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.

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Album Review

Lockout Station: Lockout Station

Read "Lockout Station" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
January 1, 2017

Interlaced interplay, clarity of instrumental voices and expressions, liquid lyricism, and rhythmic precision are the hallmarks of Lockout Station's work. This articulate and adventurous Las Vegas-born trio turns the highway on the cover of its eponymous debut into a road to anywhere and everywhere, navigating and accentuating the bends and turns while annexing various cultures and accents encountered during the journey. While guitarist Dirk K penned all eleven tracks that appear on the playlist, there's a communal ...

Album Review

Crystal Moth: Crystal Moth

Read "Crystal Moth" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
January 1, 2017

This London-based quintet started as a duo with drummer Paul May and percussionist Patrick Dawes, but eventually expanded into a quartet due to a series of meetings and encounters among additional musicians. Otherwise, May and keyboardist Carolyn Hume performed as a duo and released several intriguing minimalistic, melodic, jazz-improvisation framed outings for the largely, experimental and long-running UK record label, Leo Records. The respective musicians' resumes are comprised of diverse backgrounds, which makes sense after listening to the ...

Album Review

MoFrancesco Quintetto: Kucheza

Read "Kucheza" reviewed by Sacha O'Grady

by Sacha O'Grady
January 1, 2017

Jazz has certainly come a long way since its early beginnings, whose free spirit and richness of form means that one could easily spend a whole lifetime marvelling at its infinite variety. And none more so than on Kucheza, the MoFrancesco Quintetto's sublime and engaging new album. Based in Lisbon, Portugal, European jazz doesn't get any better than this. Combining both traditional elements of the art form, along with more continental contours, Kucheza makes for one sophisticated and enjoyable journey. ...

Album Review

UADG: How to Build a City

Read "How to Build a City" reviewed by Jim Olin

by Jim Olin
January 1, 2017

The Italian trio UADG may have been trying to illustrate a blueprint for creating a metropolis on their new album, but they probably ended up inventing a new sub-genre instead. Fusing indie, progressive rock, dream pop, improvisational and avant-garde jazz, UADG defy categorization on How to Build a City. The band build layers of atmosphere and sonic texture with each succeeding track, creating the illusion of a physical entity being raised from the ground up. This a visionary group, fueling ...

Rediscovery

Greg Lake & Keith Emerson: Their Best Work Together

by John Kelman
December 31, 2016

While it should come as no surprise that musical heroes from across all genres are beginning to die off, some of the highest profile losses are, in particular, in the rock/pop world, where many of its biggest stars are now in their mid-to-late sixties...or older. Few would disagree that one of the years biggest losses happened just ten days into 2016, when David Bowie passed away at 69 just two days after the release of Black Star (Sony)--an album that ...

What is Jazz?

Jazz Stories: 2016

by Michael Ricci
December 31, 2016

All About Jazz--a longstanding internet destination for all things jazz--is a community bound by its love of the music. Since March, we've solicited jazz stories from our members asking them to answer any of a handful of questions and we wanted to recognize some of our submissions from 2016. New stories arrive daily and we've gathered over 3,000 to date--that's over EIGHT years of jazz stories! Inspired, touching, funny, helpful (to newbies) or simply providing snapshots ...

Year in Review

Mark F. Turner's Best Releases of 2016

by Mark F. Turner
December 31, 2016

Another year of outstanding releases which not only unveiled new artists but also fresh material from those I've admired over many years. While the roots of jazz were formed during the music diaspora from Africa to America its branches are continually grafting and evolving--artistically, culturally, and geographically as musicians and composers find creative ways to express the music. As usual, the task is arduous but here are my picks for 2016. Logan Richardson Shift

Album Review

Albert Marques Trio: Live In The South Bronx

Read "Live In The South Bronx" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
December 31, 2016

There's something uncommonly special about the way that the young Spanish pianist Albert Marques manages to wed elegant expressions with rumbling designs in his work, limning the very nature of his being and his adopted Bronx turf through fingers and keys. He's “tough but sweet" according to Arturo O'Farrill, who penned the liner notes for this project, and the music found herein tends to reflect those attributes, corroborating that assessment in the process. There's both a rugged quality and a ...

Album Review

John Escreet: The Unknown

Read "The Unknown" reviewed by Budd Kopman

by Budd Kopman
December 31, 2016

Improvisation is the core of jazz, and hearing it live is the best possible experience. However, there are different levels of improvisation, ranging from stretching the melody, to playing over a tune's changes, or taking off during a particular composition. The presence of melody, harmony and rhythm as well as structure can vary to a wide degree. Arguably, the highest form of “creative improvised music" is that which just happens without any planning and where the players have widest ears ...

Album Review

Matador: Matador 4

Read "Matador 4" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
December 31, 2016

On his fourth release, Montevideo based guitarist Santiago Bogacz AKA Matador explores various tonalities and harmonies both vocally and instrumentally. He has overdubbed himself performing multiple guitars and singing various lines to create compelling soundscapes of haunting poetry.The short and dynamic opener “20" sets the mood for the rest of the album. The intertwined angular and riotous strumming and the delta blues inspired pizzicato of steel strings forms an earthy muscular substrate. Over it several channels of wordless ...