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

Dave Noland: Ripple

by Bob Kenselaar
November 29, 2016

Ripple is Dave Noland's second album as a leader, a self-produced endeavor that follows the tenor saxophonist's 2007 recording for the Jazz Excursion label, Nomad. With a mix of four original tunes and three standards, Ripple showcases Noland's considerable talents as a composer, arranger, and improviser. Originally from San Angelo, Texas, Noland has been active in a variety of musical contexts in the New York metro area pretty much since he arrived in 1999. Transferring from North Texas ...

Album Review

Pauline Oliveros & Connie Crothers: Live At the Stone

Read "Live At the Stone" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
November 29, 2016

Connie Crothers passed away in August of 2016; an accomplished composer, improviser and pianist, she was not nearly as well-known as she should have been for someone whose talent attracted musical partnerships with Max Roach and Lennie Tristano. Despite playing everywhere from the downtown scene, to Carnegie Hall, to Europe's music halls, her refusal to run parallel to strict lines of free improvisation, avant-garde or mainstream, placed her in a no-man's land where others would later follow. Creative music was ...

Album Review

Carol Liebowitz / Nick Lyons: First Set

Read "First Set" reviewed by Roger Farbey

by Roger Farbey
November 29, 2016

The first seven tracks presented here emanate from a series of live concerts performed in 2012, the final number “Another Time" being studio-recorded in 2007. The live concerts took place in front of an audience in the loft of Connie Crothers under whom Carol Liebowitz studied piano. This improvisational pair recalls the duo performances of Steve Lacy and Mal Waldron in style and intensity and despite Nick Lyons playing alto saxophone as opposed to soprano, the comparison still ...

Live Review

Pat Martino Quintet at Chris’ Jazz Café

by Victor L. Schermer
November 29, 2016

Pat Martino Quintet Chris' Jazz Cafe Philadelphia, PA November 25, 2016 Guitar legend Pat Martino periodically supplements his working trio--consisting of himself, organist Pat Bianchi, and drummer Carmen Intorre--with a horn section of Alex Norris on trumpet and Adam Niewood on tenor saxophone. This post-Thanksgiving set at Chris' Jazz Café demonstrated that this quintet has evolved into a tight, coordinated unit where Martino shines but the ensemble effect is “undeniable," which also happens to be ...

Album Review

Awakening Orchestra: Interlude: Atticus Live!-The Music of Jesse Lewis

Read "Interlude: Atticus Live!-The Music of Jesse Lewis" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
November 29, 2016

On the heals of the excellent debut This Is Not the Answer, Vol 1 (Innova Recordings, 2014), composer/conductor Kyle Saulnier leaves the writing credits to featured guitarist/composer Jesse Lewis on Interlude: Atticus Live!-The Music of Jesse Lewis. Not a regular member of Saulnier's Awakening Orchestra, Lewis had recorded each of these tracks on his similarly named Atticus (Self-Produced, 2008). Saulnier was intrigued by the notion of recreating these tunes with his twenty-piece jazz orchestra and set about to capture that ...

Getting Into Jazz

Suddenly It's Spring

by Mark Barnett
November 28, 2016

Getting Started If you're new to jazz, go to our Getting Into Jazz primer for some hints on how to listen. CD capsule Beautiful yet largely forgotten ballads unearthed and given a stunning jazz make-over by tenor saxophonist Zoot Sims and pianist Jimmy Rowles. Tag this one as buried treasure. Background For more about Sims and Rowles, go to the If I'm Lucky in the “Getting Into Jazz" series.

Live Review

Charles Lloyd Quartet at Vicar Street

by Ian Patterson
November 28, 2016

Charles Lloyd Quartet Vicar Street Dublin, Ireland November 16, 2016 Two years after playing Dublin's National Concert Hall, NEA Jazz Master Charles Lloyd returned to the Irish capital and the more intimate surroundings of Vicar Street. Last time out Lloyd's New Quartet featured Gerald Clayton in lieu of Jason Moran, Joe Sanders in lieu of Reuben Rogers, and Eric Harland. Here only Clayton remained, with the returning Rogers and Kendrick Scott rounding out the unit. ...

Album Review

Ed Neumeister: Suite Ellington

Read "Suite Ellington" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
November 28, 2016

Trombonist Ed Neumeister opened his excellent quartet outing, New Standards (Meistero Music, 2005) with an energized take Duke Ellington's signature tune, “Take The 'A' Train." It was apparent that he had a way with Duke's music. A quick dip into Neumeister's resume finds that he played in Duke Ellington's Orchestra for sixteen years, post-Duke, when the maestro's son, Mercer, held the baton. So he has the great experience of a marination in one of America's Greatest Composer's music. With Suite ...

Album Review

Julie Sassoon: Fourtune

Read "Fourtune" reviewed by Duncan Heining

by Duncan Heining
November 28, 2016

Fourtune is British pianist-composer Julie Sassoon's first quartet recording. Sassoon's musical approach draws in equal measure on her classical training and on a love of jazz and improvised music. This marriage goes far beyond the translation of a pianistic technique from one musical area to another but becomes something far deeper and more powerfully emotionally moving in her hands. The CD features life-and musical partner Lothar Ohlmeier on reeds, along with a remarkably strong rhythm pairing in bassist ...

Album Review

Harry Allen's All Star New York Saxophone Band: The Candy Men

Read "The Candy Men" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
November 28, 2016

At times, there is something to be said for glancing backward while moving forward, for saluting the past while embracing the present. In 1973, the Carpenters recorded another in a long series of hit songs, “Yesterday Once More," which noted how the past often parallels the present. Sometimes revisiting bygone days is a good thing; at other times, not so much. On his new album The Candy Men, tenor saxophonist Harry Allen delves even further into the murkiness of time ...