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

Jentsch Group Quartet: Fractured Pop

Read "Fractured Pop" reviewed by Jerome Wilson

by Jerome Wilson
April 20, 2017

Chris Jentsch is a guitarist who, from the evidence of this recording, enjoys splashing around in the wide pool of music between jazz and rock. His work here goes all the way from grooving hardcore jazz to ambient nature sounds with a lot of fun things going on in between those two poles. The title track starts out on a folkish acoustic guitar riff joined to Matt Renzi's climbing tenor sax, establishing an overall style of jazz improvisation ...

Album Review

Chicago / London Underground: A Night Walking Through Mirrors

Read "A Night Walking Through Mirrors" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
April 20, 2017

Rob Mazurek (cornet, sampler & electronics) and Chad Taylor (drums, mbira & electronics) represent the Chicago delegation, aligning within Londoners Alexander Hawkins (piano) and John Edwards (bass) for a meeting of the experimental jazz minds on this exuberant live set. Hence, these prominent improvisers and progressive jazz laureates execute a surfeit of soul-jarring motifs, spiced with off-center EFX articulations and fractured segments amid a horde of protracted developments and synergistic improv. Other than Mazurek's Sao Paulo Underground and Exploding Star ...

Interview

Walter Smith III: Jazz Explorer

by R.J. DeLuke
April 19, 2017

Walter Smith stands straight when he raises his tenor sax to his mouth to embark on a solo, or play enthralling, serpentine, contrapuntal lines in unison with band mates like Ambrose Akinmusire. [Check out “Confessions To My Unborn Daughter" from Akinmusire's When the Heart Emerges Glistening.] It's a muscular sound that emerged from his horn. Authoritative. More than that, his improvisational path when he solos is unfettered and unpredictable. He's praised by his peers as a saxophonist who ...

Interview

Remembering Art Farmer

by Lazaro Vega
April 19, 2017

This interview was first published at All About Jazz in November 1999 and is part of our ongoing effort to archive pre-database material. This interview was originally broadcast at the time on Blue Lake Public Radio; portions of this interview appeared in an advance article published by the Grand Rapids Press. Lazaro Vega: How long is this tour in the U.S.? Art Farmer: My tour is going until the 31st of October, and then ...

Album Review

Christian Sands: Reach

by Dan Bilawsky
April 19, 2017

A lot plays into the success of an artist's reach, with content and presentation obviously ranking high on the list. But above all, an artist has to be willing to extend a hand if they expect listeners to do the same. Many simply reach for the musical stars without really considering the need to reach out to potential audiences through the music. Pianist Christian Sands doesn't fall into that trap. His reach--both up and out--is long and wide, exemplified on ...

New York @ Night

Jessie Lambiase Featuring Gil Parris

by Peter Jurew
April 19, 2017

Jessie Lambiase Featuring Gil Parris IridiumNew York, NYMarch 10, 2017 Lovers of fine guitar playing are aware of the monstrous chops of Gil Parris, the jazz, blues and rock master who has been called “one of guitardom's unsung heroes." How can it be that a virtuoso who's been nominated for a Grammy and recorded and toured both as a solo artist and sideman with the likes of Dr. John, Diane Schuur, and Bobby Caldwell, to ...

Album Review

Akua Dixon: Akua's Dance

Read "Akua's Dance" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
April 19, 2017

Lyricism and elegance are two words that come to mind while describing cellist Akua Dixon's third release under her own leadership, Akua's Dance. Two sessions comprise this engaging album on one of which Dixon plays, the rarely heard, baritone violin. The joyous ambience and the instrumentation, Dixon accompanied by guitar, bass and drums, are reminiscent of gypsy jazz. This is most apparent on the undulating “If My Heart Could Speak To You" with guitarist Russell Malone engaging Dixon's ...

Album Review

Taj Mahal & Keb' Mo': TajMo

by James Nadal
April 19, 2017

When two generations of blues giants as Taj Mahal and Keb' Mo' teamed up for the production TajMo, the best of both personalities and talents merged for an adventurous take on traditional blues. Taj Mahal's recording trajectory goes back to the late 1960's, when he released Taj Mahal, quickly followed by The Natch'l Blues, both on the Columbia label. These two records would establish his career, which in the ensuing years would meander through reggae, folk, world music, jazz and ...

Album Review

John Swana: Bright Moments

Read "Bright Moments" reviewed by Victor L. Schermer

by Victor L. Schermer
April 19, 2017

Simply put, this album is so listenable and stood out so noticeably among the many CDs I've been spinning for myself recently, that I thought All About Jazz readers ought to know about it. I first heard then trumpeter John Swana a decade or more ago when he jammed at pianist Tom Lawton's memorable long-term gig with the late great bassist Al Stauffer at the Four Seasons Hotel in Philadelphia. I was awestruck by Swana's clarity, sustained non-vibrato tone, and ...

Album Review

SE-Quartet: Going North

Read "Going North" reviewed by Chris Mosey

by Chris Mosey
April 19, 2017

This album is dedicated to the refugees who have arrived in Scandinavia in recent years. On the day it was released, April 7 2017, one of those refugees, Rakhmat Akilov, aged 39, drove a hijacked truck into the entrance of the Åhlens department store in the centre of Stockholm, the Swedish capital, killing four people. Akilov, an unstable character with Islamic State sympathies, was upset because his application for a residence permit had been refused and he ...