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

Laura Dubin Trio: Live At The Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival

Read "Live At The Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival" reviewed by Roger Farbey

by Roger Farbey
December 23, 2016

Despite the cartoonish CD cover illustration, depicting a smiling Laura Dubin seated at a grand piano, and perhaps giving the false impression that this is a jokey album, the music surely proves otherwise. This ambitious double album of a live performance on July 2nd, 2016 contains many surprising and engaging pieces. Opening with Steve Allen's “This Could Be the Start of Something Big" Dubin's style for standards is clearly influenced by the likes of Oscar Peterson and maybe even Dudley ...

Year in Review

Nenad Georgievski's Best Releases of 2016

by Nenad Georgievski
December 23, 2016

There is a poem by a Russian poet Velimir Khlebnikov titled “When Horses Die" that I came across to by accident. It goes like “When horses die they breathe when grasses die, they wither, when suns die they go out, and when people die they sing songs." For many musicians, the year 2016 was final and their swan songs reflected their thoughts and emotions about the inevitable final curtain-call. The best records of the year 2016 reflected that issue on ...

Album Review

Miles Davis: Panthalassa: The Music Of Miles Davis 1969-1974

Read "Panthalassa: The Music Of Miles Davis 1969-1974" reviewed by Sacha O'Grady

by Sacha O'Grady
December 23, 2016

For anyone unfamiliar with his work, Bill Laswell is something of a producer's producer, who has worked with a wide array of artists ranging from John Lydon to Whitney Houston (though not on the same record one would assume). At some point Laswell miraculously managed to convince the powers that be to hand over copies of all the extant master tapes from Miles Davis's 1968 to 1974 period, arguably one of the most controversial and challenging of the trumpeter's entire ...

Album Review

LEAGUS (Herborg Rundberg & Kristian Svalestad Olstad): Lea Áigi

Read "Lea Áigi" reviewed by Mark Sullivan

by Mark Sullivan
December 23, 2016

LEAGUS is a Norwegian duo made up of pianist Herborg Rundberg and guitarist Kristian Svalestad Olstad. Together they make music that ranges from minimalist atmospherics to frenetic free-noise. Rundberg has studied both classical music and jazz/pop/rock, and has worked with coastal sami traditions. Olstad studied jazz/pop/rock, and is involved in improvisation and studio recording (he mixed the album). His nontraditional, highly electronically modified sound puts him in the company of other Norwegian modernists like Eivind Aarset and Stian Westerhus. He ...

Live Review

Live From Old York: Laura Jurd, Annie Whitehead, Brooks Williams & Koshka

by Martin Longley
December 23, 2016

Laura Jurd's Dinosaur National Centre For Early Music November 11, 2016 Dinosaur are one of the UK's fastest rising new bands, although their recent re-naming hides a few years of history as the Laura Jurd Quartet. The London foursome still look even younger than their actual ages, thus qualifying as fully fresh-faced. Trumpeter Jurd's music (for she is the sole composer) is considerably older in its countenance, with much of its vocabulary reaching back ...

Interview

D'Vonne Lewis: It's About the Love

by Paul Rauch
December 22, 2016

On the Seattle jazz scene, no musician is more visible than drummer D'Vonne Lewis. Whether he is touring and playing with his band Industrial Revelation, leading his flexible and innovative combo, D'Vonne Lewis Limited Edition, or playing as a sideman on multiple projects around town, Lewis brings to the bandstand a remarkable versatility, and musical identity all his own. He began playing with top shelf players such as Hadley Caliman, and Larry Fuller when still a student at Seattle's storied ...

Album Review

Tania Stavreva: Rhythmic Movement

Read "Rhythmic Movement" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
December 22, 2016

Pianist and New York City resident Tania Stavreva is a cross-genre trailblazer in the vein of a Stefano Battaglia. More than being at home in both classical and jazz, the Bulgarian native has found an approach that--when desired--connects elements of each form and adds her own methods, resulting in a unique hybrid. The twenty-something artist has appeared with Ron Carter and played top international venues from Lincoln Center to Italy's Cathedral San Lorenzo. Rhythmic Movement is her debt as a ...

Album Review

Barry Guy / Marilyn Crispell / Paul Lytton: Deep Memory

Read "Deep Memory" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
December 22, 2016

Bassist Barry Guy took a key role in pianist Howard Riley's groundbreaking trio in the late 60s, early 70s. And while that early experience has in no way defined him, it means it perhaps comes as less of a surprise that he has increasingly turned to the format in the latter part of his career. One offs apart, the two enduring piano trio vehicles for the bassist are the Aurora Trio with Agusti Fernandez and Ramon Lopez, and the accomplished ...

Album Review

Alessio Forlani: Alameda Gardens

Read "Alameda Gardens" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
December 22, 2016

After a few spins, imagery of Florence, Italy guitarist Alessio Forlani playing a supercharged Ferrari with strings came to mind. And while there isn't a surfeit of background information on the Internet, it appears that he's also heavily involved with studio processes and production activities. Here, the guitarist kindles similarities to longtime rock guitar hero Joe Satriani's solo career, teeming with thrusting backbeats and climactic overtures, yet Forlani spices the festivities --or ups the ante --with shrewdly placed EFX, multihued ...

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Live Review

Lloyd Gregory And Tony Lindsay at Biscuits & Blues

by Walter Atkins
December 22, 2016

Lloyd Gregory And Tony Lindsay Biscuits & Blues San Francisco, CA December 11, 2016 Accomplished jazz guitarist Lloyd Gregory (Stanley Clarke, Tower of Power) and vibrant vocalist Tony Lindsay (Santana, Spangalang) helped to warm up San Francisco's Union Square for the Christmas season at the fabled Biscuits & Blues on Mason Street. Gregory's enterprising band consisted of keyboardist Glenn Pearson, bassist Joe Thomas, tenor saxophonist Robert Stewart, drummer Richie Aguan and percussionist James Henry.