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

TAI No-Orchestra: TAI Fest #1 (Vol.1&2)

Read "TAI Fest #1 (Vol.1&2)" reviewed by Nicola Negri

by Nicola Negri
February 27, 2017

TAI No-Orchestra is a multi-disciplinary project comprising some of the best improvisers of the Italian scene, both historical figures like Filippo Monico or Roberto Del Piano and new talents like Silvia Bolognesi and Paolo Botti. The main originators for this project are musicians Del Piano, Massimo Falascone and photographer Roberto Masotti; the name “TAI" refers to “Terra Australis Incognita," an imaginary southern continent which appeared on early maps of the world, later symbolizing unknown or unexplored territories. These starting points ...

Album Review

Marbin: Goat Man & The House of the Dead

Read "Goat Man & The House of the Dead" reviewed by Dave Wayne

by Dave Wayne
February 27, 2017

It's truly been fun to watch Marbin grow and develop over the past few years. Their eponymous, self- released debut album, from way back in 2009, was a duet affair with the two principals--saxophonist Danny Markovitch and guitarist Dani Rabin--plying their talents on a clutch of brief and very intricate instrumentals. Sounding at times like an ECM release gone rogue, the duo's obvious virtuosity and poorly-suppressed manic energy made their subsequent forays into heavy instrumental rock no great surprise. Yet, ...

Album Review

Steve Khan: Backlog

by James Nadal
February 27, 2017

In what could best be described as an enduring exploration, Steve Khan has undertaken the role of expanding and redefining the role of the guitar in the hybrid genre of Latin Jazz. Backlog continues with the concept established as far back as 2005 on The Green Field (Tone Center), in the transformation of straight-ahead jazz compositions into unique Khan improvisations drawing deeply from the Afro-Cuban tradition. The percussion duo of Marc Quiñones and Bobby Allende have been an ...

Album Review

Marcello Pellitteri: Acceptance

Read "Acceptance" reviewed by Tyran Grillo

by Tyran Grillo
February 26, 2017

From branches of sadness have sprouted leaves of affirmation, and these are their songs. As the first in a series of albums dedicated to Marcello Pellitteri's late daughter, Veronica (1991-2014), Acceptance marks a turning point in the renowned drummer's career that no one could have foreseen. Despite its mournful theme, the album is filled with so much light that it feels like nothing less than a catharsis. In a recent email interview, Pellitteri confirmed this impression with the ...

Album Review

Nate Najar: This Is Nate Najar

Read "This Is Nate Najar" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
February 26, 2017

Hailing from St. Petersburg, FL, guitarist Nate Najar unveils his third full length recording for the Candid Records label on the simply-titled This Is Nate Najar where he touches on the music of Chick Corea and Antonio Carlos Jobim as well as delivering a straight jazz sound with several cover tunes and a couple of originals. A fingerstyle guitarist on the acoustic classical guitar, Najar is one of the few in the modern jazz genre utilizing the nylon-string guitar employing ...

Album Review

Ruthie Foster: Joy Comes Back

Read "Joy Comes Back" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
February 26, 2017

To prove the point that one can go home again, Ruthie Foster returned to the small church in Caldwell, Texas, where she began, singing hymns in the choir, in search of inspiration for Joy Comes Back. For Foster, singing gospel and soul is a birthright, blues and country her second nature; the vast Americana musical landscape being her backyard. After years on the road, Foster chose to record at neighbor and producer Daniel Barrett's studio in Austin, giving ...

Album Review

Mahavishnu Orchestra: Apocalypse

Read "Apocalypse" reviewed by Julian Derry

by Julian Derry
February 26, 2017

Well, there's not much to say about the new release of Apocalypse. Well, not as much as many Mahavishnu fans had hoped; rumours of a long awaited and much needed remastering of this legendary album, making the rounds of the mailing lists were alas, premature. So what is this CD? Answer: it's the exact same, level-for-level digital copy as Sony (né Columbia)'s previous release--slapping the audio files into your favourite audio comparison remastering detection software, and positioning the track profiles ...

Album Review

Rich Halley/Carson Halley: The Wild

Read "The Wild" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
February 26, 2017

Saxophonist Rich Halley, home-based in Portland, Oregon, is a relentless creator of fine and oftimes fiery free jazz, averaging, since 2010, about two CD releases per year, including Creating Structure (2015); Eleven (2016); and Outlier, (2016), all on his Pine Eagle Records label. These were quartet outings, featuring like-minded free-jazzers--trombonist Michael Vlatkovich, bass man Clyde Reed and Carson Halley, Rich Halley's son, in the drum chair. Add saxophonist Vinny Golia to Outlier to make it a quintet. And it's all ...

Album Review

Mike Casey: The Sound of Surprise: Live at the Side Door

Read "The Sound of Surprise: Live at the Side Door" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
February 25, 2017

Making his recording debut with much anticipation, saxophonist Mike Casey delivers an inspiring performance on The Sound of Surprise: Live at the Side Door featuring four re-imagined standards from the likes of John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Kurt Weill and Jackie Mclean as well as three originals from the band. A graduate of the University of Hartford, Hartt School of Music, Casey, drummer Corey Garcia and bassist Matt Dwonszyk have been performing regularly for three years prior to this recording.

Album Review

Dialectical Imagination: The Angel and the Brute Sing Songs of Rapture

Read "The Angel and the Brute Sing Songs of Rapture" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
February 25, 2017

The title The Angel and the Brute Sing Songs of Rapture may conjure an elaborate theatrical vocal production but it is neither that, nor anything else that is even remotely familiar. Pianist/composer Eli Wallace and drummer Rob Pumpelly make up the duo Dialectical Imagination and describe their blend of free improvisation and chamber music as “ecstatic music," a description that--more often than not--is a surprisingly concise account of music that is rarely as succinct itself.A California native, now ...