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.

Film Review

Man of the World: The Peter Green Story

by Jim Trageser
February 11, 2017

Peter Green Man of the World: The Peter Green Story Henry Hadaway Organization 2016 In an age when a junior high school rite of passage for budding adolescents remains discovering the great blues- rock guitarists of their grandparents' generation, arguing the relative merits of Jimmy Page vs. Eric Clapton (and the truly hip throw Jeff Beck into the mix), when Carlos Santana, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix remain iconic, it is surely unjust ...

Album Review

Baron Tymas: Montréal

Read "Montréal" reviewed by Roger Farbey

by Roger Farbey
February 11, 2017

The title of this album recalls guitarist Baron Tymas's experience as a Fulbright Fellow at Concordia University, Montréal in late 2015. All the compositions here are written by Tymas and mostly they are inspired by the sights, sounds and people of that city. It was warm during the fall of that year and the music here reflects that pleasant climate.“The Laval Syndicate" opens this set and benefits from the addition of guest trumpeter Charles Ellison to broaden the ...

Album Review

Chicago / London Underground: A Night Walking Through Mirrors

Read "A Night Walking Through Mirrors" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
February 11, 2017

As an artist and a surveyor of a broader universe, Rob Mazurek focuses on the journey rather than on planting a flag in undiscovered territories. Whether on his multi-instrumental solo work Mother Ode (Corbett vs Dempsey, 2014) or in the large ensemble formation of his most recent Exploding Star Orchestra project, Galactic Parables: Volume 1 (Cuneiform, 2015), Mazurek has left his creative intuitions open to the influence of a deeply personal life force that often serves as his guide. More ...

Album Review

Gong: Rejoice! I'm Dead!

Read "Rejoice! I'm Dead!" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
February 11, 2017

Vocalist, guitarist and composer, Daevid Allen was perhaps progressive rock's favorite hippie, and in the 1960s co-founded pivotal and revered Euro outfits, Gong and Soft Machine. Since the late 60s, Allen embarked on a solo career and led various psych-rock ensembles amid resurgences of Gong, which is an entity that sports a manifold legacy, spanning disparate stylistic approaches. Up until his death from cancer in 2015 Allen was all over the map via his cosmic explorations and collaborations with like-minded ...

Book Review

The History of Rock & Roll, Volume 1: 1920-1965

by C. Michael Bailey
February 11, 2017

The History of Rock & Roll, Volume 1: 1920-1965 Ed Ward 416 Pages ISBN: # 978-1250071163 Flatiron Books2016 Ed Ward has been the Rock & Roll Historian on NPR's Fresh Air (WHYY, Philadelphia—Terry Gross) for thirty years. He is the author of Rock of Ages: The Rolling Stone History of Rock & Roll (Summit Books, 1986). With his bona fides established, Ward has begun his magnum opus in his The History of Rock ...

Album Review

The Nile Project: Jinja

by James Nadal
February 11, 2017

With an approximate length of 4,258 miles, the Nile River meanders through the heart of the African continent and supplies water to a host of countries along its course. The cross-cultural nationalities which are found along its trajectory, is represented in The Nile Project, a unique musicians collective founded in 2013, whose mission is to raise awareness and find solutions to the fact that there are too many people, and not enough water. Jinja (titled after the city in Rwanda, ...

Album Review

Deborah Brown: Kansas City Here I Come

Read "Kansas City Here I Come" reviewed by Victor L. Schermer

by Victor L. Schermer
February 10, 2017

Jazz vocalists occupy a wide swath of styles from those who mercilessly belt out a tune to those who use the ever evolving vocabulary of the jazz idiom with care and precision. Deborah Brown is one of the most sophisticated of the latter genre. She is a true artist. She never wastes a note, inflection, or dynamic. She meticulously treats the nuances of every song with the care of a concert and opera singer. Such precision only makes her more ...

Album Review

Mostly Other People Do the Killing: Loafer's Hollow

Read "Loafer's Hollow" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
February 10, 2017

Blowing up Mostly Other People Do the Killing from its core quartet to a septet may seem like an invitation to dance on the musical third rail. The group that has always straddled the broad and fuzzy line between tradition and chaotic improvisation, has nevertheless managed that process with a mixture of sophistication, revelation and unbridled enthusiasm. Loafer's Hollow is a surprising entry to their catalog of one-dozen releases.MOPDtK founding member (and primary composer), bassist Moppa Elliott, saxophonist ...

Album Review

Southern Avenue: Southern Avenue

Read "Southern Avenue" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
February 10, 2017

Memphis, Tennessee, is one of the outstanding music cities of America. Southern Avenue runs from East Memphis due west, where it turns into E. McClemore Avenue, home of Soulsville, better known as Stax Records. This young Memphis group named themselves and their self-titled debut release, Southern Avenue, in a deliberate undertaking to continue and expand upon the soul, blues, and gospel tradition associated with this fabled city. Fronted by the vivacious and vigorous vocalist Tierinni Jackson, the band ...

Live Review

The Wood Brothers at Higher Ground

by Doug Collette
February 10, 2017

The Wood Brothers Higher Ground Ballroom South Burlington, Vermont February 6, 2017 In the decade plus they've played together, the Wood Brothers have made a habit of coming to Vermont virtually every year and their near-sell-out appearance in the ballroom of Higher Ground was almost exactly twelve months since their last show at the venue (but just six months since appearing at the 'Grand Point North Festival' and almost the same interval before they return ...