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

Doug Webb: Bright Side

Read "Bright Side" reviewed by David A. Orthmann

by David A. Orthmann
October 31, 2016

From one perspective, Doug Webb's Bright Side is basically twelve tracks clothed in very recognizable forms --a few varieties of soul-jazz, a couple of heartfelt ballads, a taut bossa nova, and an array of middling and up tempo straight- ahead swingers. Although the material is thoroughly enjoyable, it's tempting to succumb to a nagging notion that its all been done countless times before, and then simply move on to a record by yet another brave soul planting his/her flag in ...

Album Review

Josh Ison: Perceive React

Read "Perceive React" reviewed by Budd Kopman

by Budd Kopman
October 31, 2016

The road to saxophonist Josh Ison's debut recording Perceive React is a very interesting one of connecting up with and finding players whom one admires, asking them to take part in a recording session, their acceptance, and finally their meeting for the first time and clicking impressively.Ison had been concentrating on finding the core of what it means to be in the moment and ego-less when improvising in a free setting. He happened to hear bassist Henry Grimes ...

Album Review

Christine Jensen: Infinitude

Read "Infinitude" reviewed by Roger Farbey

by Roger Farbey
October 31, 2016

On paper and with this line-up you might be forgiven for regarding this as a new version of the Brecker Brothers with the two West Canadian Ingrid Jensen and Montreal-based sister Christine taking the roles respectively of Randy Brecker and the sorely missed Michael. But this would be a mistake. The Jensens have carved out their own distinct sound and having worked in big band and smaller ensembles with such luminaries as Clark Terry, Maria Schneider and Terri Lyne Carrington, ...

Album Review

Frank Kimbrough: Solstice

Read "Solstice" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
October 30, 2016

Gravitas and weightlessness may seem like odd compeers, but both are ill at ease with one another and beautifully in league in the music of pianist Frank Kimbrough. On Solstice--the latest of many fine trio dates in Kimbrough's discography, and his first release on the Pirouet imprint--Kimbrough does what he does best, conjuring the elements through his piano and capturing the emotional essence of the songs he inhabits. Originals are scarce here--the muted and mutable, blues-coated “Question's The Answer" is ...

Book Review

You're IN the Band - The Real Experience of Playing in a Traditional/Hot Jazz Band

by Nicholas F. Mondello
October 30, 2016

You're IN the Band Cynthia Sayer 128 Pages ISBN: #978-0-578-17971-1 Cynthia Sayer Music 2016 Multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, bandleader and music educator, Cynthia Sayer's name might not be a bell-ringer, however I'd wager that you've probably heard her Hall of Fame banjo (Yes, there is one!) playing on film soundtracks, commercials, pop recordings--or, if you've been a lucky-so-and-so, live. At the request of her students, Sayer has compiled and published her thoughts, ...

Extended Analysis

Ian Hunter: Fingers Crossed

by Doug Collette
October 30, 2016

Assuming his role as chief vocalist for Mott the Hoople, then becoming its main songwriter, Ian Hunter evolved into the figurative voice for the British band as it evolved and reached its apex of commercial and critical acclaim with Mott (Columbia Records, 1973). And as he initiated his solo career, Hunter was able to tailor the persona Hunter created for the band into one equally personal to him as an individual, an approach he maintains on Fingers Crossed, his fifteenth ...

Album Review

Michael Musillami/Rich Syracuse: Of The Night

Read "Of The Night" reviewed by Budd Kopman

by Budd Kopman
October 30, 2016

For some reason, Wayne Shorter is in the air, as evidenced by pianist Denny Zeitlin's wonderful Early Wayne and now guitarist Michael Musillami's duo album with bassist Rich Syracuse, Of The Night. As stated in the earlier review, Shorter tunes, for the most part, are almost immediately recognizable as such without being able to be (accurately) sung. Shorter's melodic, harmonic and rhythmic choices create a Shorter style that is very strong without being easily definable. However, ...

Interview

Nick Brignola: Big Horn, Strong Words

by Rob Rosenblum
October 30, 2016

This article first appeared in Coda Magazine in 1978. With the possible exception of torture, there has never been an art form more maligned than jazz. So, it is inevitable that every once in a while there is an exceptional musician who finds that the financial rewards of being a jazz musician are too small, and its spiritual compensations too infrequent to continue this masochistic pursuit. Case in point--Nick Brignola. If you say “Nick Who?" then ...

Album Review

BassDrumBone: The Long Road

Read "The Long Road" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
October 30, 2016

BassDrumBone has been in the business of making bold, muscular music for forty years, starting their unusual instrumental collaboration in 1977, and releasing their first album, Ohaspe on Auricle Records, in 1979. Trombonist Ray Anderson, bassist Mark Helias and drummer Gerry Hemingway employ a free form, powerhouse approach--there's not much pussyfooting going on with this instrumentation, in these energized hands. And with The Long Road the group has made its expansive and definitive statement, on two discs. And bring in ...

Album Review

Nils Petter Molvær: Buoyancy

Read "Buoyancy" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
October 29, 2016

More than thirty years ago, Norwegian trumpeter Nils Petter Molvær had left his mark as an exceptional improviser with his ECM Records debut on Masquarelo's Bande à Part (1985). Those beginnings--in the company of Nordic jazz legends--led Molvær to an ongoing process of nurturing his musical sensibilities across electronic grooves, club beats, jazz, and more genre-defying styles. Molvær's new quartet offers Buoyancy, a natural progression from 2014's Switch (Okeh). Geir Sundstöl on guitars and banjo and Erland Dahlen ...