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

Olivia Murphy: Fateful Birds & Fledgling Stories

Read "Fateful Birds & Fledgling Stories" reviewed by John Eyles

by John Eyles
May 16, 2026

Throughout her career, Olivia Murphy has receiyed many awards which have been instrumental in promoting her blossoming career. In 2021, she received the prestigious and influential Peter Whittingham Jazz Development Award, which has been contested annually since 1990 to support an emerging jazz musician with their plans and ambitions. At the time she won it, Murphy was playing clarinet in the Moonrise Trio alongside vocalist Becca Wilkins and pianist Olly Chalk. In 2020, the trio's first EP, Tomorrow ...

So You Don't Like Jazz

Sonic Loops: Eight Miles High on the Psychedelic Trane

by Alan Bryson
May 15, 2026

In the popular music of the '50s, the landscape revolved around individual vocalists, vocal harmony groups, and instrumental ensembles. In the early '60s, something radical emerged: self-contained groups--a collective of individuals with a group dynamic and identity. They wrote, sang, played instruments, and performed as a unified artistic whole. This represented a structural revolution in how music was conceived, recorded, and experienced. This group dynamic helped shift popular music away from the dance-oriented 45-rpm single back toward the ...

Album Review

Sergio Di Gennaro: Blind Spots - Still Looking

Read "Blind Spots - Still Looking" reviewed by Neil Duggan

by Neil Duggan
May 15, 2026

Italian pianist Sergio Di Gennaro brings Mediterranean lyricism to the fore on his second release as leader, Blind Spots -Still Looking. He forms a trio with double bassist Ares Tavolazzi and drummer Enzo Zirilli, with guest musician, saxophonist Emanuele Cisi adding an extra dimension on two tracks. A graduate with honors from the conservatories of Alessandria and Turin, Di Gennaro has collaborated with artists including Enrico Rava, Wayne Escoffery and Fabrizio Bosso. He is neither a ...

Album Review

Martin Kohlstedt: Kluft

by Neil Duggan
May 15, 2026

German composer, pianist and record producer Martin Kohlstedt has been refining and focusing his unique soundscape since his initial solo release in 2012. He works with a modular approach, blending acoustic, upright piano with Fender Rhodes and a gallery of electronic keyboards, using improvisation to move between jazz and a range of avantgarde, ambient and cinematic styles.Kohlstedt's modular composing technique means that a complete piece, or “module," does not exist; rather than having a definite form, it is ...

Radio & Podcasts

Miles: The early years, with Miles narrating from his autobiography

by Larry Slater
May 15, 2026

Miles Davis is, without question, one of the most important musicians of the 20th century.His musical career encompassed bebop, cool, modal and fusion, and he was at the forefront of all of them. In 1989 Miles published an autobiography, and it's a candid, outspoken narration of his life and music.In this hour, and subsequent shows, we'll hear Miles discuss his career and hear key recordings from his discography.Tune in for a unique perspective on ...

Album Review

Pete Mills: This Is Now

Read "This Is Now" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
May 15, 2026

As usual, swing is king on This Is Now, Canadian-born tenor saxophonist and composer Pete Mills' sixth recording as leader, one wherein the high-powered opening number (and title song) sets the pace for what is to come on this bright and upbeat session while showing that Mills and his quintet mean serious business. As is true of most contemporary tenors, you would be hard-pressed to pick Mills out of a lineup; on the other hand, his technique is ...

Album Review

The Dam Jawn featuring Jeremy Pelt: Triphasic

Read "Triphasic" reviewed by Artur Moral

by Artur Moral
May 15, 2026

Philadelphians know 'jawn' well--a term embedded in their local slang that is not easily grasped by the uninitiated. So what are Joan Fort and Martin Diaz (two Catalans), Philip Lewin (a German), and Nitin Parree and Frank Groenendijk (two Dutch men) doing forming a band whose name fuses that Philly word with a wink at the Amsterdam dikes--the city where they actually live--and dedicating tracks to places like Venango, Master Street, or Fairmount Park? The answer is simple. ...

The Jazz Life

The Scent of Swing: Jazz, Fragrance, and the Invisible Aura of Cool

by Patrick Doyle
May 15, 2026

Please visit the Scent Veteran website at https://ScentVeteran.comAtmosphere as Art: Where Jazz Meets Scent Jazz has never belonged solely to the ear. It lives in the atmosphere--in the way light hits a lacquered piano, in the hush between notes, in the glide of a well-cut suit across a crowded room. It is configuration, timing, presence. It is the ineffable quality we call “cool," a sensibility that resists definition precisely because it exists beyond language. Fragrance occupies that same elusive ...

Interview

Atlantic Road Trip: Three Voices, One Journey

by Mark McKergow
May 14, 2026

Atlantic Road Trip comprises Paul Towndrow (saxophones, flutes and whistles), Miro Herak (vibraphone) and Chad McCullough (trumpet, flugelhorn and synthesizers). Their debut album ONE (Calligram Records, 2023) appeared in late 2023 to a chorus of international appreciation for its intercontinental folk and traditional influences, combining echoes of Scotland, Slovakia and the United States into an exciting musical whole. A second album, Watch As The Echo Falls (Calligram Records, 2026), has been launched with a tour of Czechia and Slovakia.

Album Review

Ted Rosenthal Trio: The Good Old Days

Read "The Good Old Days" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
May 14, 2026

In 2024, Ted Rosenthal dove deeply into the piano trio tradition. High Standards, The Ted Rosenthal Songbook and Classics Reimagined: Impromptu were all released in 2025, all on the TRM Music label. The Good Old Days, the fourth album from those bountiful sessions, released in 2026, presents Rosenthal's vision via multiple moods and thematic twists as his two trios explore early jazz styles, interpreting them in a modern style. Rosenthal's style is ebullient, in the manner of Ahmad ...