoke and remind the world that A Woman's Place is in ...

Album Review

Charles Ruggiero: Plays Monk Live! At The Baked Potato

Read "Plays Monk Live! At The Baked Potato" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
May 18, 2026

Perhaps no other composer has contributed more standards to the jazz canon than Thelonious Sphere Monk, whose music was once considered too atypical and erratic for the mainstream. Times and tastes have changed, however, and on second glance, Thelonious Monk's compositions, even when skirting the norm, seem nowhere near as deviant as before. In 2026, it is hard to envision a list of jazz benchmarks that does not include such classics as, for example, “'Round Midnight," “Straight, No Chaser," “In ...

Radio & Podcasts

Ashley Kahn: How do you listen to new music?

by Mike Jones
May 18, 2026

Ashley Kahn is a Grammy award-winning historian, journalist, writer, and producer. He has written numerous books, including Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece. In this episode, he talks with Mike about how people listen to music today and how it differs from the past. There is amazing art and music to be found by embracing the technology and cultural themes of today. ...

Take Five With...

Take Five with Pianist Jon Gold

by AAJ Staff
May 18, 2026

Meet Jon Gold Jon's story begins in the San Francisco Bay Area. Jon's brother (Jay Gold) was an avid music fan who introduced Jon, as a child, to Delta blues, then r&b, and later jazz. Jon's brother Jay was a producer for Mushroom Records, the label for the pop group Heart. Jon started playing slide blues guitar but early on took up piano. One of his first big opportunities was to perform with Dizzy Gillespie for a special ...

Radio & Podcasts

Pierre Favre, Micah Thomas & Columbia Icefield

by Maurice Hogue
May 18, 2026

This episode of One Man's Jazz is loaded with music from new releases. Highly regarded pianist Micah Thomas drops a teaser of his upcoming Lucid , while trumpeter Nate Wooley & Columbia Icefield may have released their last album. A Silence Opens pays tribute to steel guitar virtuoso Susan Alcorn, a key member of the band, as well as homage to Wooley's mentor and friend, Ron Miles. There's also a tribute to percussionist Brahim Fribgane who instilled Moroccan influences in ...

History of Jazz

Honky Tonk at Seventy

by Daniel Gould
May 17, 2026

Seventy years ago this summer, a group of jazz men made a record that became the genre's first million-seller. The group was the Bill Doggett Combo, and the track was “Honky Tonk, Parts 1 & 2" (King, 1956). It sold 4 million copies worldwide and went to #2 (Pop) and #1 (R&B). While Bill Doggett always said that the group spontaneously created the song on a bandstand in Lima, Ohio, the full story is perhaps a bit more nuanced and ...

Album Review

Sebastian Jakobsen Testa: Reverence

Read "Reverence" reviewed by Konstantin N. Rega

by Konstantin N. Rega
May 17, 2026

Not every pianist wants to make a lot of noise. Sebastian Jakobsen Testa's Reverence is more a meditation than a jamboree. In the minimalist vein, these six tracks still have much to offer. There is a sleekness as well as a gauzy quality. The use of space between the chords and runs helps draw in the listener's attention. These are not simply background pieces; they are meant to be thoughtfully approached and listened to. In the Windham Hill ...

Album Review

Eddie Palmieri: Vamonos Pa'l Monte

Read "Vamonos Pa'l Monte" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
May 17, 2026

A reader may come upon a poster entitled “Highlights of the Jazz Story in the USA." One is labelled the Peter von Bartkowski Edition and it dates from 1987. It is, so to speak, a family tree of jazz, with all the strengths and weaknesses of the genre. Still, to poke about is to get someone's version of the lay of the land. On first examination, it is not clear that Latin Jazz even shows up, but ...