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

Carate Urio Orchestra: Ljubljana

Read "Ljubljana" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
April 2, 2017

This European sextet possesses a diverse bag of tracks as each piece presents a contrasting outlook: they're not content to belabor a particular motif or idea. Featuring notables and solo artists, reedman Joachim Badenhorst and bassist Pascal Niggenkemper, this recording is culled from an appearance at the Ljubljana Jazz Festival in Slovenia. However, it is noted that “the album follows the same set-list as the concert ... but some of the chosen takes are from the day before without the ...

Album Review

Sherri Roberts: Anybody's Spring

Read "Anybody's Spring" reviewed by Geannine Reid

by Geannine Reid
April 2, 2017

Vocalist Sherri Roberts brings the joy and promise of new beginnings with twelve standards, that offer a spring theme with her 2017 release, Anybody's Spring. Selections come from the jazz compositions of Clifford Brown and Tadd Dameron to the standard and not-so-standard fare of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Hoagy Carmichael, and Blossom Dearie favorite Bob Haymes, the set list is a spring lover's dream come true. The San Francisco based singer is a passionate, expressive singer whose emotive prominence never supersedes ...

Album Review

Stephane Wrembel: The Django Experiment I & II

Read "The Django Experiment I & II" reviewed by Peter Jurew

by Peter Jurew
April 2, 2017

When guitarist extraordinaire Stephane Wrembel was invited to appear at the 2012 Academy Award to play his composition, “Bistro Fada," the theme song for Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, it represented a high point in the modern history of the genre known as “Gypsy jazz." Inspired by the original Quintette du le Hot Club de France, co-led in the 1930's and '40's by the Sinti-Romani guitar genius Django Reinhardt and his violinist partner, Stephane Grappelli, Gypsy jazz has continued to ...

Album Review

Tomasz Stańko New York Quartet: December Avenue

Read "December Avenue" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
April 2, 2017

The elder statesman of modern Polish jazz, trumpeter and composer Tomasz Stańko has more than a forty year history with ECM. Dating back to his 1976 label debut, Balladyna, Stańko sounds to have arrived fully-formed, and in the company of Dave Holland and Finnish percussionist Edward Vesala. Stańko's trademark atmospheric and cerebral style is fully intact on December Avenue, his twelth album for Manfred Eicher's label. Stańko's New York Quartet includes ECM artists David Virelles, whose Mbókò ...

Album Review

Sean Ali: My Tongue Crumbles After

Read "My Tongue Crumbles After" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
April 1, 2017

Improvisational bassist Sean Ali began his musical life as a guitarist, studying sitar and oud along the way. The Ohio native has been in New York City for more than a decade now and performs as a solo bassist, an ensemble player, and a spoken-word artist. He is the founder of The Mudbath Orchestra, a large ensemble that has been performing in and around NYC since 2011. My Tongue Crumbles After is Ali's solo bass debut album and features eight ...

Album Review

Troy Roberts: Tales & Tones

Read "Tales & Tones" reviewed by Jerome Wilson

by Jerome Wilson
April 1, 2017

Troy Roberts is a saxophonist from Australia who has made his way in America working with the likes of Christian McBride, Jeff Tain" Watts and Joey DeFrancesco. On this CD he demonstrates a forceful saxophone sound married to original ideas in rhythm and tempo.Roberts' plays deep, swooping sax mostly over tricky, pounding beats set up by Watts. The drummer pushes a sprightly version of “Take The 'A' Train along with relaxed hip hop beats before Roberts lays into ...

Album Review

Neukollner Modelle: Sektion 3-7

Read "Sektion 3-7" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
April 1, 2017

Legendary free-jazz pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach joins the core trio Neukollner Modelle for this 2-CD follow-up to Sektion 1-2 (Umlaut, 2016). Here, top-flight European adventurists mold variable jazz vernaculars into a signature modus operandi, propelled by the superb Scandinavian drummer, Sven-Ake Johansson. Moreover, the program poses a mélange of rhythmically charged motifs, fractured voicings, and whirlwind-like improv segments amid the construction efforts and other parts where the band seemingly uses a wrecking ball to disassemble micro-themes. von Schlippenbach's ...

Album Review

Free Nelson Mandoomjazz: The Organ Grinder

Read "The Organ Grinder" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki

by Chris M. Slawecki
April 1, 2017

Search as far and wide as you like but you won't find any one band that sounds like Edinburgh, Scotland's Free Nelson Mandoomjazz. You CAN find about eight, though: Their sprawling, monstrous “doomjazz" combines harmonic and rhythmic streams from various free jazz and heavy metal schools, including and especially Black Sabbath, Albert Ayler, Electric Wizard, Sonny Rollins and Wayne Shorter. “The initial concept of the band was quite straightforward: doomjazz. 'Let's see if we can combine these two seemingly disparate ...

Album Review

David Binney: The Time Verses

Read "The Time Verses" reviewed by Geannine Reid

by Geannine Reid
April 1, 2017

Acclaimed as a significant and extremely unique compositional talent, saxophonist David Binney is one of the most prolific jazz musicians on the scene today. Binney has created an alternative jazz scene that focuses on playing adventurous and original music, which has been key to his journey as a player. He possesses a distinctive saxophone sound and has an extensive catalog as a leader, in addition to being sought after as a sideman, appearing on record with: Medeski, Martin & Wood, ...

Extended Analysis

The Doors' 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition

by Doug Collette
April 1, 2017

In his usual evenhanded, deceptively passionate prose for The Doors' 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition, David Fricke neatly encapsulates the combined personal and universal significance of the record. Released in January of 1967, the quartet's debut album, produced by Paul Rothchild, predates other monumental titles of the year--the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper (Parlophone), Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow (RCA, 1967), Cream's Disraeli Gears (Atco, 1967) and Jimi Hendrix' Are You Experienced? (Track, 1967)--effectively setting the stage for the cultural paradigm shift at this ...