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

Stephan Micus: Inland Sea

Read "Inland Sea" reviewed by Geno Thackara

by Geno Thackara
July 16, 2017

Like an actual inland sea, the Stephan Micus catalogue stands as a unique entity distinct from all its surroundings. Always too restless to rely on familiar sounds, he travels to find little-known instruments in far corners of the world and take time getting to know each one's voice. His 22nd ECM recording is centered mostly around the texture of the nyckelharpa--a Swedish fiddle with built-in sympathetic strings. In supporting roles here (as it were) are the genbri, a Moroccan stringed ...

Album Review

Rob Luft: Riser

by Roger Farbey
July 16, 2017

London-based guitarist Rob Luft, an alumnus of the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, reveals on tracks like the opener “Night Songs" a lightness and deftness of touch. There's also a trace of highlife West African influence too. But notably, Luft veers away from the more well-worn modern jazz guitar style, steadfastly avoiding the usual plethora of blues and jazz clichés. Nonetheless Luft intersperses his imaginative compositions with fast arpeggio runs a-plenty. The title track, even more so, offers a conglomeration of ...

Album Review

Ted Chubb: Gratified Never Satisfied

Read "Gratified Never Satisfied" reviewed by Troy Dostert

by Troy Dostert
July 16, 2017

Trumpeter Ted Chubb offers a well-balanced album of four originals and four thoughtfully-arranged covers on Gratified Never Satisfied, his third record as a leader. With solid, in-the-pocket musicianship and strong chemistry among his bandmates, it's an enjoyable outing likely to generate some buzz for this up-and-coming jazzman. Chubb is a disciplined, meticulous soloist, and whether he's providing tenacious licks with up-beat material like the record's title track or pensive musings on the ballad standard “My Ideal," Chubb does ...

Album Review

Big Star: The Best of Big Star

Read "The Best of Big Star" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
July 16, 2017

The Best of Big Star might be the ideal introduction to the greatest 'never was but shoulda been' band of all time. Not nearly so extensive or lavishly packaged as Keep An Eye on the Sky (Rhino, 2009) or Third Complete (Omnivore, 2016), the quick succession of sixteen tracks, a half-dozen of which are rare single edits of album tracks, presents Big Star not only as a great band of players, but ingenious songwriters and recording artists willing to experiment ...

In Pictures

2017 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival

by Mark Robbins
July 16, 2017

The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival celebrated it's 47th birthday this past spring (April 28-30 and May 4-7, always the last weekend of April and first weekend of May) with the addition of the Cuban Cultural Exchange Pavilion. The Pavilion held Cuban artist demonstrations, Cuban cultural exhibits and the 13th Jazz and Heritage Festival Stage featuring Cuban musicians. Never just a jazz festival, the other 12 stages at the Fair Grounds Race Course presents gospel, blues, jazz, ...

Extended Analysis

Motel Shot: Expanded Edition

by Doug Collette
July 16, 2017

With the passage of time, Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett, are unfortunately becoming more and more the unsung heroes of a Seventies rock and roll. The Southern couple not only acknowledged, but built upon roots of blues, folk and country, as well as the soul and r&b influences at the very heart of their style, aided and abetted by a rotating cast of accompanists that, at various points included George Harrison and Eric Clapton. Just prior to the purposefully-conceived Motel Shot, ...

Live Review

Festival International De Jazz De Montréal 2017: July 7-8

by Mark Sullivan
July 15, 2017

Festival International de Jazz de Montréal Montréal, Canada July 7-8, 2017 July 3-4 | July 5-6 | July 7-8 The final two days of the festival. Lots to hear right up to the end, including the second and third of Ravi Coltrane's Invitation concerts. July 7 Ravi Coltrane Quartet Saxophonist Ravi Coltrane brought his current quartet to his second concert in the Invitation series at Gesù: guitarist Adam ...

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Live Review

Groove8 At The San Francisco Fillmore Jazz Festival 2017

by Walter Atkins
July 15, 2017

Groove8 San Francisco Fillmore Jazz Festival San Francisco, CAJuly 1-2, 2017 San Francisco's 33rd Annual Fillmore Jazz Festival was a huge, funky street party celebrating numerous music genres, ethnic foods, crafts and more in the city's historical and culturally rich Fillmore neighborhood. This year's edition of the FJF, running between Eddy and Jackson streets on Fillmore, also commemorated the 50th Anniversary of San Francisco's world famous 1967 Summer of Love phenomena. The FJF's theme, ...

Album Review

Nate Smith: Kinfolk: Postcards from Everywhere

Read "Kinfolk: Postcards from Everywhere" reviewed by Mike Jacobs

by Mike Jacobs
July 15, 2017

To get right to it, rarely does a first effort as leader come along that is so worthy of attention. With Postcards From Everywhere, Nate Smith has offered a many-faceted jewel whose luster only grows with re-examination. On one level, this is indeed an album that satisfies the requisite expectations for a debut from a drummer of Smith's caliber. It has tunes covering a wide range of influences, great grooves in both straight and unusual meters, and of ...

Album Review

Matija Dedić: Dedication

Read "Dedication" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
July 15, 2017

Croatian pianist Matija Dedic opens his Dedicated with the extraordinarily lovely and wistful “Symphoetetic Waltz." Saxophonist Chris Cheek's sweet saxophone floats like an angel over this chamber jazz esthetic. Pianist Dedic tells this--and all of the stories on the disc--with a crystal clear clarity. Upping the chamber jazz mood, cellist Noah Hoffeld enters on “His Visit" stringing out long elastic lines that absorb the low end throbs of Johannes Weidmueller's bass, while the leader's piano separates the tale into succinct ...