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

Gary Clark, Jr.: Live North America 2016

Read "Live North America 2016" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
March 18, 2017

At first glance and upon initial listen, Gary Clark Jr.'s Live North America 2016 suggests a holding pattern on his rapidly-developing career. More careful perusal, however, reveals the man's second concert release, out in fairly quick succession to both Live (Warner Bros., 2014) and his last studio album, The Story of Sunny Boy Slim (Warner Bros., 2015), is the full and complete personal artistic statement the latter title purported to be, as well as harbinger of future stylistic changes.

Genius Guide to the Good Life

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

by Jeff Fitzgerald, Genius
March 17, 2017

As a licensed, board certified Genius, it goes without saying that I have a wide and eclectic range of interests. From World War I to Shakespeare, from Jazz to a vast array of world cuisines, from the supervolcano underneath Yellowstone Park to the upper 2/3s of actress Kat Dennings. I am a man of many parts. For all my pursuits, though, there are only a handful of things I am really passionate about. Music, obviously, is chief among ...

New York @ Night

Django A Gogo 2017 Music Festival

by Peter Jurew
March 17, 2017

Django A Gogo 2017 Music Festival Carnegie Hall New York, NY March 3, 2017 Stephane Wrembel, the France-born, Berklee-educated guitarist now based in New Jersey, produced the first Django A Gogo festival in 2004 as a single evening to pay homage to Django Reinhardt. Since then, the “Gypsy Jazz" style of the genius guitarist, composer, co-leader of the original Quintette du le Hot Club de France and progenitor of the genre, has ...

Album Review

Dana Jessen: Carve

by Karl Ackermann
March 17, 2017

The bassoon rarely makes an appearance outside of the orchestral setting though it has found a place in jazz recordings dating back to Paul Whiteman and much later with Chick Corea. The instrument is considered one of the most difficult to play but its natural range and dynamics are far-reaching and versatile. Add in electronics and extended techniques and you have a unique instrument going beyond its already exceptional array. That is what Dana Jessen has delivered on Carve, an ...

Album Review

The MUH Trio: The MUH Trio – Prague After Dark

Read "The MUH Trio – Prague After Dark" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
March 17, 2017

Dating back to the 1980s, Italian jazz pianist Roberto Magris had been working with jazz luminaries such as Kai Winding and Eddie Lockjaw Davis while also performing extensively with Eastern and Central European artists. Late in that decade he recorded three albums with his quartet/quintet formation on they performed across that same region. In the 1990s Magris developed an affinity for the Hammond organ and toured throughout the Americas in that capacity. Among the dozens of top artists he has ...

Album Review

Vaneese Thomas: The Long Journey Home

Read "The Long Journey Home" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
March 17, 2017

With an inherited musical talent, and a professional recording career going back over thirty years, vocalist Vaneese Thomas has appropriately titled her latest release The Long Journey Home, home being her Memphis roots of blues, gospel, and soul. Her last release Blues For My Father, (2014 Segue Records) was an emotional tribute to her father, legendary soul man Rufus Thomas, and this new record continues the family legacy bestowed upon her. Composing eleven of twelve songs, ascertaining she is very ...

Album Review

John Warren & The Brass Project: The Traveller's Tale

Read "The Traveller's Tale" reviewed by Roger Farbey

by Roger Farbey
March 17, 2017

The John Warren /John Surman collaboration The Brass Project(ECM 1478) recorded in 1992, was a belated follow-up to their previous 1971 collaboration Tales Of The Alonquin on Decca's Deram label. As John Kelman's 2005 review of the Vocalion reissue of Tales of the Alonquin avers, this was, in Kelman's words, a “seminal recording." This archival release of the brass-heavy British ensemble appears on the burgeoning Fledg'ling label (ostensibly a folk label but increasingly reissuing rare British jazz) and ...

Album Review

Ray Charles Orchestra: Ray Charles Orchestra: Zurich 1961-Swiss Radio Days Jazz Series, Vol. 41

Read "Ray Charles Orchestra: Zurich 1961-Swiss Radio Days Jazz Series, Vol. 41" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki

by Chris M. Slawecki
March 17, 2017

We generally take it for granted now, but Ray Charles' trademark blend of jazz, gospel, R&B and soul in a large ensemble or orchestral setting was a unique sound mastered by few artists when this 1961 set was recorded. Number 41 in the Montreux Jazz Label's Swiss Radio Days Jazz Series, Zurich 1961 is a historical and musical treasure which might have been better recorded but could not have been better performed. Zurich 1961 reaches crackling, up-tempo jazz ...

Live Review

Live From Old York: Taupe, Dr. K. Sextet, Leveret, 3*3, Kris Drever & Joan As Police Woman

by Martin Longley
March 17, 2017

Taupe The Basement March 3, 2017 Taupe is a colour that's ostensibly beige, but in reality seems to frequently inhabit a close-to-grey zone. Taupe is also the chosen name of this stripling prog-jazz trio from Newcastle-upon-Tyne in northern England. Puzzlingly so, as their compacted, nervous, twitching compositions suggest something brighter, sizzling arc lights or short-circuited flashing. Irony in jazz remains alive. Or is the Taupe output almost as much rock'n'roll in its nature? Despite ...

Take Five With...

Take Five with Mike Casey

by AAJ Staff
March 16, 2017

About Mike Casey Saxophonist, songwriter, and teaching artist Mike Casey has been a fixture on the Hartford jazz scene and beyond since 2011, when he began attending the acclaimed Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz at the University of Hartford's Hartt School. In 2015, Mike was one of 24 young jazz composers worldwide chosen by Jason Moran to participate in the prestigious “Betty Carter Jazz Ahead" Program at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC where he studied with an ...