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

DUMItRIO: Proverbe

Read "Proverbe" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
June 15, 2017

DUMItRIO's debut album Future Nostalgia (Self-produced, 2014) combined elements of jazz, rock, classical, electronic and Eastern European music. Proverbe, while still rooted in diverse influences, is more focused and holds together in its consistency. This new collection generates a captivating atmosphere, informed by Romanian folk music and buttressed by the readings of native proverbs and unstructured improvisations. The versatility of the musicians adds to the subtle variety of moods, making each piece a fresh start.George Dumitriu leads the ...

Album Review

Throttle Elevator Music: Retrorespective

Read "Retrorespective" reviewed by Phillip Woolever

by Phillip Woolever
June 15, 2017

Besides being a well-played selection of powerful music, this is an exciting, top-tier timepiece offering insight on the development of star saxophonist and composer Kamasi Washington a few years before he exploded onto the musical landscape. This release is not actually the most recently recorded work by the project's initial group, who played together most extensively around 2011-12. Washington's rise was no fluke, as this effort proves again and again. He developed chops in some fine ...

Album Review

Gabe Evens: The Wrong Waltz

Read "The Wrong Waltz" reviewed by Geannine Reid

by Geannine Reid
June 15, 2017

Gabe Evens is the Assistant Professor of Jazz Piano, Composition and Arranging at the University of Louisville, Jamey Aebersold Jazz Studies Program. Evens is a pianist with a vibrant and robust approach to his composing and playing and his command of harmony and trio playing is simply amazing. The Wrong Waltz is Evens album of ten original compositions for piano trio with a wide variety of styles: bebop, hard-bop, fusion, and modal genres. The music is lyrical, takes unexpected twists ...

Live Review

Skip Norris Memorial Concert at Paul Robeson Performing Arts Theater

by C. Andrew Hovan
June 14, 2017

Skip Norris Memorial Concert Paul Robeson Performing Arts Theater Detroit, Michigan June 9, 2017 The old saying goes that we all die twice; once when we take our last breath and then a second time when our name isn't spoken anymore. It is highly unlikely that the name of Wesley “Skip" Norris will vanish from the tongues of jazz devotees anytime soon. Especially not after the memorable and extraordinary sendoff that took place last Friday ...

Live Review

Mike Westbrook at Bury St. Edmunds Festival

by Duncan Heining
June 14, 2017

Mike Westbrook and Kate Westbrook Bury St. Edmunds Festival The Church of St. John the Evangelist May 19, 2017 Of all his many achievements, Mike Westbrook's The Westbrook Blake is one of his finest. Few works in jazz have combined music and text, voices and instrumentation, to such profound effect. The settings here of William Blake's prophetic and yet earthly revelations -by Kate Westbrook and the late British poet and revolutionary Adrian Mitchell -have a ...

History of Jazz

Pittsburgh Jazz: A Brief History

by Steve Rowland
June 14, 2017

This article was first published at the Explore PA History website. At first glance, Pittsburgh might not seem the most likely place to produce great jazz musicians. Situated on the western edge of the state, “Smoketown" was a gritty industrial city, better known for being the center of the nation's steel industry, than for its popular music or culture. Like Philadelphia, its industries attracted many African Americans from the south, men and women who were looking for decent ...

Album Review

Ferenc Snetberger: TITOK

by Mark Sullivan
June 14, 2017

Hungarian nylon-string guitarist Ferenc Snétberger made his ECM debut playing live solo guitar on In Concert (2016). Here he shares the musical space with Swedish bassist Anders Jormin and U.S. drummer Joey Baron--a combination suggested by producer Manfred Eicher, and cemented by three concerts in Hungary before the recording session. Jormin and Baron have played together on live shows, but never on record, despite their many individual ECM appearances. Baron has considerable experience playing with guitarists: he has ...

Album Review

AVA Trio: Music From An Imaginary Land

Read "Music From An Imaginary Land" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
June 14, 2017

The recently formed AVA Trio has a distinctly original sound that blends the musical influences of the Mediterranean, Middle-East and Western jazz on their debut recording Music From An Imaginary Land. The three young musicians play original compositions that owe more to jazz than to global influences but they incorporate their native heritages, along with somewhat unusual instrumentation, to form some unique ideas. Bassist Esat Ekincioglu is Turkish and though still in his twenties, has worked in pop, ...

Album Review

Oberg / Mahall / Griener: Lacy Pool_2

Read "Lacy Pool_2" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
June 14, 2017

Pianist Uwe Oberg didn't follow a straight and narrow path when putting together this formidable European trio. There is no bassist, and Rudi Mahall performs solely on clarinets, as most listeners would expect a soprano saxophone to be the mainstay of any band that pays homage to the late, modern-era jazz pioneer Steve Lacy. More importantly, the band, including drummer Michael Griener, mold Lacy's works into their signature group-focused voice, yet duly adhere to his core rhythmic and melodic fundamentals, ...

Album Review

Hudson: Hudson

by Doug Collette
June 14, 2017

It should come as no surprise that the 'super-group' Hudson have a sound so distinct it defies easy categorization. Percussionist Jack DeJohnette, bassist Larry Grenadier, keyboardist John Medeski and guitarist John Scofield are four individuals sharing an inclination for adventure tempered with a wealth of experience that imparts no small amount of humility to this collaborative effort: they know how to stay out of each other's way. Such practical virtues become further highlighted by the common thread of ...