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

Mat Walerian/Matthew Shipp/Hamid Drake: Jungle: Live At Okuden

Read "Jungle: Live At Okuden" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
November 17, 2016

Polish reedman Mat Walerian's second album is in many ways a follow up to his first, Live At Okuden (ESP-disk, 2015). The two CD set was recorded live in Torun in central Poland, as part of Walerian's Okuden concert series, six months after his debut, and similarly features pianist Matthew Shipp. However this time out drummer Hamid Drake joins the pair. Although Walerian is credited with all but four of the 13 tracks, his compositions seem as oblique as those ...

Album Review

Simon Nabatov Trio: Picking Order

Read "Picking Order" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
November 17, 2016

Simon Nabatov is a renowned improvising jazz pianist who possesses a hefty discography on Leo Records as a leader and session artist. At times his mode of execution summons a perspective of several tentacles flailing across the keyboard via a cavalcade of intriguing perspectives and much more. But with his Cologne-based trio, Nabatov renders a shift in strategy by leaning more towards conventional song-form initiatives. And from a holistic view, the band's output is often astonishing. The trio ...

From the Inside Out

From Microtones to Mauro to MFSB

by Chris M. Slawecki
November 16, 2016

Dave Fiuczynski Flam! Blam! Pan-Asian Microjam! RareNoise Records 2016 Simultaneously dedicated to 20th century classical composer Olivier Messiaen and legendary rap and hip-hop producer J Dilla, Flam! Blam! Pan-Asian Microjam! is a musical adventurer's dream and a purist's nightmare. But anything more conventional from conceptualist, composer and guitarist David Fiuczynski would probably be disappointing--after all, he's the “Fuze" who lit the raging bonfire of the Screaming Headless Torsos, whose rock experimentation was ...

Take Five With...

Take Five with Jared Pauley

by AAJ Staff
November 16, 2016

About Jared Pauley Jared Pauley is a keyboardist, composer, producer and educator based out of New York City. Originally from Charleston, West Virginia, he started playing the guitar and the piano as a teenager and grew up on a healthy mix of The Doors, Medeski, Martin and Wood, Herbie Hancock, and other artists. After graduating from Marshall University in 2006 he moved to Manhattan to begin his studies at the renowned Jazz History and Research program (founded by ...

Live Review

Jazz Sessions at The Falcon Underground Host: Aaron Seeber

by David A. Orthmann
November 16, 2016

Aaron Seeber The Falcon Underground Jazz Sessions at The Falcon Underground Marlboro, NY November 9, 2016 One of the benefits of jazz fandom is catching a live performance by talented young musicians at a particular phase in their personal and collective development. There's something intriguing about players who are beginning to transcend the training of contemporary jazz conservatories, yet fall short of achieving a mature, highly individualistic form of expression. The kick is ...

Album Review

Rakalam Bob Moses: Song of the Free Will

Read "Song of the Free Will" reviewed by Dave Wayne

by Dave Wayne
November 16, 2016

Though Ra Kalam Bob Moses is known primarily for his uncanny and profound drumming skills, few realize that he has forged a unique and highly personal piano style in parallel with his efforts as a percussionist, composer and bandleader. Few remember his wonderful band Compost with that other ineffable drummer / pianist, Jack DeJohnette. Compost recorded two funky and fresh albums--Take Off Your Body (CBS Records, 1972) and Life Is Round (CBS Records, 1973)--with Ra Kalam and DeJohnette switching off ...

Album Review

Roy Nathanson: Nearness And You, Duets and Improvisations

Read "Nearness And You, Duets and Improvisations" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
November 16, 2016

All the selections on Nearness And You come from saxophonist Roy Nathanson's June 2015 residency at the Stone in NYC, and feature a galaxy of current and past collaborators. Throughout his career, from the Lounge Lizards via the Jazz Passengers to Sotto Voce, Nathanson has brought an irreverent approach to the serious business of music making. Hoagy Carmichael's “The Nearness Of You" forms a golden thread that holds the program together. But as the reedman explains in the liners, it's ...

Album Review

The Sugar Hill Trio: The Drive

Read "The Drive" reviewed by Roger Farbey

by Roger Farbey
November 16, 2016

Groups lacking a chordal instrument sometimes face inherent challenges especially when playing tunes from the Great American Songbook. That said, Sonny Rollins and Albert Ayler managed to produce classic recordings with this configuration. Think of Way Out West or Spiritual Unity. Whilst The Sugar Hill Trio isn't quite in that illustrious league, this unit gets pretty close and the resultant music is, in many ways, a synthesis of those famous exemplars.Eight of the eleven numbers on the album ...

Album Review

Linus Lindblom: Sanctuary

Read "Sanctuary" reviewed by Budd Kopman

by Budd Kopman
November 16, 2016

Sanctuary is saxophonist Linus Lindblom's third release for HOOB records, the first two being The Lines (2007) and Objets Trouvés (2012). Much like Skarkali by Ingi Bjarni Skúlason, Lindblom's musical language is very personal, unique and highly emotional, but quite accessible. The band, comprised of pianist Carl Bagge, bassist Par-Ola Landin and drummer Konrad Agnas, most obviously share Lindblom's musical outlook, because they are right with him in arrangements that require a practiced precision with an edge of ...

Live Review

Barranquijazz Festival 2016

by Mark Holston
November 15, 2016

Barranquijazz Festival Barranquilla, Colombia September 14-18, 2016 The success of the annual Barranquijazz Festival is a tribute to its founders--all of whom are still deeply involved as the event enters its 21st year--and their vision of what and how to present to a growing community of jazz enthusiasts in Barranquilla, Colombia's fourth largest city. Samuel Minski, a successful publisher, Antonio Caballero, a radio personality, and Mingo de la Cruz, a veteran Avianca Airlines pilot, ...