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

Tarek Yamani: Peninsular

Read "Peninsular" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
April 16, 2017

On his third release Peninsular, pianist and composer Tarek Yamani continues to explore the amalgamation of Arabic music and American jazz. His work is more than a simple juxtaposition of disparate styles as it is built upon shared elements in both genres. On the current album, commissioned for the Abou Dhabi festival, Yamani's focus is folk tradition of the countries on the Arab peninsula that border the Persian Gulf. The melancholic “Gates of Tears" opens on a somber ...

Album Review

Rein Godefroy: It Will Come

Read "It Will Come" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
April 16, 2017

Dutch pianist Rein Godefroy enters the crowded and talent-filled arena of the jazz piano trio with It Will Come. The music--on a first listen--seems to fit in the the European aesthetic of this form of musical expression with the opener, the disc's title tune, a gently laid down sound. The piano touch is supple, the bass/drums accompaniment rolling in a post-Bill Evans parity, with a lot of pop in the drums. The song is a story that builds momentum, gradually, ...

Interview

Steve Averill: U2's Joshua Tree is Still a Strong, Exciting, and Relevant Album

by Nenad Georgievski
April 16, 2017

Album art has always played an important role in how certain music was received. The best album covers are often as much a part of the whole work as the music itself. They are not only a marketing tool but an extension of artistic intent as well as they create a visual representation of the music i.e. it sets the stage for what the listeners would experience. Graphic designers have been creating works of art that obviously have transcended mere ...

Interview

Nick Brignola: Between A Rock And The Jazz Place

by Rob Rosenblum
April 16, 2017

Party 1 | Part 2 This interview was originally published in 1969 in an Albany, New York area arts publication called Transition. It documents a time when saxophonist Nick Brignola was in the process of trying to break out of the confines of bebop and incorporate some of the elements of fusion that was beginning to dominate the jazz market. There are many references to a recording he was in the process of making. It was ...

Album Review

Peter Campbell: Loving You: Celebrating Shirley Horn

Read "Loving You: Celebrating Shirley Horn" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
April 15, 2017

Put aside notes, chords, rhythm, and the rest of the composite parts that add up to a song, for none of it means a thing if there's no real story to tell and no true artist to mold and honor the truth in the tale. The late Shirley Horn had an instinctual understanding about that fact, moving beyond the job of mere narrator and entering a higher realm and calling that few ever come close to viewing, to say nothing ...

Album Review

Keiko Higuchi and Shin-ichiro Kanda: Passing and Longing and There Is Only a Trace Left

Read "Passing and Longing and There Is Only a Trace Left" reviewed by Geno Thackara

by Geno Thackara
April 15, 2017

With a resume in music that tilts heavily toward the avant-garde end of the listenability scale, Keiko Higuchi is nothing if not challenging. Small groups dedicated to free (in every sense) improv are alternated with solo abstract sound paintings using her voice and occasionally processed piano. She sticks to vocalizing and leaves the keys to Shin-Ichiro Kanda when they team up as a duo, which is described as the more conventional of her outlets--which is to say that there are ...

Album Review

Pappenheim: Bekkenjordet

Read "Bekkenjordet" reviewed by Troy Dostert

by Troy Dostert
April 15, 2017

Pianist Oscar Grönberg and drummer Tor Haugerud are Scandinavian improvisers who have in recent years both been active in the remarkably fertile jazz scene in Trondheim, Norway. There they have collaborated with folks like Paal Nilssen- Love, Kim Myhr, and Eldbjørg Raknes, as well as being active in groups like Friends and Neighbors (Grönberg) and the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra (both Grönberg and Haugerud). Although they have substantial experience in a variety of genres and idioms, on this recording it's pure ...

Album Review

Mistura Fina: A Little Bit Of This And A Little Bit Of That

Read "A Little Bit Of This And A Little Bit Of That" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
April 15, 2017

Over the last few decades, Denver, Colorado, has been recognized as an American renaissance city with a burgeoning jazz scene. The positive economic development of the state has resulted in an influx of new businesses, residents, and tourism, and the city is proud of the premier jazz venues, and local musicians with impressive talent. Latin jazz has been very popular, due to Colorado's ethnic diversity, and through the efforts of Denver radio station KUVO, which has successfully tapped into this ...

Album Review

David L. Harris: Blues I Felt

Read "Blues I Felt" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
April 15, 2017

The blues isn't merely a form or genre. It's an emotional response, a personal internalization of an idea that invites extemporization in its reflection. While there's a specific progression and certain stylistic considerations that mark music as such, there's undeniable variety within the fixed aspects. No two people feel, sing, or play the blues exactly the same way, and that's the point here. Blues I Felt is built around the way trombonist-vocalist David L. Harris sees it. ...

Live Review

Bergamo Jazz Festival 2017

by Francesco Martinelli
April 14, 2017

Bergamo Jazz Festival Bergamo, Italy March 19-26, 2017 The Bergamo Jazz Festival, one of the most long-lived and prestigious Italian festivals, celebrated in 2017 its 39th edition. Since about ten years the Town of Bergamo nominates a musician as artistic director, and the 2017 edition has been the second under of the tenure of Dave Douglas, whose constant presence to all concerts, introducing bands and checking that everything was running as smooth as possible, ...