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.

Live Review

Balé Folclórico de Bahia at Zellerbach Hall

by Harry S. Pariser
March 19, 2017

Balé Folclórico de BahiaZellerbach HallCal PerformancesBerkeley, CaliforniaMarch 5, 2017 “Dance is the most universal art that we have. During the primitive era we danced for the sun, wind and rain. Dance was the first expression of the human race and it is the most universal language. We are able to communicate to anyone in the world with our body and dancing. We can express everything you need to say to anyone in the world."--Watson ...

Album Review

Rick Hirsch's Big Ol' Band: Pocono Git-Down

Read "Pocono Git-Down" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
March 19, 2017

Even though the days of cross-country bus trips, one-night stands and regular appearances on radio and TV have long since vanished, big bands continue to dot the landscape on all corners of the map, from such large population hubs as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco and others to cities and towns so small that their names are generally unfamiliar to anyone who doesn't live nearby. Composer / arranger Rick Hirsch's impressive Big Ol' Band, which makes its ...

Album Review

Jenna Mammina & Rolf Sturm: Begin to Dance

Read "Begin to Dance" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
March 19, 2017

Neither Jenna Mammina nor Rolf Sturm, together or solo, are strangers to these pages. Mammina released Under the Influence (MGR) in 2000 and Strum offered us his superb Young (Water Street Music) in 2016. The two of them showed up with Spark (Water Street Music) in 2015. Sturm is a nylon-string guitar specialist perfectly suited to provide foil to the coquettish and intelligent vocals of Mammina. Their Spark was well received and featured old and new music presented in new ...

Album Review

Mn'JAM experiment: Live with a Boom

Read "Live with a Boom" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki

by Chris M. Slawecki
March 19, 2017

Can computers be programmed to improvise? That's just one of the questions you'll consider in response to Live with a Boom, the first multimedia presentation by Melissa Oliveira and João Artur Moreira (JAM) with other like-minded colleagues in the Mn'JAM experiment. You can trace the modern, global (perhaps post-modern, post-global) sound of Oliveira's ensemble back to their credentials: Belgian drummer Tuur Moens teams with José Carlos Barbosa, one of Portugal's most sought bassists, on double-bass to rhythmically supplement ...

Interview

Dave Douglas and the Art of Festival Direction

by Libero Farnè
March 18, 2017

Dave Douglas' fame as a forward looking musician is well-known. His contribution to today's music scene, however, is not limited to his playing. Besides having pioneered in 2005 a unique model of musician-run label with the progressive Greenleaf Music, he has been artistic director of the Banff Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music from 2002 to 2012 and he is a co- founder of the Festival of New Trumpet Music which started in 2003. Since 2016, Dave Douglas has been ...

Book Review

50 Years at the Village Vanguard: Thad Jones, Mel Lewis and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra

by C. Andrew Hovan
March 18, 2017

50 Years at the Village Vanguard: Thad Jones, Mel Lewis and the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra Dave Lisik and Eric Allen 316 Pages ISBN: #9780692808580 SkyDeck 2017 During the heydays of the big bands, people swooned and jitterbugged to the swinging sounds of these large ensembles. Names like Count Basie, Woody Herman, Les Brown, Cab Calloway, Glenn Miller, and Artie Shaw were household names to most folks. Large ballrooms featured the big bands and ...

Album Review

Trouble Kaze: June

by John Sharpe
March 18, 2017

In its original form, the French-Japanese collective Kaze was already a novel proposition, with the double trumpet spearhead of Natsuki Tamura and Christian Pruvost allied to Satoko Fujii's piano and Peter Orins' drums. But on June, the novelty quotient ratchets up a notch further with the doubling of the piano and drum set. That the additional pianist is Sophie Agnel, renowned for her exploration of the piano as a sound generation device, piques the interest yet further. Rather than the ...

Album Review

Richard Barbieri: Planets + Persona

Read "Planets + Persona" reviewed by Geno Thackara

by Geno Thackara
March 18, 2017

Keyboards often play a supporting part in many ensembles, but Richard Barbieri still takes the idea farther than most. His roles as band member (in art-pop outfit Japan and eclectic rock band Porcupine Tree) have always been marked by a distinct lack of spotlighting. He works with atmospheres more than notes, and riffs or heads are the exception more than the rule. This doesn't mean his solo excursions are simple unobtrusive ambience or abstract noise--rather, these are vividly immersive tapestries ...

Album Review

Andrew Vogt: The AV Club

Read "The AV Club" reviewed by Roger Farbey

by Roger Farbey
March 18, 2017

For a self-produced album, this really is first class fusion. Bassist Andrew Vogt and his band would give Snarky Puppy a real run for their money. Further proof can be seen on YouTube with a video of Vogt's earlier ensemble Humble Organisms playing “Pearhofjax," a number included in this album. Taking its cue from the likes of The Brecker Brothers, “Stevland" is an irresistible introduction to the The AV Club. The lightning fast ensemble passages on guitarist Anders ...

Album Review

Rich Halley/Carson Halley: The Wild

Read "The Wild" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
March 18, 2017

Saxophonist Rich Halley's duo outing and his son drummer Carson Halley, The Wild, is in the same vein as the tenorist's previous releases on his own Pine Eagle label. On the current album, the Halleys' characteristic unbridled spontaneity and the provocative creative zeal is simultaneously crystalized and tempered by melodic contemplation.The wistful “Flat Plane of the Sky" for instance, is an abstractly impressionistic piece. Rich Halley lets loose a meandering pensive song over Carson Halley's sparse yet dynamic ...