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

John Escreet: The Unknown

Read "The Unknown" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
November 10, 2016

Stepping into the void without a map, compass, or guide can be an incredibly scary experience. But the very same scenario can also be liberating. Musicians freed of the shackles of preconceived ideas are the ones, after all, who speak the lingua franca of jazz--improvisation, that is--in its purest dialect. And improvisation doesn't get any truer than when there's a blank canvas to work with. That's all there is to know about The Unknown. Or is it? ...

Extended Analysis

Eve Risser White Desert Orchestra: Les Deux Versants Se Regardent

by Phil Barnes
November 10, 2016

Space in jazz, in the musical rather than the science fiction sense, is a difficult thing to pull off effectively. Miles Davis may well have said “don't play what's there, play what's not there" but Mr Davis said a lot of things including “if you don't know what to play, play nothing." Its like talking quietly--if you want people to make the effort to listen what you do have to say, then what you venture had better be good. You ...

Album Review

Jon Stickley Trio: Lost at Last

Read "Lost at Last" reviewed by Geno Thackara

by Geno Thackara
November 10, 2016

Intricacy and virtuosity can so often turn listeners away if they get excessive, but the Jon Stickley Trio finds that sweet spot where it never sounds awkward. They specialize in a stylistic mishmosh based around (but hardly limited to) folk, jazz and bluegrass, hooky and melodic enough to make any instrumental flash feel like an afterthought. When the melodies don't do that job, the sheer fun factor does. Lost at Last is a cracking album that sizzles with energy even ...

Album Review

Kris Johnson: Jim Crow's Tears

Read "Jim Crow's Tears" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
November 10, 2016

The term Jim Crow, reputedly, has its origins in West Africa, based on a Yoruba folk tale of a crow called Jim, who appeared lazy, yet was clever and lucky. This story was brought to America by the enslaved Africans, who embellished it, and turned it into a song and dance routine to take their minds off of their harsh environment. With the appropriation and popularization of the song “Jump Jim Crow" in 1828 by a white man named Thomas ...

Album Review

Thad Jones: The Magnificent Thad Jones

Read "The Magnificent Thad Jones" reviewed by Greg Simmons

by Greg Simmons
November 10, 2016

It's all about the swing. Featured in the Count Basie Orchestra, one of the hardest swinging bands ever, Thad Jones had more swing in his little toe then most musicians will ever dream of. Even when he slowed the tempo he still swung, and his second date as a leader for Blue Note Records, The Magnificent Thad Jones, swings more at mid-tempo than almost any record I know. The rhythm on this record is a relentless pendulum: It swings left; ...

Album Review

Mara Rosenbloom Trio: Prairie Burn

Read "Prairie Burn" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
November 9, 2016

When thought outpaces action in music, the results are often staid and forgettable. Conversely, when thinking is suppressed in favor of ceaseless activity, the end results are often turbid, shambolic, and largely unlistenable. It's the power struggle between the two, along with the personalities controlling that struggle, that help jazz to expand, evolve, explore, and excite. Count pianist Mara Rosenbloom as one of those singular personalities pushing, probing, and exerting influence on the balance between idea and execution.

Live Review

Teresa Salgueiro at the Bitola World Music Festival

by Nenad Georgievski
November 9, 2016

Teresa Salgueiro Dom na kultura World Music Festival Bitola, Macedonia November 5, 2016 Moving and majestic, Portuguese diva Teresa Salgueiro's performance at the city's annual world music festival transformed the concert hall in Bitola into the most intimate of settings with the international premiere of her newest album O Horizonte. (Lemon, 2016) Salgueiro has a reputation that precedes her since the days with the premiere Portuguese band Madredeus, but she just released ...

Album Review

Synia Carroll: Here’s to You...

Read "Here’s to You..." reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
November 9, 2016

Et in terra. Honesty in music is expressed in its simplicity. The first right thing that vocalist Synia Carroll does on her debut recording, Here's to You... is employ a jazz piano trio, the subatomic format for jazz: piano, bass, and drums. The second thing that Carroll does is fix her art in the earth, something older artists fail to do until later in their career, to their considerable disadvantage as I hear it. Carroll does two things here also. ...

Album Review

Norrbotten Big Band featuring Georg 'Jojje' Wadenius: Jojje Wadenius (70)

Read "Jojje Wadenius (70)" reviewed by Chris Mosey

by Chris Mosey
November 9, 2016

The province of Norrbotten is the furthest north you can go in Sweden. It is a place of granite mountains, their summits capped with snow most of the year and circled by golden eagles. In the valleys the Sami people, wearing colourful folk costumes, herd reindeer and drink coffee laced with salt from wooden cups. It is a somewhat unlikely place to find what might well be the most creative jazz orchestra in the world, the Norrbotten ...

Album Review

Mary Halvorson Octet: Away With You

Read "Away With You" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
November 9, 2016

This debut octet outing led by guitarist Mary Halvorson is packed with an all-star team, featuring alto saxophonist Jon Irabagon, bassist John Hébert and other notables. However, one of the differentiators is the addition of pedal steel guitarist Susan Alcorn, who pushes the envelope above and beyond standard fare, sans the traditional Country music element. As many would anticipate, Halvorson integrates a modicum of surprises into the program that include false endings, shifting cadences, melancholic interludes and manic breakdowns amid ...