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

David Weiss & Point of Departure: Wake Up Call

Read "Wake Up Call" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
April 24, 2017

Trumpeter David Weiss incorporates a heavy-duty guitar assault into this exhilarating program designed with a diverse track-list, comprised of originals by jazz luminaries Wayne Shorter, Joe Henderson, John McLaughlin and Tony Williams among others. The trumpeter's Point of Departure ensemble generates a neo-jazz fusion panorama, coupled with an emphatic integration of progressive jazz amid references to bop and a few excursions into the outside realm. Besides the triad of outstanding guitarists, Weiss yields a big payout from all-star saxophonists Myron ...

Album Review

Richie Cole Alto Madness Orchestra: The Many Minds of Richie Cole

Read "The Many Minds of Richie Cole" reviewed by Rob Rosenblum

by Rob Rosenblum
April 24, 2017

Alto saxophonist Richie Cole is a living, breathing anachronism and has arguably been one since he first burst out of Berklee School of Music onto the stage as featured soloist with the Buddy Rich big band in the 1970's. While many of his contemporaries were following the lead of Chuck Berry and The Beatles, Cole was enamored of the music of Charlie Parker and Bird's early disciples like Phil Woods and Cannonball Adderley. Since then he ...

Live Review

Vossa Jazz 2017

by Ian Patterson
April 23, 2017

Vossajazz 2017 Various Venues Voss, Norway April 7-9, 2017 Some places punch above their weight. Voss is one. With just 14,000 inhabitants, this small Norwegian town in the county of Hordaland, can boast a world-renowned sky-diving training centre, the country's foremost folk music academy, one of the best wine cellars in Scandinavia and, in Vossajazz, an outstanding international music festival that offers so much more than its simple name implies. The jazz part ...

Album Review

Alex Wintz: LifeCycle

Read "LifeCycle" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
April 23, 2017

Life cycles mark and determine how we develop, where we travel, and why we arrive and thrive in different places, figuratively and literally, at any given time. That's the point that guitarist Alex Wintz's music makes here, as this project takes its cues from the larger natural theme while growing specifically from his own personal and musical evolution of late. It's a work that couldn't be made at any other moment, as it specifically reflects Wintz as he is today, ...

Album Review

Oliver Lake: Right Up On

Read "Right Up On" reviewed by Roger Farbey

by Roger Farbey
April 23, 2017

Despite having performed with the Flux Quartet since as long ago as 2002, this is actually the first recording of compositions by saxophonist Oliver Lake featuring the Quartet. Lake himself is a septuagenarian of renown having been a founder member of the World Saxophone Quartet and Trio 3 with Reggie Workman and Andrew Cyrille (whose Time Being album on Intakt is released this year), to name just a couple of examples. Taking his cue more from György Ligeti ...

Album Review

Wanderlust: Wanderlust

Read "Wanderlust" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
April 23, 2017

Wanderlust the band is led by pianist and songwriter Mike Adcock, based in Cheltenham in the west of England. Wanderlust the album features eight of Adcock's compositions (alongside the Norwegian folk tune “Nøkkendans") that draw on a wide range of musical styles, with a shared sense of joy and positivity. The relaxed shuffle that underpins “From The Man" sets the mood of much of the album--warm, uncluttered, welcoming. It's carried into “Impols"--where Steve Rowley's tin whistle adds a ...

Album Review

Jeff Rupert and Richard Drexler: Imagination

Read "Imagination" reviewed by Geannine Reid

by Geannine Reid
April 23, 2017

Saxophonist Jeff Rupert is a YAMAHA performing artist. His credits include recordings and tours with: Diane Schuur, Mel Tormé, Kevin Mahogany, Ernestine Anderson, and Benny Carter's Grammy winning Harlem Renaissance. Jeff Rupert toured for fifteen years with Sam Rivers; four albums ensued, and from 1997-2002 he toured and recorded with Maynard Ferguson. Rupert is a Pegasus Distinguished Professor, Trustee Endowed Chair, and Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Central Florida (UCF), and founder of Flying Horse Records.

Interview

Fred Anderson: On the Run

by Lazaro Vega
April 23, 2017

This interview was first published at All About Jazz in August 2002 and is part of our ongoing effort to archive pre-database material. The Roscoe Mitchell Quintet with special guest Fred Anderson played a successful benefit concert for Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp at the Wealthy Theatre in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The quintet's performance, with Mitchell on sopranino and alto saxophones plus the C flute, Fred Anderson tenor saxophone, Craig Taborn, piano, Harrison Bankhead, bass, and Vincent Davis, ...

Catching Up With

Cathing up with Lee Konitz

by Lazaro Vega
April 23, 2017

This interview was first published at All About Jazz in May 1999 and is part of our ongoing effort to archive pre-database material. The Lee Konitz Trio, Mother's Day, May 9th At 4 P.M. In The 165 Seat Urban Institute For Contemporary Arts Theater, 41 Sheldon Blvd. Ne, Grand Rapids, Mi. The Alto Saxophone Master With Bassist Jeff Halsey Of Bowling Green University And Drummer Pete Siers Of Ann Arbor. Tickets Are $15. All About ...

Album Review

Grachan Moncur III: Evolution

Read "Evolution" reviewed by Greg Simmons

by Greg Simmons
April 23, 2017

One of the more unusual records in Music Matters series of Blue Note Records reissues is Grachan Moncur III's avant-garde classic Evolution, released here on a 45 rpm double LP. The Music Matters Blue Notes are among the highest quality jazz vinyl available, with fanatical attention to sound, packaging, and pressing quality, here doing serious justice to true milestone performance. Recorded on November of 1963, the date features the horns of Jackie McLean and Lee Morgan, as well ...