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

Chelsea McBride's Socialist Night School: The Twilight Fall

Read "The Twilight Fall" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
April 9, 2017

As is the case with her largely anomalous music, composer / arranger Chelsea McBride's Toronto-based Socialist Night School is less a brick-and-mortar academy than a malleable concept, open to almost whatever definition the viewer (or listener) has in mind. McBride doesn't simply “write" music, she “sees" it, much as a painter visualizes what is to adorn a canvas; thus the Night School's second album, The Twilight Fall, represents, in the words of Daniel Jamieson's liner notes, “an aural expedition through ...

Album Review

Nicole Mitchell's Black Earth Ensemble + Ensemble Laborintus: Moments Of Fatherhood

Read "Moments Of Fatherhood" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
April 9, 2017

Not content with being one of the foremost performers on her instrument, flutist Nicole Mitchell is also building an impressive body of work for larger ensembles. Moments Of Fatherhood takes its place in a distinguished lineage that includes Arc Of O (Rogue Art, 2012), Three Compositions (Rogue Art, 2013), and Xenogenesis Suite (Firehouse 12, 2008). On this occasion, Mitchell combines a scaled down version of her Black Earth Ensemble with the French contemporary music group Ensemble Laborintus to form a ...

Album Review

Phronesis / Julian Argüelles / Frankfurt Radio Big Band: The Behemoth

Read "The Behemoth" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
April 9, 2017

Long regarded as the European piano trio filling a void left by the Esbjörn Svensson Trio, Phronesis has been continually evolving since their debut Organic Warfare (Loop Records, 2007). Their philosophy has been consistent across the past ten years--regarding the root “Americanisms" of jazz as anachronistic rather than required methodology, Phronesis has freed itself to absorb jazz influences in equal parts to classical, regional folk and rock inspirations. Not surprisingly, adding fifteen musicians to the mix results in a completely ...

Album Review

Ljubojna: Radio Luboyna

Read "Radio Luboyna" reviewed by Nenad Georgievski

by Nenad Georgievski
April 9, 2017

For Macedonian world music group Luboyna, creating boundary-breaking music is a way of life. Over the course of 15 years, it has wilfully broken boundaries and conventions within its entertaining song structures. In doing so, Luboyna has been successfully navigating the musical opposites of composition and improvisation both in the studio and live and has expanded what is generally known as Balkan Music. While its heart and soul are deeply and firmly rooted in Macedonia and its music traditions, the ...

Album Review

Thelonious Monk: Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960

Read "Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960" reviewed by Nenad Georgievski

by Nenad Georgievski
April 9, 2017

The magnitude of archival material in jazz music is enormous and overflowing as basements and attics are full with unreleased materials, outtakes and alternate versions by various artists. It's such a medium where recordings used to be made in a matter of few days. Over the years, most or some of that material has found its place on numerous deluxe or anniversary reissues or exclusive content for various box sets. It's a very rare occurrence when a material that was ...

Album Review

Southside Johnny and The Asbury Jukes: The Fever: The Remastered Epic Recordings

Read "The Fever: The Remastered Epic Recordings" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
April 9, 2017

Unless a musiclover becomes fully-versed in the full career trajectory of Southside Johnny and The Asbury Jukes via their latter-day work with Barry Beckett, Nile Rodgers, et.al., as compiled on All I Want Is Everything (Rhino 1993), it's difficult if not impossible to avoid seeing the group as a novelty act at best or worse, a near shameless cash-in on the burgeoning success of Born to Run (Columbia, 1975) era Bruce Springsteen, all of which was occurring around the time ...

Album Review

Colorado Jazz Repertory Orchestra: Invitation

Read "Invitation" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
April 8, 2017

Here's how to make sure a five-star big-band album receives a four-star review: assemble a group of the finest musicians within a stone's throw or two of the chosen locale, place them in a recording studio, hand them superlative charts to read --then add vocals. In this case three of same, pretty much undermining what is an otherwise sharp and likeable enterprise. That's not meant to disparage Heidi Schmidt whose vocalizing on the Denver-based CJRO's debut album, ...

Album Review

Mats Gustafsson/ Alfred Vogel: Blow + Beat

Read "Blow + Beat" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
April 8, 2017

Swedish saxophone powerhouse Mats Gustafsson was playing with his trio--The Thing--at the 2016 Beazau Beatz Festival when he hooked up with the excellent, but under-recognized, Austrian drummer Alfred Vogel, who hosts the outing. The resulting Blow + Beat is an extraordinarily challenging musical experiment from two fearless advocates of free thought. The saxophone/drum duo is an improvisational gauntlet, not meant for the faint of heart but still welcoming of curious listeners.Gustafsson has been a member of no less ...

Album Review

Olli Hirvonen: New Helsinki

Read "New Helsinki" reviewed by Roger Farbey

by Roger Farbey
April 8, 2017

Hailing from Finland but now resident in Brooklyn, New York, Olli Hirvonen won first prize in the 2016 Socar Montreux Jazz Electric Guitar Competition. Significantly, the jury was presided over by John McLaughlin. “Arps" opens with cascades of Robert Fripp-like quick-fire obligato notes, rapidly ascending and descending the fretboard and instantly hooking the listener. The tentative beginning to “Gravity" belies its complexity, first sounding the very essence of McLaughlin's 4th Dimension but by the guitar break Hirvonen's guitar ...

Jazzin' Around Europe

WDR Jazzfest 2017

by Phillip Woolever
April 8, 2017

WDR Jazzfest Gutersloh, Germany February 2-4, 2017 The best friend of German jazz and a considerable number of passionate followers is probably a state funded media institution. In a relatively short time span of six years, the WDR Jazzfest has blossomed from infancy to impressive European stature. WDR, a broadcasting conglomerate of radio and TV stations, has continued to expand jazz's public access with the help of government funding and admirable efforts ...