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.

Extended Analysis

Grateful Dead: Cornell '77

by Doug Collette
May 6, 2017

Although an entire book has been published on the phenomenon, Peter Conners' The Music, the Myth, and the Magnificence of the Grateful Dead's Concert at Barton Hall (Cornell UniversityPress, 2017), in his own essay for the booklet in the three-CD package, UCLA archivist Nicholas G. Meriwether offers an excellent summary of the various threads in the story of the Grateful Dead's Cornell '77 appearance, the profundity of which may still escape the comprehension of both fans and non-fans, even if ...

Live Review

Steve Winwood at the Space at Westbury

by Mike Perciaccante
May 6, 2017

Steve Winwood The Space at Westbury Westbury, NY April 20, 2017 Fifty-one years after a teenaged Steve Winwood sang “Gimme Some Lovin'" with the Spencer Davis Group, the rock, pop and rhythm and blues legend can still nail the vocal and hit all the notes on the '60s anthem. On a cool, late April Thursday evening in Westbury, NY, Winwood and his stellar band served up a tasty collection of tunes that touched on ...

Book Review

I Scare Myself by Dan Hicks

by Chris Mosey
May 6, 2017

I Scare Myself Dan Hicks 237 Pages ISBN: 978-1-911036-23-4 Jawbone Books 2017 The late Dan Hicks is described by Kristine McKenna, editor of this rambling but curiously engaging autobiography, as “a musical genius." He wasn't, although he did write some amusing songs and played competent guitar. This and a laconic sense of humour made him an influential figure on the burgeoning San Francisco hippie rock music scene in the 1960s and 70s, though ...

Under the Radar

The Politics of Dancing: Jazz and Protest, Part 2

by Karl Ackermann
May 5, 2017

Part 1 of Jazz and Protest took an in-depth look at two landmark artists and the songs that laid the groundwork for protest within the jazz community. Billie Holiday's “Strange Fruit" took a circuitous route from its origins as a poem to its successful recording on a small label that was not afraid to lend a voice to a progressive movement. Nina Simone's “Mississippi Goddam" followed a similarly indirect course, taking the singer/composer's career off the tracks. Though they were ...

Album Review

Rebecca Hennessy's FOG Brass Band: Two Calls

Read "Two Calls" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
May 5, 2017

Toronto-based trumpeter Rebecca Hennessy's FOG Brass Band, on Two Calls, sounds at times like a traditional brass band. The disc's, opening cut, “Red Herring," features a jumpy, tuba-driven rhythm, a soaring trombone solo, a frenetic trumpet turn with a scintillating piano backdrop, followed by Don Scott's hard rock electric guitar interlude. It is a compelling beginning that shifts into a different dimension on “Horn Lake," a majestic mini-symphony infused with drone-ish studio canoodlings that give way to pianist Tania Gill's ...

Album Review

Evan Parker / John Russell / Ian Brighton / Philipp Wachsmann / Marcio Mattos / Trevor Taylor: Reunion – Live From Cafe Oto

Read "Reunion – Live From Cafe Oto" reviewed by Roger Farbey

by Roger Farbey
May 5, 2017

Ian Brighton, musically dormant for around three decades, had a welcome renaissance a year ago with his album for Confront Recordings, Now And Then. Included on that album was an archival track, “30 Years From Yesterday" recorded in 1986 with Philipp Wachsmann, Marcio Mattos and Trevor Taylor. This quartet was collectively known as String Thing and made a return appearance on this live album recorded at Cafe Oto, London on August 14, 2016. The quartet alone features on “Why Did ...

Album Review

Lisa Cay Miller: 682/681

Read "682/681" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
May 5, 2017

Canadian pianist Lisa Cay Miller has been playing her instrument since the age of four, later taking up flute as well. Her divergent intermingling of improvisation, avant-garde and classical music has been on display in two previous projects with the improvising cellist Peggy Lee. On her unique 682/681, abstract improvisation rules across twenty-two vignettes. The title is a reference to KLM flight numbers between Miller's Vancouver base and her frequent collaborations in the Netherlands.Miller gathered ten Amsterdam colleagues ...

Bailey's Bundles

Five Women 2017 III: – Rose Ellis, Rozina Patkai, Nicole Herzog, Sharon Paige, and Kathy Ingraham

by C. Michael Bailey
May 5, 2017

Rose Ellis Like Songs Like Moons Self Produced 2017 On her debut recording, Like Songs Like Moons, New York City by-way-of-the Netherlands vocalist and composer Rose Ellis, brings to jazz a voice as clear as a bell and unafraid to take chances. Her tone is diamond hard and easy on the ear. Her writing is topical, and delivery bright and informed. She employs an excellent piano trio of NYC musiciansin pianist Glenn Zaleski, bassist Pablo ...

Album Review

Deep Tone Project: Onward

by Mark Sullivan
May 5, 2017

Another fine collection of contemporary jazz from the Ukrainian collective band Deep Tone Project. The personnel is unchanged from their first album Flow (Fancy Music, 2014). But the compositional input is even more democratic. Previously split between guitarist Aleksandr Pavlov and bassist Konstantin Ionenko, this time a third of the tunes come from the pen of tenor saxophonist Viktor Pavelko. Ionenko plays upright bass on all but two selections here, giving the group a richer, more acoustic sound than on ...

Genius Guide to Jazz

Trumpet From On High

by Jeff Fitzgerald, Genius
May 4, 2017

I recently celebrated my sixteenth anniversary at AAJ with a quiet ceremony held in the mahogany-paneled Writer's Lounge at AAJ Headquarters in Philadelphia. I'm not much of a cake person, but there were cheesesteaks from Sonny's and enough alcohol to get an entire fraternity through a regulation 30-day month. Commodore Ricci and my fellow member of the Southern contingent C. Michael Bailey were there. A good time was had by all, and most of the charges will eventually either be ...