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.

Live Review

The Donny McCaslin Group at The Arden Gild Hall

by Mike Jacobs
January 25, 2017

The Donny McCaslin Group Arden Gild Hall Arden, Delaware January 14, 2017 Arden Delaware isn't exactly known as a jazz mecca but, with the coming of the Donny McCaslin Group to the Arden Gild Hall, it became one--for a little while at least. And in the best jazz traditions, the show presented in Arden had all of the elements you would expect from one of those meccas--innovation, exploration, technical excellence and passion--presented by players in ...

Multiple Reviews

New, Notable and Nearly Missed

by Phil Barnes
January 25, 2017

One of the great pleasures of the holiday season is taking stock of the last 12 months, comparing notes with friends, investigating their recommendations and catching up with some of those releases that you never quite got round to. The falling cost of an independent release has meant that it is easier than ever for a musician to get their work out there, but probably the hardest it has been to get any meaningful attention from a fragmented media. All ...

Album Review

Orthodox: Supreme

Read "Supreme" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
January 25, 2017

As part of a 2010 five-disc anthology, The NYFA Collection: 25 Years of New York New Music (Innova), one musician, Eric John Eigner, contributed a piece called “Music for Faucet" which consisted of the sounds from his Brooklyn bathroom faucet. By manipulating pitch and rhythm through the flow of hot and cold water, and adjusting the valves, Eigner produced a variety of sounds. It certainly has a musicality to it but is it noise or music? For many, noise is ...

Album Review

Escape Hatch: Roots Of Unity

Read "Roots Of Unity" reviewed by Roger Farbey

by Roger Farbey
January 25, 2017

Tempting though it is to bag Escape Hatch as pianist Ivo Neame's new group, in truth it's more democratic than that; for one thing the majority of the compositions weren't written by him. Two thirds were penned by bassist Andrea Di Biase, who along with drummer Dave Hamblett have regularly accompanied Neame on his recordings such as 2015's Strata. Another reason is that a fair bit of the limelight is taken by guest saxophone virtuoso Julian Arguelles who has been ...

Album Review

Rodrigo Amado's Motion Trio: Desire & Freedom

Read "Desire & Freedom" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
January 25, 2017

Desire And Liberation constitutes only the second album in Portuguese saxophonist Rodrigo Amado's Motion Trio discography not to feature a guest since their eponymous debut (European Echoes, 2009). While some may decry the lack of a foil for the leader's muscular tenor saxophone (and past collaborators trumpeter Peter Evans and trombonist Jeb Bishop supplied that and more), it does present an opportunity to appreciate the finely wrought interchange of the core trio completed by drummer Gabriel Ferrandini and cellist Miguel ...

Album Review

Blair Bryant: Gold

by Jim Olin
January 25, 2017

Blair Bryant is a prodigious and young contemporary jazz artist currently signed up under the Innervision Records label. Creating his own music since he was 16, he started out as a bassist and drummer but he can now play over 14 different instruments, those skills in vivid and impressive display on his latest effort, Gold. The love song “Just For You" has the potential to be a timeless hit. Aside from its catchy lyrics, the track also features ...

Live Review

Bobby Hutcherson tribute at SFJAZZ Center

by David Becker
January 24, 2017

Bobby Hutcherson tribute SFJAZZ Center San Francisco CA January 21, 2017 I still can't quite believe he's gone. No, not that contemporary American icon. I'm talking about Bobby Hutcherson, one of the greatest practitioners ever of the curious art of making the vibraphone sing and a jazz composer of unparalleled wit and invention. Hutcherson laid his mallets down for good last August, and the world has seemed a measurably cheaper ...

Bailey's Bundles

Male Vocals – Mark Murphy, Theo Bleckmann, Gregory Porter, Jimmy Scott, Kurt Elling, Ron Boustead

by C. Michael Bailey
January 24, 2017

What passes for male jazz vocals makes an interesting dichotomy with female jazz vocals. Judging by the number of female jazz vocal releases that come my way, I almost believe that every woman fancies that she can make a jazz recording. Interestingly, there are many good to great ones. Not so with men. I probably see only a fifth to a quarter the number of male vocal releases when compared to the female. Nothing scientific, and certainly anecdotal. And also, ...

Album Review

Led Bib: Umbrella Weather

Read "Umbrella Weather" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
January 24, 2017

When you're talking umbrella weather, there's rain and then there's rain. A drizzle and a downpour are two very different beasts, and this most certainly qualifies as the latter. Led Bib opens up the heavenly and hellish skies to create a deluge in sound on this terrifically tempestuous RareNoise date. Some bands born of radical designs tend to lose their edge over time, blunted and stunted by the individual and collective aging process, but Led Bib hasn't ...

Album Review

John Lindberg BC3: Born In An Urban Ruin

Read "Born In An Urban Ruin" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
January 24, 2017

Acclaimed bassist John Lindberg's trio on Born In An Urban Ruin possesses a distinctive and deeply personal sound in keeping with the man himself. That's down to both the novel instrumentation with long time associate Kevin Norton mostly on vibes and Michigan native Wendell Harrison on clarinets, and the character of Lindberg's writing. The essential humanity inspiring each piece is revealed in Lindberg's liners, but reinforced by their warmth, memorable hooks and multi-threaded nature which sidestep the potential for chamber ...