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

Jason Kao Hwang: Sing House

Read "Sing House" reviewed by Troy Dostert

by Troy Dostert
June 11, 2017

Violinist/violist and composer Jason Kao Hwang has explored the intersections of avant-garde jazz and classical music for some time, and his commitment to drawing inspiration from the well of Asian musical idioms gives his pieces much of their distinctive character. Here he's working once again with bassist Ken Filiano and drummer Andrew Drury, longstanding partners from his EDGE ensemble and Burning Bridge group, and trombonist Steve Swell, who's also played and recorded with Burning Bridge. Rounding out the band is ...

Album Review

Sylvia Brooks: The Arrangement

Read "The Arrangement" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
June 11, 2017

Vocalist Sylvia Brooks likes to provide her music a noir patina, that smoky and dark evening tone preferred by the likes of the fictional hard men: Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe, and Jeff Markham. On her third recording, The Arrangement, this patina is given a high buff shine into something more contemporary, without losing any of the inherent sexiness of the music and its delivery. The Arrangement is a delicious double entendre on the word “arrangement," juxtaposing the darker side of ...

Profile

Tribute to Art Porter Jr.: Reflections of a Grateful Art

by Liz Goodwin
June 11, 2017

During the early to mid '90s, soprano and alto saxophonist-composer Art Porter, Jr. was charting a blazing course on the contemporary jazz soundscape. The 35-year-old Little Rock, Arkansas native had recorded and released four albums for Verve Records. He had been a guest on the albums of such titans as keyboardists Ramsey Lewis; Jeff Lorber (who also produced and played on three of Porter's albums); and Tom Grant; guitarists Lee Ritenour and Evan Marks; and powerhouse vocalist El DeBarge, to ...

Album Review

Philippe Baden Powell: Notes Over Poetry

Read "Notes Over Poetry" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki

by Chris M. Slawecki
June 11, 2017

Notes Over Poetry is Philippe Baden Powell's tribute to his personal and musical connections and encounters. “I can't remember a time making music just by myself, I've always felt like a kid with toys waiting for friends to come and play," he recalls. Notes Over Poetry seems to grow more beautiful as you progress through each track into a blossoming flower of Brazilian sound. Powell is the son of composer and guitarist Baden Powell de Aquino, a legendary ...

Book Review

Dreaming The Beatles: The Love Story of One Band And The Whole World

by Doug Collette
June 10, 2017

Dreaming The Beatles: The Love Story of One Band And The Whole World Rob Sheffield 368 Pages ISBN: #0062207652 Dey Street Books 2017 Rob Sheffield is so enamored of his subject on Dreaming the Beatles, any fan who reads it may be inspired to write a book on the band too. And that's because of the largely infectious, ebullient tone he maintains over the approximately three-hundred sixty pages. But Sheffield may actually be ...

Album Review

Art Fristoe Trio: Double Down

Read "Double Down" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
June 10, 2017

To paraphrase a well-worn cliché, all music is local. Pianist Art Fristoe is well established in the Houston area as both a dynamic musician, and educator at The High School for Performing and Visual Arts. Reaching beyond his home turf, the Art Fristoe Trio release, Double Down, is a powerful two-disc set encompassing a variety of jazz compositions, which requires repeated listening for full appreciation. The first disc opens with reworked material from various artists as “Smells Like ...

Album Review

Dave Chisholm: Instrumental

Read "Instrumental" reviewed by Mark Sullivan

by Mark Sullivan
June 10, 2017

Trumpeter/composer Dave Chisholm has a creative skill outside of music: he's also an accomplished cartoonist. His graphic novel Instrumental tells the story of an aspiring trumpeter who almost loses his soul after receiving a cursed trumpet, and this album serves as the Soundtrack. The seven selections have titles paralleling the chapters in the graphic novel, but they are rarely directly programmatic; it's more a matter of mood. So the comic and the music each can be experienced alone, but there ...

Album Review

Giacomo Gates: What Time Is It?

Read "What Time Is It?" reviewed by Nicholas F. Mondello

by Nicholas F. Mondello
June 10, 2017

2:02.75. That might have been what longshot “Giacomo" (at 50-1) took to win the Kentucky Derby back in 2005. However, it will take longer--just short of an hour--to realize that this thoroughbred Giacomo rides home a winner with What Time Is It?. Hold the oats and roses and grab the ear buds. Giacomo Gates, the consummate Hipster's Hipster, carries the Bop-Scat-Vocalese torch superbly here--one carried previously by greats Babs Gonzales, King Pleasure, Eddie Jefferson, Oscar Brown, Jr. ...

Album Review

Gregory Lewis: Organ Monk, The Breathe Suite

Read "Organ Monk, The Breathe Suite" reviewed by Jerome Wilson

by Jerome Wilson
June 10, 2017

Gregory Lewis aka Organ Monk, is an organ player with a uniquely grandiose and dramatic style that owes as much to a prog rock icon like Keith Emerson as to a Jimmy Smith. That was clear enough on his previous recording, American Standard where he played a selection of familiar pop standards. It's even more evident on this CD. As the track titles indicate, The Breathe Suite is a unified work deals with the last few years of ...

Live Review

Little Feat at the Paramount

by Mike Perciaccante
June 10, 2017

Little Feat The Paramount Huntington, NY May 27, 2017 Little Feat was formed in Los Angeles in 1969 by guitarist and lead vocalist Lowell George and keyboardist Bill Payne. In addition to George and Payne, the classic line-up featured drummer Richie Hayward, guitarist Paul Barrere, bassist Kenny Gradney (who replaced original bassist Roy Estrada) and percussionist Sam Clayton. The band's music crosses numerous genres: rock, blues, jazz fusion, southern rock, gospel, R&B, funk, jam-band, ...