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.

Interview

Laura Jurd: Big Footprints

by Ian Patterson
February 16, 2017

Every few years a band appears that injects a welcome shot of adrenaline into the jazz mainstream, exciting media, promoters and fans alike--the Neil Cowley Trio, Phronesis, GoGo Penguin and Snarky Puppy all spring to mind. Dinosaur, an English quartet led by trumpeter Laura Jurd, is being widely tipped to create such waves on the strength of Its debut album, Together, As One (Editions, 2016). It's received glowing reviews, catapulting the group to the front cover of Jazzwise--the UK's leading ...

Live Review

The Cookers at Nighttown

by C. Andrew Hovan
February 16, 2017

The Cookers Nighttown Cleveland, Ohio February 8, 2017 The jazz business is a fickle mistress. Few things stay the same and what's here today isn't always there tomorrow. As such, the norm for many decades has been for leaders to assemble groups of different sizes and varieties for recordings purposes and then look for pickup bands while touring the country. Although there are always exceptions, seldom do you see ensembles filled with first-call musicians lasting ...

Album Review

Dinosaur: Together, As One

Read "Together, As One" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
February 16, 2017

The debut album of the newly baptized Dinosaur--but the second album of the group formerly known as the Laura Jurd Quartet, following Landing Ground (Chaos Collective, 2012)--sees composer Jurd inspired by Miles Davis's late 1960s/early 1970s electric period. Though Jurd's trumpet, Elliot Galvin's Fender Rhodes/Hammond soundscapes and the persistent grooves plied by Conor Chaplin and Corrie Dick broadly invoke Davis' brooding electric canvases, the quartet eschews Davis' percussion-heavy, trance-like jams in favour of a leaner, more direct and more tuneful ...

Album Review

The Reunion Project: Varanda

by Dan Bilawsky
February 16, 2017

If ever there was a gathering that's true to name and a misnomer, this is it. The Reunion Project isn't a glimpse at a band reformation or a grand comeback statement, but rather an expression of shared experiences, influences, and actions. It's both a look back to earlier times and the dawn of a new adventure. Saxophonist Felipe Salles and guitarist Chico Pinheiro grew up together in São Paulo, absorbing the same sounds and making parallel yet ...

Album Review

Matt Mitchell: Forage

Read "Forage" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
February 16, 2017

Alto saxophonist Tim Berne could have been called, at the dawn of the new millennium, the American artist least likely to join the ECM Records roster. The thought here was that Berne's relentless momentum and frequent agitation and flat out wild man brazenness wouldn't fit in well enough with the European impressionism/Nordic cool approach (a definite simplification of the way ECM rolls) to attract the attention of ECM Record's head Manfred Eicher. Then Berne appeared on guitarist David Torn's Prezens ...

Album Review

Sylvie Courvoisier/Mary Halvorson: Crop Circles

Read "Crop Circles" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
February 16, 2017

Crop Circles is the inevitable meeting of two remarkable female artists. Both pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and guitarist Mary Halvorson have distinguished careers. Courvoisier in her quartet, her large ensemble, and Mephista (a trio with Ikue Mori and Susie Ibarra). Halvorson leads a trio, quintet, septet, octet and is a member multiple bands including Thumbscrew, Anthony Braxton's ensembles and those of Taylor Ho Bynum. Both women often perform and record solo and in duo, Courvoisier with Mark Feldman and Evan Parker ...

Jazz Raconteurs

Bill Evans on meeting Miles

by Nenette Evans
February 15, 2017

Excerpt from Nenette Evans's untitled reflections of Bill Evans, October 3, 2012.Miles Davis said: “Bill left the band in 1958 and went down to Louisiana to live with his brother. Then he came back after a while and formed his own group. After a while he got Scott LaFaro on bass and Paul Motian on drums and he became very popular with that group, winning a number of Grammy Awards. He was a great little pianist, but I ...

Live Review

Monty Alexander Trio at Longwood Gardens

by Geno Thackara
February 15, 2017

Monty Alexander Trio The Ballroom at Longwood Gardens Kennett Square, PA February 11, 2017 It's generally a good sign for any show if the players onstage are smiling and laughing more than anyone else in the room. If there's been one main constant to Monty Alexander's music over his 59-year career, it's an irrepressible positivity that runs through everything in any mode or style. His nimble piano might incorporate the blues and reggae roots of ...

Album Review

Carol Morgan: Post Cool: Vol 1 The Night Shift

Read "Post Cool: Vol 1 The Night Shift" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
February 15, 2017

Trumpeter Carol Morgan is an innovative musician with an explorative sense and a unique and easily recognizable style. On the first installment of her Post Cool: Vol. 1 The Night Shift she tackles bop-based, nocturnal themed, pieces that she and her quartet exquisitely interpret. Morgan and her sidemen deftly deconstruct trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie's famous “A Night In Tunisia," exposing its ingeniously crafted structure, and infuse it with modernistic elements. Morgan and tenor saxophonist Joel Frahm interchange their roles ...

Album Review

Chris Corsano/Sylvie Courvoisier/Nate Wooley: Salt Task

Read "Salt Task" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
February 15, 2017

I imagine the tracks for the inaugural meeting between these improvising musicians are presented to us in the order they were recorded. I say that because the music gives the impression it is undergoing the process of refinement as the recording progresses. Perhaps, as each of the individual tracks progresses. But, like the musicians, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's credit whomever suggested this trio recording. Sometimes it is the right time for a certain ...