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

Sure Fire Soul Ensemble: Out On The Coast

Read "Out On The Coast" reviewed by Joe Gatto

by Joe Gatto
January 17, 2017

Sure Fire Soul Ensemble, from San Diego, is one of the most talented new bands on the West Coast. Mixing funk, soul, jazz, and Latin & African influences to create unique, exciting music... their “cinematic soul" is like a cross between the music from Jim Jarmusch movies & Blacksploitation films of the 1970s. And, you can dance to it! If you like Snarky Puppy, The Beastie Boys' instrumentals, Quantic, The New Mastersounds, Karl Denson & Greyboy ...

Interview

Donny McCaslin: Bowie Deepened The Relationships In My Band

by Nenad Georgievski
January 16, 2017

Wherever the boundaries were in music, in most cases, they have perished and are no more. Jazz has always been a music of exploration and taking chances and as a result, has benefited from the dialogues with other music, be it folk, rock, classical or electronic. Saxophonist and composer Donny McCaslin certainly doesn't believe in boundaries. He is one of the handful musicians who uses different strands as a launching point for further exploration. His recent records Fast Future (Greenleaf, ...

Interview

Matthew Shipp: Let's Do Lunch!

by Yuko Otomo
January 16, 2017

When Matthew Shipp asked me to design the cover art for his Points album (Silkheart Records, 1992), I showed him works from the on-going drawing study I was engaged in. He picked one graphite drawing and said, “Wow! This is exactly what's happening inside my mind when I play the piano!" Here, we talk of the history of his musicianship; creative process; spirituality; interest in literature and life in New York City. I am blessed to have known ...

Album Review

Chris Thile & Brad Mehldau: Chris Thile & Brad Mehldau

Read "Chris Thile & Brad Mehldau" reviewed by Geno Thackara

by Geno Thackara
January 16, 2017

If you blinked at the wrong time, it was easy to miss the fact that Chris Thile and Brad Mehldau had played together at all. For two such restless collaborators, each occasional encounter was one more fleeting meet-up among many others--a quick one-off in 2011, a nine-city string of duo shows in 2013 and another two-night live stand after a couple years more. That last was accompanied by a quick stop in the studio to finally give the rest of ...

Album Review

Noah Preminger: Meditations on Freedom

Read "Meditations on Freedom" reviewed by Franz A. Matzner

by Franz A. Matzner
January 16, 2017

Released to coincide with the inauguration of Donald Trump as President, the message of Saxophonist Noah Preminger's Meditations on Freedom is as direct as the music is powerful. Conceived immediately after Election Day 2016 and recorded shortly thereafter without cuts or edits, the music is a testament to both Preminger's artistic prowess and deep commitment to political engagement.The album's nine offerings present a series of potent statements on social justice, the struggle for equity, and a stark repudiation ...

Album Review

Steve Swell - Gebhard Ullmann - Fred Lonberg-Holm - Michael Zerang: The Chicago Plan

Read "The Chicago Plan" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
January 16, 2017

The Chicago Plan equates to a strategic plan, evidenced by these magnetic and invigorating works by reedman Gebhard Ullmann (Berlin), trombonist Steve Swell (New York City) and Chicagoans, drummer Michael Zerang and cellist / electronics-ace Fred Lonberg-Holm. Recorded in Chicago, the musicians were seemingly immersed in the Windy City's cutting- edge jazz and improvisational forces that may have hovered over the studio like a guiding spirit. Here, some of the best and brightest live up to, or perhaps ...

Album Review

Mings And Craig: Day By Day

Read "Day By Day" reviewed by Rob Rosenblum

by Rob Rosenblum
January 16, 2017

Day By Day by the group Mings and Craig consisting of guitarists Monty Craig and Jim Mings is a quiet and unassuming guitar CD by two good friends and respected musicians from the north western part of South Carolina area near Greenville. Both musicians are educators and long time friends. Craig teaches at Clemson University. Mings moved from Austin, Texas to Columbia, attending the University of South Carolina. Their group is called Mings and Craig and they perform ...

Album Review

Henry Spencer and Juncture: The Reasons Don't Change

Read "The Reasons Don't Change" reviewed by Roger Farbey

by Roger Farbey
January 15, 2017

The cover art is a clue to the music contained in this excellent album. It depicts a vista split in two, one half a deserted bucolic scene and the other a populated urban street. In the midst stands trumpeter and progenitor of this work, Henry Spencer, a graduate of the UK's prestigious Guildhall School of Music and Drama. The bifurcated opening track is introduced by a restrained fifty second trumpet solo, building-up to a sustained B flat note ...

Album Review

Dennis Coffey: Hot Coffey in the D – Burnin' at Morey Baker’s Showplace Lounge

Read "Hot Coffey in the D – Burnin' at Morey Baker’s Showplace Lounge" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
January 15, 2017

If the name Dennis Coffey only faintly rings a bell, it's because the guitarist was a member of the ensemble know as The Funk Brothers, the studio session crew who supplied the musicianship at the heart of Motown classics. Like many of his brethren, Coffey often availed himself of the opportunity to venture outside the confines of the recording studio to inhabit clubs and Hot Coffee in the D is just such an expedition (the similar likes of which, perhaps ...

Album Review

Club d'Elf: Live at Club Helsinki

Read "Live at Club Helsinki" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
January 15, 2017

It's not really necessary to be a dervish dancer to appreciate Club d'Elf, especially because, on Live at Club Helsinki, the prominence of varied sounds from Duke Levine's electric guitars, combined with the keyboard wizardry of John Medeski, is enough to capture and hold the attention of (almost) any contemporary music-lover. It's as effortless to fall into a dreamlike trance as a visceral spell in response to these extend Moroccan-influenced grooves. The cumulative intensity, however, is almost indiscernible, ...