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

Deviant Amps: Strange Voodoo from Electric Salad Studio: Volume 1

Read "Strange Voodoo from Electric Salad Studio: Volume 1" reviewed by Jack Gold-Molina

by Jack Gold-Molina
November 28, 2016

Deviant Amps is a psychedelic rock juggernaut from England that was founded in 1982 by guitarist and vocalist Paul Woodwright. While the band itself is an independent festival mainstay, Woodwright is also one of the organizers of Kozfest, which takes place just after midsummer each year and features some of the finest talent the world of space rock has to offer. Deviant Amps' current trio of Woodwright on vocals, guitar, glissando guitar, and synth; Subassa playing bass and Japanese plum ...

Album Review

Pedro Neves: 05:21

by Jim Trageser
November 28, 2016

It is what it sounds like: West Coast jazz. It's probably worth pointing out, though, that the music found on Pedro Neves' sophomore album comes from the west coast of Portugal, not the United States. You'd never guess that this is Iberian jazz, though, just from listening to it. There's no trace of fado--that dark, smokey music of Lisbon. Not a guitar can be found, nor a single vocal. Instead, with a light, lithe playing style ...

Interview

Concha Buika: I Feel the Warmer Side of Life When I Sing

by Nenad Georgievski
November 27, 2016

When Spanish singer Concha Buika sings, songs uncoil from her like smoke. Whether she sings jazz classics, Jacquel Brel, Chavella Vargas songs or her own songs, there is a warm intimacy in her husky and seductive voice that easily envelops listeners. 15 years after her debut, Mestizuo, a record with jazz classics she continues her musical journey of exploring beyond the ordinary with records that are imbued with diversity from flamenco, soul, jazz and pop music to Afro-beat, Cuban music, ...

Extended Analysis

The Rolling Stones: Blue and Lonesome

by Nenad Georgievski
November 27, 2016

It was the love for blues and R&B music that bonded two teenage music aficionados Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and this music was the building blocks on which they based their work of art--the band The Rolling Stones. 50 years ago when the Rolling Stones' songwriting partnership between these two began gaining its momentum and they started writing their own songs, the band slowly began abandoning their all-blues cover records approach and commenced branching and welcoming more diverse music ...

Live Review

Electric Hot Tuna at Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center

by Doug Collette
November 27, 2016

Electric Hot Tuna Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center Stowe, Vermont November 22, 2016 Guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady deserve to be playing venues such as Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center. Like The Egg in Albany, The Beacon in New York and the Fairfield Theater in Connecticut, this fairly new Stowe Vermont establishment is as well-designed, acoustically-impeccable and all-around comfortable as those venues, perfectly conducive to the mutual warmth in the experience ...

Album Review

Allison Philips Trio: Allison Philips Trio

Read "Allison Philips Trio" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
November 27, 2016

Straddling her residencies between New York City and Amsterdam, trumpeter Allison Philips has been performing since age fourteen, eventually landing at venues that have included Le Poisson Rouge, Iridium, and The Jazz Standard. Leading a quartet, she played the 2014 Bern Jazz Festival in Switzerland. Philips has a BFA in Jazz Performance from the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music and is working toward Masters in Jazz Performance at The Conservatorium Van Amsterdam, in The Netherlands. Her debut album, ...

Album Review

Rick Hannah / Erwin Siffer: 2-Man Jazz Band

Read "2-Man Jazz Band" reviewed by Budd Kopman

by Budd Kopman
November 27, 2016

Piano and guitar is a relatively rare combination for a number of reasons including overlapping ranges and having the similar timbre of percussive string. Yes, players of both instruments spend a lot of time perfecting a singing or legato sound, but in the end they are what they are. Instead of fighting it, with 2-Man Jazz Band, guitarist Rick Hannah and pianist Erwin Siffer have put together eleven arrangements that revel in their instrument's sound and the myriad ...

Album Review

Frank Kimbrough: Solstice

Read "Solstice" reviewed by Jerome Wilson

by Jerome Wilson
November 27, 2016

Frank Kimbrough is a veteran New York pianist known best for playing with Maria Schneider's orchestra and leading his own small groups. On his new CD, Solstice, he pays tribute to several people who have inspired him in his career and life. Most of the people he tips his hat to such as Paul Bley, Shirley Horn and Paul Motian are known for their measured use of space and time and Kimbrough, Jay Anderson and Jeff Hirshfield stay ...

Album Review

Anthony Braxton: 3 Compositions (EEMHM) 2011

Read "3 Compositions (EEMHM) 2011" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
November 27, 2016

There is little in the extensive catalog of Anthony Braxton that falls into a customary compositional milieu. His more recently formed conceptual structure, Echo Echo Mirror House (circa 2011), succeeds Ghost Trance Music and Diamond Curtain Wall Music as a platform for his unique system of coded composing and improvising. On 3 Compositions (EEMHM) 2011, each member of the septet has dual functions as they are armed with iPods, in addition to their more familiar instruments. What reads as being ...

Album Review

Rova Orkestrova: No Favorites!

Read "No Favorites!" reviewed by Troy Collins

by Troy Collins
November 27, 2016

Ever since its formation in 1977, Rova, the pioneering West Coast saxophone quartet, has been augmenting its ranks to explore structured improvisation. No Favorites! pays homage to Lawrence D. Butch" Morris, the inventor of Conduction, a revolutionary system for organizing large-ensemble improvisation using coded gestures. This ambitious album epitomizes a working relationship that Rova began with Morris in 1988, while also reflecting parallel working methods reaching back to the mid-1970s. Building on previous efforts in this milieu, the saxophone quartet ...