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

Akua Dixon: Akua's Dance

Read "Akua's Dance" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
February 21, 2017

A visage of joyousness fills this album cover. Cellist Akua Dixon, with back arched and eyes closed, can't contain herself. A knowing smile washes over her face as she bathes in the light with cello in hand. It's a picture that perfectly illustrates the artist's place in the moment: Dixon has reached a point of supreme confidence, where percipience permeates her every move and guides her every turn. She doesn't miss a step on Akua's Dance. This ...

Album Review

Craig Taborn: Daylight Ghosts

Read "Daylight Ghosts" reviewed by Mark Sullivan

by Mark Sullivan
February 21, 2017

In addition to his copious sideman work (including multiple recordings with James Carter, Roscoe Mitchell, Tim Berne, Michael Formanek, and Chris Potter, among many others) pianist/keyboardist Craig Taborn has found time to record intermittently as a leader since 1994's Craig Taborn Trio (IDW). This is his third ECM album, following the solo Avenging Angel (2011) and the trio date Chants (2012). The music Taborn composed for Daylight Ghosts' quartet emphasizes group improvisation over sharply defined soloist/accompanist roles, facilitated ...

Album Review

Vince Tampio: Live at PafA

Read "Live at PafA" reviewed by Matthew Aquiline

by Matthew Aquiline
February 21, 2017

The long-standing practice of incorporating non-Western instruments within a jazz setting is further evolved on up-and-coming trumpeter and composer Vince Tampio's self-produced album Live at PafA. More specifically, the Philadelphia/New York-based musician culled various percussion instruments from Eastern Europe alongside an Indian tanpura for a performance of five original compositions recorded live at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Besides enhancing the pervading atmosphere of alluring exoticism, the nontraditional instrumentation maintains a spacious environment that proves ideal for a ...

Album Review

Tania Chen, Henry Kaiser, Wadada Leo Smith, William Winant: Ocean of Storms

Read "Ocean of Storms" reviewed by Troy Dostert

by Troy Dostert
February 21, 2017

In between stints as a videographer of below-ice underwater regions in Antarctica, guitarist Henry Kaiser maintains a remarkably busy agenda as an improvising musician. Here he's joined by Wadada Leo Smith, an occasional partner going back to their mutual connection with Eugene Chadbourne in the 1970s and later collaboration on their Yo Miles! album from 1998. Pianist Tania Chen and percussionist William Winant, both of whom have recently worked with Kaiser as well (on Megasonic Chapel, from 2015), round out ...

Live Review

Foundation of Funk at Cervantes Masterpiece Ballroom

by Geoff Anderson
February 20, 2017

Foundation of Funk Cervantes Masterpiece Ballroom Denver February 11, 2017 Foundation: the base upon which something is built. From houses to skyscrapers, foundations are essential. They must be solid, strong and most of all, immovable. A funk foundation? That, too, must be solid and strong. But immovable? No, quite the opposite. A funk foundation supplies the movement, the locomotion, in a word: the groove. One of the most famous and influential foundations ...

Album Review

Omar Sosa & Seckou Keita: Transparent Water

Read "Transparent Water" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
February 20, 2017

Omar Sosa would make an excellent global ambassador. He seems to make friends and erase boundary lines wherever he goes. Back in 2012, the Cuban pianist connected with Senegalese kora guru Seckou Keita through a mutual musical associate--drummer Marque Gilmore. Sosa and Keita struck up a quick friendship at that initial meeting, ultimately leading to the creation of this radiant collaboration. They laid down the basic tracks for the project in 2013 and added some other worldly (and otherworldly) voices ...

Book Review

Bill Dahl's The Art of the Blues: A Visual Treasury of Black Music’s Golden Age

by C. Michael Bailey
February 20, 2017

The Art of the Blues: A Visual Treasury of Black Music's Golden Age Bill Dahl 224 Pages ISBN: # 978-02263966992 University Of Chicago Press 2016 A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring... There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again. --Alexander Pope Except when it doesn't, and we believe we know all; ...

Album Review

Rema Hasumi: Billows Of Blue

Read "Billows Of Blue" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
February 20, 2017

Pianist Rema Hasumi, Japanese-born and now New York City-based, calls her compositions sound stories. Those “stories" sound like tales drifting out of a dream land: untethered to time and place, free-flowing and graceful, strikingly pretty, sometimes spooky, and starkly rendered, with the input of her empathic trio that includes bassist Masa Kamaguchi and drummer Randy Peterson, on her second album release, Billows of Blue. Hasumi's trio approach brings to mind the late Masabumi Kikuchi--whom she cites as an ...

Album Review

Derby Derby: Love Dance

Read "Love Dance" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
February 20, 2017

The French trio Derby Derby consists of Alan Regardin on electrified trumpet, drummer Fabrice L'houtellier and bassist Sylvain Didou. Their debut album Love Dance was recorded in Nantes, France in late 2016, several months after the three first musicians met. Through the intersection of jazz, ambience and noise, the music works reiteration, beat and tone into and unanticipated lavishness.The group members are not strangers to cross-pollinating styles. Regardin has played in the French group Pang Pung Bleu le ...

Album Review

Thornetta Davis: Honest Woman

Read "Honest Woman" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
February 20, 2017

Twenty years might seem like a long time in between records, but for blues singer Thornetta Davis, it's always been about getting it right. Started to sing at age fifteen, joined several bands as vocalist, released Sunday Morning Music in 1996. Fast forward to today and Honest Woman reveals Davis as a mature, commanding vocalist, introspective composer, and demanding producer. Long before Motown, Detroit had an illustrious history associated with the blues going back to the days of Hastings Street, ...