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.

Reassessing

Shorty Rogers: Short Stops

by Richard J Salvucci
May 22, 2017

In the 1980s, trumpeter and Kenton alum Mike Vax put together a Supersax-type group called TRPTS. It released an album of harmonized trumpet classics, one of which was “Short Stop." There are lots of great tunes including “Night in Tunisia," “Trumpet Blues and Cantabile," and “Heckler's Hop." Oh yeah, one I never heard, Shorty Rogers' Short Stop. Really? How do you get to 35 years of age, listen to jazz almost daily, and not know about Shorty Rogers? I vaguely ...

Interview

Bobby Zankel: The Soul of Jazz - Past, Present, and Future Tense

by Victor L. Schermer
May 21, 2017

Part 1 | | Part 5 | Part 6[This is the first of an All About Jazz series of interviews and articles on “The Many Faces of Jazz Today: Critical Dialogues," in which we will explore the current state of jazz around the world. Jazz has expanded in many directions. The business, educational, geographical, recording, and entertainment aspects have undergone major transformations. Today, there are myriad ways of playing and understanding the music. So what is jazz all ...

Book Review

Robbie Robertson: Testimony and Michael Nesmith: Infinite Tuesday: an Autobiographical Riff

by Doug Collette
May 21, 2017

Robbie Robertson's Testimony and Michael Nesmith's Infinite Tuesday are both illuminating books, but only in decidedly constricted fashion. The insight each man offers into their respective timelines, as part of and apart from their famous groups, passes through filters of which neither author are wholly cognizant. The lead guitarist and chief songwriter for the Band sounds almost as guileless as his counterpart from the Monkees, but both men (and/or their respective editors) evince artful means in devising a particular slant ...

Album Review

Louis Sclavis / Dominique Pifarély / Vincent Courtois: Asian Fields Variations

Read "Asian Fields Variations" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
May 21, 2017

Few artists on the ECM roster reinvent themselves as regularly--and with such consistent success--as Louis Sclavis. While it is true that the French clarinetist (and occasional soprano/baritone saxophonist) often draws (and re-draws) from a gradually expanding pool of musicians, there are few label mates who have released as many albums as Sclavis, where the lineups literally change with each and every album. In fact, the closest he's come to repeating the same lineup back-to-back has been with his most recent, ...

Album Review

Mason Razavi: Quartet Plus, Volume 2

Read "Quartet Plus, Volume 2" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
May 21, 2017

The “plus" in San Francisco Bay area-based guitarist Mason Razavi's CD Quartet Plus, Volume 2 is a front line consisting of trumpet, trombone and three reeds, which on the second half of the album more than doubles the size of Razavi's quartet. There are many ways that could be done. For example, the nonet tracks might have been interspersed at random, placed ahead of the quartet tracks, replaced the quartet on odd-or even-numbered tracks and so on. But this is ...

Album Review

Erik Hove Chamber Ensemble: Polygon

Read "Polygon" reviewed by Pascal-Denis Lussier

by Pascal-Denis Lussier
May 21, 2017

Vancouver-born, Montreal-based alto saxophonist/composer Erik Hove is a compelling emergent leader, already a busy sideman on the city's scene, involved in all sorts of projects and playing with many local heavyweights since proving himself with the award-winning urban jazz Soundclash project he formed while in New York, studying with Greg Osby, and revived in Montreal, eventually releasing an album under his name with the discerning Effendi label in 2008. With his latest, the Erik Hove Chamber Ensemble, he ...

Album Review

Tina Raymond: Left Right Left

Read "Left Right Left" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
May 21, 2017

Most jazz artists don't choose to create a concept album as their debut. But drummer Tina Raymond has done just that with Left Right Left, teaming up with pianist Art Lande and bassist Putter Smith for a wide-ranging piano trio outing that explores America's political climate via a mix of patriotic songs, a pair of Woody Guthrie tunes, a Joni Mitchell cover, a pair of outstanding Putter Smith originals, and Joan Baez's gorgeous “Saigon Bride." Lande and Smith ...

Interview

Eri Yamamoto: The Poet’s Touch

by Jakob Baekgaard
May 20, 2017

One of the many places to go if you want to listen to jazz in New York is Arthur's Tavern. The special thing about that place is not that it is a jazz bar, but the fact that the same piano trio has played there for nearly 20 years. The name of the trio is Eri Yamamoto Trio and together with bassist David Ambrosio and drummer Ikuo Takeuchi, Yamamoto has been refining the lyrical language of the piano trio.

Album Review

Jaco Pastorius: Truth, Liberty & Soul Live in New York: The Complete NPR Jazz Alive! Recording

Read "Truth, Liberty & Soul Live in New York: The Complete NPR Jazz Alive! Recording" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
May 20, 2017

These days, there's a plethora of recordings, originally made for radio or television broadcast, being released by labels ranging from thoroughly legit to highly suspect. In some instances, these are real archival finds; true gold, mined from hours of hours of recordings, lovingly restored and packaged. In other cases they're clearly nothing but money grabs. Capitalizing on old contracts with holes in them the size of a Mack truck, these cheaply packaged, sonically acceptable but far from stellar releases muddy ...

Album Review

Berta Moreno: Little Steps

Read "Little Steps" reviewed by Troy Dostert

by Troy Dostert
May 20, 2017

When first seeing the title of Berta Moreno's debut record, one might be tempted to interpret it as a self-effacing gesture. Perhaps the tenor saxophonist is acknowledging her debt to the giant steps of the master of the tenor, John Coltrane himself? Upon further investigation, however, Moreno makes clear in her notes to the album that the piece after which the record is named is really just a reference to the chromaticism behind the song's harmonic and melodic structure (as ...