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

Jason Roebke Octet: Cinema Spiral

Read "Cinema Spiral" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
August 31, 2016

If entropy is a scientific theory that describes how all things in nature tend towards a gradual decline and disorder, then Jason Roebke's Octet is the anti-entropy. His second octet release Cinema Spiral and the previous High/Red/Center (Delmark, 2014) make order out of the impression of chaos. Such is the enticement of jazz. It always has been. Ever since Louis Armstrong diverted from the sheet music, great jazz musicians, improvisers, leave the score behind, or use ...

Album Review

Bounce Trio: Contrasts

Read "Contrasts" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
August 30, 2016

At the heart of things, the Bounce Trio's Contrasts is a set of good time organ jazz, coming out of the tradition of Jimmy Smith, Jack McDuff, Dr. Lonnie Smith, three organists who emerged in the 50s and 60s, riding a highly engaging urban soul jazz wave. But in a genre that seems more resistant to change than most, organist Matthieu Marthouret--leader of the Bounce Trio, based in France--has steered the group's sound into modern territory. Joined by ...

Album Review

Francisco Mela & The Crash Trio: Fe

by James Nadal
August 30, 2016

Since departing Cuba to study at Berklee in 2000, drummer Francisco Mela has been on a meteoric trajectory throughout the jazz dominion. In 2005 he joined the Joe Lovano Quartet, and in 2009 the McCoy Tyner Trio, all the while releasing three critically acclaimed albums as leader. Fe is his first venture with The Crash Trio, a dynamic showcase of poly-rhythmic drumming and propulsive modernism. Fe translates into faith, and this is Mela's homage to his late parents, ...

Album Review

Andrew Cyrille & Bill McHenry: Proximity

Read "Proximity" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
August 30, 2016

The story behind this duo setting by legendary drummer Andrew Cyrille and venerable tenor saxophonist Bill McHenry was initiated by Max Koslow who routinely attends New York City's fabled Village Vanguard venue on Thursday evenings. After hearing the twosome perform, he proposed they record a set in the studio for his nascent Brain Schism Productions. Indeed, the artists' synergy comes into full swing from the onset for a production that clocks in at 38-minutes. McHenry's full-bodied tenor sound ...

Album Review

Erica Bramham: Twelve Moons

Read "Twelve Moons" reviewed by Phil Barnes

by Phil Barnes
August 30, 2016

A song cycle that uses the months of the Czech/Slavic calendar as a compositional starting point is not the sort of subject matter we usually see from modern jazz singer-songwriters. Yet on this marvelous debut album Erica Bramham has used that unlikely theme as a starting point for her poetic lyrics, giving the collection a satisfying coherence. It doesn't hurt that the passing of the seasons is a classic metaphor for the themes of birth/death/renewal, used here in the context ...

Talking 2 Musicians

Barbara Dennerlein

by Alan Bryson
August 30, 2016

Music is wondrously implausible, an invisible art form that is arguably best appreciated with your eyes shut. Yet it is equally true that live music, like great sporting events, has the capacity to trigger powerful emotional responses, focus people on the present, and unite a disparate crowd around a shared experience happening on stage. Each approach has its own charm, and occasionally you can shut your eyes during a concert to have the best of both worlds. Showmanship ...

Jazz Raconteurs

David Weiss: Memories of Freddie Hubbard

by David Weiss
August 29, 2016

Noted trumpeter, composer, and New Jazz Composers Octet founder, David Weiss shares several stories about his experience with trumpet legend Freddie Hubbard. As told to David Kaufman. I met Freddie Hubbard soon after he damaged his lip. I guess what basically happened was he had a blister on his lip that popped and got infected. His doctor thought it might be cancer or something related so they did a biopsy. It came back negative and he thought he ...

Album Review

John McLaughlin & Paco de Lucia: Paco and John - Live at Montreux 1987

Read "Paco and John - Live at Montreux 1987" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
August 29, 2016

It's truly a shame that, all too often, artists with diverse careers become pigeon-holed, defined by the primary genre in which they first achieved notoriety. Take guitarist John McLaughlin, for instance. Ask most jazz fans about him and what will first come out of most of their mouths will include either the words “fusion," “jazz-rock" and/or Miles Davis, in any permutation/combination (not that there's anything wrong with that). Those a little further in the know might also be aware of ...

Album Review

Seamus Blake / Chris Cheek: Let's Call the Whole Thing Off

Read "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
August 29, 2016

Friends and musical collaborators for more than two decades, New York tenor saxophonists Seamus Blake and Chris Cheek have been leaders, sidemen and big band soloist throughout their distinguished careers and seem to cherish their roles as co-leaders on joint projects such as their critically-acclaimed Reeds Ramble (Criss Cross Jazz, 2014). Let's Call the Whole Thing Off is their follow up album bringing together the same quintet they call Reeds Ramble which include pianist Ethan Iverson, bassist Matt Penman and ...

Album Review

Bobby Bradford/Hafez Modirzadeh/Mark Dresser/Alex Cline: Live At The Open Gate

Read "Live At The Open Gate" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
August 29, 2016

Veteran cornetist Bobby Bradford's penchant for conversational give and take in tandem with another horn is much in evidence on this 2013 live date from The Center for the Arts in Los Angeles. And in alto saxophonist Hafez Modirzadeh, a Professor of Creative/World Music at San Francisco State University, he has found a foil who at times recalls his erstwhile employer Ornette Coleman in his insouciant garrulousness and even evokes his elemental country blues wail. Vastly experienced bassist Mark Dresser ...