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

Yoni Kretzmer / Jason Ajemian / Kevin Shea: Until Your Throat Is Dry

Read "Until Your Throat Is Dry" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
September 29, 2016

Israeli-born, NYC-based tenor saxophonist Yoni Kretzmer convenes a co-operative trio on Until Your Throat Is Dry, released on his own OutNow imprint. Completing the line up are drummer Kevin Shea, best known for his role in the stylistically promiscuous Mostly Other People Do The Killing and the anarchic Talibam!, and bassist Jason Ajemian, from Rob Mazurek's Exploding Star Orchestra and Chicago Underground Trio. Across four collective constructs their modus operandi touches on both free jazz and free improv, shifting organically ...

Album Review

Bobby Rush: Porcupine Meat

Read "Porcupine Meat" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
September 29, 2016

They don't call Bobby Rush the King of the Chitlin' Circuit for nothing. With an extraordinary discography, and legendary status as an enthusiastic live performer, Rush was recognized in 2015 with a fifty year, retrospective box set, titled “Chicken Heads," by Omnivore Recordings. Returning to his home state of Louisiana, and recorded in New Orleans, the octogenarian singer stays true to his southern funky blues style on Porcupine Meat, his debut release for Rounder Records. Rush is also ...

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Live Review

Redwood City Salsa Festival 2016

by Walter Atkins
September 29, 2016

Downtown Redwood City Redwood City Salsa Festival Redwood City, CA September 24, 2016 The 9th annual Redwood City Salsa Festival held at the downtown civic center was packed with families, friends, and salsa music lovers from all over the San Francisco Bay Area. High temperatures approaching 100 degrees at the RCSF were only exceeded by the higher energy levels of the dancers who filled the main Courthouse Square, and the smaller Reggae and Latin Jazz ...

Extended Analysis

Chuck Hammer: Blind On Blind

by Peter Jurew
September 29, 2016

Award-winning composer, guitarist, recording artist and producer Chuck Hammer has been an active influence on the progressive music scene since the mid-1970's, working with Laurie Anderson, David Bowie and Tony Visconti, Nile Rodgers, and Lou Reed, with whose band he recorded and toured globally for several years. An early adopter of the Roland guitar synthesizer, Hammer has been a leading innovator on the edge of the rapidly evolving technology of sound production and engineering. While working with Reed, Hammer was ...

Live Review

Live From Birmingham: Eleanor Friedberger, Hans-Joachim Roedelius, Weaves & Cavern Of Anti-Matter

by Martin Longley
September 29, 2016

Eleanor Friedberger Academy 3 September 6, 2016 She's on tour, all the way from upstate New York (economically hounded out of Brooklyn only recently), and surely slightly disappointed by the meagre turn-out in the Academy's smallest room. How many here? Perhaps somewhere between 20 and 30, but all looking like ardent fans of Eleanor Friedberger, one of rock'n'roll's more individualist talents. Well, perhaps her solo material isn't so determinedly strange, restless and unpredictable as ...

Album Review

Kayle Brecher: This is Life

Read "This is Life" reviewed by Jerome Wilson

by Jerome Wilson
September 29, 2016

Kayle Brecher is in the lineage of jazz singers like Sheila Jordan and Lisa Sokolov who use their voices as a serpentine instrument that slides through and around melodies as deftly as any jazz instrumentalist. On this CD she does her thing on a number of jazz standards, improvisations and original songs. She performs in a variety of instrumental settings. On “Not Alone," “Moon Dreams," and “ African Dream" she works with a simple accompaniment of guitar, bass ...

Anatomy of a Standard

"Prelude to a Kiss" by Duke Ellington

by Tish Oney
September 28, 2016

Last month's initial installment of this column opened with an introduction to the concept of analyzing jazz standards for the purpose of adding to our understanding about the structure and elements of great songs having enduring qualities. I did not feel it required mentioning that a song's final structure and the process of songwriting were completely different viewpoints. One purview implies looking back at a final product of art and the other requires looking ahead at a blank page of ...

Live Review

2016 Hope College Jazz Organ Summit

by C. Andrew Hovan
September 28, 2016

Jazz Organ Summit Hope College Holland, Michigan September 9-10, 2016 Located in Western Michigan along the banks of Lakes Michigan and Macatawa, the small college town of Holland is not the type of place you might imagine for a gathering of musicians, students and jazz organ aficionados. Nonetheless, this quaint spot would serve as host to a very unique two-day event that was the brainchild of organist Tony Monaco. Working with Hope College, a small ...

Live Review

The Billy Hart Quartet at the 21c Museum Hotel

by Joseph Boselovic
September 28, 2016

The Billy Hart Quartet The 21c Museum Hotel Durham, NC September 26, 2016 Nearing the end of their first set at the 21c Museum Hotel in downtown Durham, Billy Hart stepped out from behind his set and looked out into the crowd. When he plays the drums, Hart's face often looks strained and stressed, as if every rush across the toms and intricate series of cymbal play comes from some deep place and must be ...

Album Review

Eric St-Laurent: Planet

by Dan Bilawsky
September 28, 2016

Given the fact that guitarist Eric St-Laurent pulls from many different places and styles in his work, it's tempting to consider him a musical polyglot. The truth, however, is that he really only speaks a single language--his own, which just so happens to be influenced and informed by everything from Afro-Cuban grooves to bebop lines, classical music to rock, and pop to minimalism. All of that and more blends together and/or surfaces in organic form on the short and pleasing ...