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.

Live Review

Adrian Belew Power Trio at Ardmore Music Hall

by Geno Thackara
May 10, 2017

The Adrian Belew Power Trio Ardmore Music Hall Ardmore, PA May 6, 2017 Like so much of life, music is really a work in progress that never stops changing. Adrian Belew has always been one to live by the idea rather than follow it--he's best known for an extended tenure in the always-inventive King Crimson, spins smart and often convoluted songs that still grab the ears effortlessly, and can wring sounds out of a guitar ...

Book Review

The Free Musics by Jack Wright

by Daniel Barbiero
May 10, 2017

The Free Musics Jack Wright 316 Pages ISBN: 1537777246 Spring Garden Music Editions 2017 Saxophonist Jack Wright's first encounter with free jazz occurred in 1967, when a chance meeting with Charlie Haden resulted in Wright's being invited to see Haden play with Ornette Coleman. Wright, who had been a conventional jazz saxophonist, describes the music as having struck him as “chaotic" and the experience as having been “traumatic." Nevertheless, five years later he ...

Album Review

Orchestra Baobab: Tribute to Ndouga Dieng

Read "Tribute to Ndouga Dieng" reviewed by Geno Thackara

by Geno Thackara
May 10, 2017

There's no rule for pinpointing the exact spot where a group goes from group to institution. If you have to ask whether a certain name has reached that point, that probably means the answer is no--but if we're talking about a widely loved ensemble with a 47-year history, it should be a good bet that they've made it and then some. The Orchestra Baobab may have been inactive for one stretch of time since forming in 1970, but nobody will ...

Album Review

Joana Gama - Luis Fernandes - Ricardo Jacinto: Harmonies

Read "Harmonies" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
May 10, 2017

Harmonies is purportedly the next logical step for pianist Joana Gama and electronics denizen Luis Fernandes, following Quest (Shhpuma, 2014), with the addition of cellist Ricardo Jacinto on this album that celebrates classical composer Erik Satie's 150th birthday. Here, the artists cunningly formulate an electro-acoustic soundscape, sketched with Gama's minimalist and Satie inspired themes, offering a principal element, encircled by EFX, avant-chamber, ambient electronica and other aspects or mediums. Jacinto advises that “Harmonies was a commission from Teatro ...

Album Review

Jaco Pastorius: Truth, Liberty & Soul: Live in NYC The Complete 1982 Jazz Alive! Recording

Read "Truth, Liberty & Soul: Live in NYC The Complete 1982 Jazz Alive! Recording" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
May 10, 2017

Bassist Jaco Pastorius could be considered the American music Van Gogh, a romantic figure so much bigger than the broken body that died from a severe beaten received outside of Midnight Bottle Club in Wilton Manors, Florida, September 11, 1987. That image simply does not jibe even remotely with the music presented on Truth, Liberty & Soul: Live in NYC The Complete 1982 Jazz Alive! Recording. Then again, it never was supposed to. Only a brief five years ...

Album Review

Michel Lambert: Alom Mola

by John Eyles
May 10, 2017

Michel Lambert is probably best known as a jazz and improvising drummer, most familiar from his recordings with fellow Canadian and saxophonist François Carrier, made since the turn of the millennium. However, there are other sides to Lambert that are not immediately obvious from that work. He has released several albums of his own compositions on the Jazz from Rant label that he founded in the early 90's with his wife Jeanette Lambert and her brother Reg Schwager, the label ...

Live Review

Bray Jazz Festival 2017

by Ian Patterson
May 9, 2017

Bray Jazz Festival Various venues Bray, Ireland May 28-30, 2017 There are just so many cultural events going on in Ireland over the May Bank Holiday weekend that it can be a bit of a head-spin deciding what to opt for. Roots music gatherings, literature festivals, classical recitals, a chamber music festival, traditional Irish folk festivals, lighthouse visits, theatre festivals and gigs galore, all vie for the punters' hard-earned coin. Happily, The Irish Times ...

Live Review

April Jazz Festival in Espoo, Finland

by Anthony Shaw
May 9, 2017

April Jazz Espoo, Finland April 26-30, 2017 April in southern Finland is a time of rapidly lengthening daylight and often crystalline blue skies heralding spring. This year though relentless gray skies and bitter winds made the appeal of a long weekend of top class jazz an even stronger motivation to ignore the lingering patches of snow and get on with life, and art. The program for the 31st year celebrating jazz in this ...

Album Review

James Rosocha: Avalon

by Geno Thackara
May 9, 2017

It used to be that electric bassists had a fine line to walk when taking the lead on their own albums. They'd be in for criticism for being either too fast and flashy or too subtle (or often just for making one at all). Maybe it's the result of an age when there are niches suited to every listener and vice versa, but the bass-as-lead tradition seems alive as ever and in fine hands. In the case of James Rosocha, ...

Album Review

Brian Molley Quartet: Colour And Movement

Read "Colour And Movement" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
May 9, 2017

Twelve tunes in twelve keys and twelve time signatures form the body of work that makes up Colour And Movement, from Scotland's Brian Molley Quartet. Lest the previous sentence makes the album sound too much like a somewhat esoteric musical exercise, it's important to add that Colour And Movement is richly textured, high on melody and filled with readily accessible music. Colour And Movement is the quartet's follow-up to debut album Clocks (BGMM, 2013). There's no change to ...