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

AGNZ: Chance Meeting

Read "Chance Meeting" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
September 28, 2016

Before proceeding, a word about the name of this admirable quartet: AGNZ (jazz from A to Z?) comprises the first letter in the last names of its four members--guitarist Jay Azzolina, tenor saxophonist Dino Govoni, drummer Adam Nussbaum and bassist Dave Zinno. It further denotes, presumably, a certain level of parity, a selflessness and camaraderie among equals in which the sum of their efforts is always more decisive than its component parts. Chance Meeting, the group's first ...

Album Review

Evan Parker / Alexander Hawkins: Leaps In Leicester

Read "Leaps In Leicester" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
September 28, 2016

Leaps in Leicester furthers a sequence of duets between renowned saxophonist Evan Parker and pianists that already contains such luminous entries as Rex, Wrecks and XXX (Rogue Art, 2013) with Matthew Shipp and Either, Or And (Relative Pitch, 2014) with Sylvie Courvoisier. His partner this time is Alexander Hawkins, a burgeoning presence on the UK scene who fronts his own ensembles and also works with leaders as diverse as Louis Moholo-Moholo and Mulatu Astatke. While it's not their first documented ...

Album Review

Milt Jackson: Sunflower / Goodbye

Read "Sunflower / Goodbye" reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard

by Jakob Baekgaard
September 28, 2016

Even if vibes player Milt Jackson had just played with The Modern Jazz Quartet and not embarked on a solo career, his place in jazz history would be secure. However, Jackson was much more than a vital part of the famous chamber jazz group and he recorded a string of excellent albums, including three sessions as a leader for Creed Taylor's label, CTI. Two of those albums are now conveniently gathered in a single-disc package from British ...

My Blue Note Obsession

Grant Green: The Complete Quartets with Sonny Clark – 1961-62

by Marc Davis
September 27, 2016

Imagine if someone discovered a stash of unreleased Beatles records 15 years after they broke up. Then imagine Apple Records released all that music in a 2-CD set. That's what Grant Green: The Complete Quartets with Sonny Clark is like. I exaggerate, but not by much. Grant Green wasn't the Beatles of jazz. But for about five years in the early-to mid-1960s, he was arguably the best jazz guitarist around. He was in the same class ...

Album Review

Henrik Jensen's Followed By Thirteen: Blackwater

Read "Blackwater" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
September 27, 2016

Blackwater is the second album from London-based Henrik Jensen's Followed By Thirteen. There's one change in personnel from debut album Qualia (Jellymould Jazz, 2013)--Antonio Fusco replacing original drummer Peter Ibbetson--but the instrumentation remains the same. Three years on, the band's increasing experience and maturity as a unit is reflected in the compositions and musicianship displayed here.The band may be based in the UK, but its members are an international bunch. Bassist and leader Jensen is Danish, as is ...

Album Review

Kurt Jarnberg Quintet: Down Memory Lane 2 / Down Memory Lane Vol. 3, The Power Package

Read "Down Memory Lane 2 / Down Memory Lane Vol. 3, The Power Package" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
September 27, 2016

In the late 1960s, trombonist and sometime trumpeter Kurt Jarnberg led a popular jazz quintet in his native Sweden, one that lasted for only a couple of years before disbanding. Jarnberg came back with another small group in the mid-'70s, adding vocalist Ruth Asenlund (Jarnberg) to the mix, disbanded again, then returned to action with yet another group from 1986-89. The first of these bands is represented on the 2-CD set Down Memory Lane 2, the others on Volume 3, ...

Extended Analysis

Tender Heart: Songs Of Tom Giacabetti And Melissa Gilstrap

by Victor L. Schermer
September 27, 2016

The late Tom Giacabetti was a master guitarist based in Philadelphia and Atlantic City. Towards the end of his life, cut short at age 64 by a prolonged illness, he compiled several of his own compositions for some of which lyrics were set by Melissa Gilstrap, a Philly lawyer and lover of music, poetry, literature, and the arts, who is currently making a name for herself as a jazz lyricist. (Her words are featured in a self- produced 2013 recording ...

Album Review

I.P.A.: I Just Did Say Something

Read "I Just Did Say Something" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
September 27, 2016

Scandinavians have made an indelible mark on the progressive jazz front for the past several decades. For example, modern era bands such as Atomic and units led by trumpeter Nils Petter Molvær, often present hybrid journeys into free jazz or nu-bop, Avant jazz rock and other shrewdly devised cross-functional endeavors. Since 2007, Norwegian-based I.P.A. has been a major exponent of the fertile Euro jazz scene. Influenced by trumpeter Don Cherry and his lineage to Ornette Coleman's legacy, this unit ups ...

Album Review

Wadada Leo Smith: America's National Parks

Read "America's National Parks" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
September 27, 2016

Trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith has a feel for the epic in his art, on recordings like: America (Tzadik Records, 2009), a duet set with drummer Jack DeJohnette; “America's Third Century Spiritual Awakening," from his first Golden Quartet (Tzadik Records, 2000) outing; Occupy The World (TUM Records, 2013), with the Finish big band, Tumo; The Great Lakes Suite (TUM Records, 2014), and his massive four disc master work, Ten Freedom Summers (Cuneiform Records, 2012), inspired by America's civil rights movement.

Bailey's Bundles

Jazz Quanta Vocals: Carol Bach-y-Rita, Sara Serpa, Alyssa Allgood, Gina Sicilia, Ilse Huizinga

by C. Michael Bailey
September 27, 2016

Carol Bach-y-Rita minha casa / my house Self Produced 2016 Polyglot exotic Carol Bach-y-Rita released her conspicuous debut, What Love Is in 2009. Since then, she has kept busy performing, taking her sweet time in developing her new project, the self-produced Minha Casa / My House. Her selected repertoire bursts with originality and invention, manifesting in orchestration, arrangement, and composition. Regarding orchestration, Bach-y-Rita mixes and matches instruments with a carefree whim that ...