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

Susanna Bartilla: The Look Of Love: Songs Of The Sixties

Read "The Look Of Love: Songs Of The Sixties" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
June 4, 2017

Sub-titled Songs Of The Sixties, vocalist Susanna Bartilla's The Look Of Love presents her interpretations of ten numbers from that decade--from standards such as “Till There Was You" to pop hits like “There's A Kind Of Hush." It's a classic collection, distinguished by some fine interpretations and some surprising song choices. The Look Of Love follows Bartilla's tribute to Peggy Lee, I Love Lee (Self Produced, 2012), which she recorded in France. Bartilla is now back in Germany, ...

Album Review

ALA.NI: You & I

by James Nadal
June 4, 2017

Romantic poetry set to music can never go out of style, for it describes fundamental human emotions in a creative fashion. With the conceptual collection You & I, vocalist and composer ALA.NI presents a beautiful blend of chanson inspired lyrical rhythm, laced with vintage American jazz. Able to capture the essence of love in song, she conveys the moods of joy and sorrow, and the grey area in between. Though currently based out of Paris, ALA.NI was born ...

Album Review

Thelonious Monk: Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960

Read "Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960" reviewed by Mark Sullivan

by Mark Sullivan
June 4, 2017

Finding a lost movie soundtrack by composer/pianist Thelonious Monk at this late date seems an improbable event, at the very least. But that is what we have here: previously unreleased performances heard in Roger Vadim's famous 1959 French film Les Liaisons Dangereuses. The official soundtrack album released at the time included only the music by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers with Barney Wilen that was also recorded for the film. Monk did not compose any new music for the ...

Album Review

Aruán Ortiz: Cub(an)ism

Read "Cub(an)ism" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
June 4, 2017

Hidden Voices (Intakt Records, 2016) brought Cuban born pianist and composer Aruán Ortiz some long-overdue recognition in the U.S. Cub(an)ism, Ortiz' tenth release, is a solo piano outing and his first such recording in the stand-alone format. Recorded in 2016 in Zürich, Switzerland, the album continues Ortiz' exploration of Cuban Cubism, his method of incorporating cubist principles of faceting and multiple perspectives with folkloric elements. Cub(an)ism consists of ten original Ortiz compositions that blend Afro Cuban and Afro ...

Multiple Reviews

Catching up with Cantaloupe Music: Terminals Quartets, Field Recordings, Ilimaq, Anthracite Fields, Become Ocean & Discreet Music

by Mark Sullivan
June 3, 2017

Cantaloupe Music is the record label created by the three founders of New York's legendary Bang on a Can organization--composers Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe--with Bang on a Can managing director Kenny Savelson. Since its 2001 founding it has featured music from Bang on a Can and other contemporary musicians making concert music a little too edgy and funky for the academic world. It is still home to a wide variety of music, as demonstrated by this sampling ...

Album Review

Terry Gibbs: 92 Years Young: Jammin' At The Gibbs House

Read "92 Years Young: Jammin' At The Gibbs House" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
June 3, 2017

For a brief moment, put aside the fact that legendary vibraphonist Terry Gibbs is now ninety-two years old. Just listen to the YouTube video at the bottom of this piece--lyrical, swinging, and vibrant as any jazz out there--and take it in. It's something beautiful, right? Nothing radical or groundbreaking at all, but most certainly jazz of the highest order. Now, go back to Gibbs' age. At ninety-two, he's at a point where most of his peers are either gone from ...

Album Review

Bill Evans: Another Time: The Hilversum Concert

Read "Another Time: The Hilversum Concert" reviewed by Geno Thackara

by Geno Thackara
June 3, 2017

As charmed good-luck magnets go, producer Zev Feldman is the jazz world's equivalent of the guy who keeps winning the lottery year after year. He and Resonance Records specialize in finding and curating unreleased gems to share with the wider world--not dodgy bootlegs, but quality material in terms of content and sound--and giving each discovery the respect it deserves. For such a legendary and extensively recorded artist as Bill Evans who's been gone almost four decades, it's easy to suspect ...

Album Review

D'Vonne Lewis' Limited Edition: Unlimited

by Paul Rauch
June 3, 2017

The debut album from D'Vonne Lewis' Limited Edition, Unlimited, presents a challenge for this writer, as well as listeners who have engaged its members in live performance, or playing in other ensembles. Live, they are a virtual powerhouse, allowing the stellar cast of musicians to fully immerse themselves both instrumentally, and compositionally. On this studio recording, the strength and energy of the band is evident, yet to some degree subdued, lacking the energy and interaction with a live audience that ...

Album Review

Magic Pie: King For A Day

Read "King For A Day" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
June 3, 2017

This Norwegian band was assembled upon the notion of creating a progressive sound texture that signals the 70s, and to fuse musical propensities into the modern era by bridging classic rock into a hardcore prog rock idiom. This album follows Karisma Records' recent reissue / remasters and newly offered vinyl formats of Motions of Desire (2005) Circus of Life (2007) and The Suffering Joy (2011).There's a little for everyone, so to speak, as the ensemble bridges multiple paths ...

Film Review

The Who At The Isle of Wight Festival 2004

by Doug Collette
June 3, 2017

The Who Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 2004 Eagle Rock 2017 The Who Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 2004 documents an appearance at the famed British festival two years after the untimely death of bassist John Entwistle and thirty-four(!) years after the original four-man lineup of the Who, as documented on Live At The Isle of Wight 1970 (Columbia, 1996) galvanized an audience with the prowess and power of the band ...