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.

In The Biz

Hiring a Publicist: Is It Worth It?

by Kathy Sanborn
August 25, 2016

"Without promotion, something terrible happens... nothing!" --P. T. Barnum Jazz artists strive to make the best albums possible, choosing the best songs, selecting other musicians to interpret those songs, and recording the pieces with artistic and technical skill. When their masterpieces are complete, it does not all end there. The artist or band must reach out to the public, and there are as many ways to do that as there are stars in the sky, it seems. ...

Album Review

Jimmy O'Connell Sixtet: Arrhythmia

Read "Arrhythmia" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
August 25, 2016

Trombonist Jimmy O'Connell has been slowly and steadily climbing the ladder of jazz success since leaving his Detroit home and arriving in New York in 2009. Over the course of his seven years in the Big Apple, O'Connell has had the opportunity to work with leading lights like trumpeter Randy Brecker and saxophonist Paquito D'Rivera, contribute to burgeoning large groups like The Revive Big Band and The Steve Feifke Big Band, and make his mark with his own Jimmy O'Connell ...

Album Review

Naked: Nakedonia

Read "Nakedonia" reviewed by Nenad Georgievski

by Nenad Georgievski
August 25, 2016

There are bands that inhabit different territories at once where they don't belong to one genre but to many. A band like Naked can seem notorius for daring to ignore boundaries between genres and as such it can't really be pigeonholed as jazz. As a matter of fact, the band can describe itself in the same manner as the band Get The Blessing describes its music --"jazz, not jazz" as they are floating in a sea of melodies and grooves. ...

Album Review

SLM Ensemble: Source

Read "Source" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
August 25, 2016

SLM is an acronym for Source Liminal Music as well as a tri-consonantal root of of the Hebrew and Arabic words for peace, shalom and salam. It is also the name of a composition of master double bassist Mark Dresser and composer-conductor Sarah Weaver, written for the “Deep Tones for Peace" event in April 2009, a concert of 13 innovative double bass players, performing live simultaneously in Jerusalem, Israel and New York (captured on the CD/DVD Deep Tones for Peace: ...

Album Review

Ted Nash Big Band: Presidential Suite (Eight Variations on Freedom)

Read "Presidential Suite (Eight Variations on Freedom)" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
August 25, 2016

As we live through the most contentious and divisive political cycle in US history, the Ted Nash Big Band Presidential Suite: Eight Variations On Freedom couldn't be more relevant. The significance hits home quickly and pointedly as former Connecticut State Senator Joe Lieberman follows the opening “Overture" with words of JFK that say, in part: ..."civility is not a weakness...." Nash is well known for his role in Wynton Marsalis' Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, an association that ...

Anatomy of a Standard

"Here's That Rainy Day" by Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke

by Tish Oney
August 24, 2016

I am honored to be authoring a new column for All About Jazz revolving around the question, “What makes a song a standard?." Surely there are as many answers to that rhetorical question as there are scholars having opinions about it. My charge, as I accept it, is to provide some analysis of chords, melody, lyrics and overall gestalt of recognized jazz standards. Over time, my deconstruction of these songs will hopefully lead to a greater understanding of some timeless ...

Album Review

Steven Kirby: Illuminations

Read "Illuminations" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
August 24, 2016

Illuminations--guitarist Steven Kirby's third album, following Point Of Balance (Challenge Records, 1998) and North Lights (Challenge Records, 2003)--is both true to previous form and highly expansive. Kirby uses elements of the sonic palette(s) that helped to color his earlier work, referencing the probing lyricism of John Abercrombie and the straight-to-the-heart melodic qualities shot through in classic recordings from Pat Metheny with Lyle Mays, but he doesn't simply extend on what's come before. In the thirteen years since Kirby's last album, ...

Album Review

Karl Van Deun & Ruben Machtelinckx: Shapes

Read "Shapes" reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard

by Jakob Baekgaard
August 24, 2016

In spite of his young age, Belgian guitarist Ruben Machtelinckx has already traversed a wide spectrum of musical expressions, and yet, while the textures are different, his records share a certain lyrical sensibility and the quality of dwelling in the moment. On Shapes, Machtelinckx joins his former teacher Karl Van Deun to play an exquisite program of acoustic music, mostly penned by Van Deun. The opener is simply called “The Guitar" and is almost ...

Rediscovery

Mark Isham: Blue Sun

by John Kelman
August 24, 2016

Mark IshamBlue SunColumbia Records1995 Better-known, perhaps, for his work in the film arena as scorer for movies including 1986's The Hitcher, the 1992 reboot of Of Mice and Men and 1998's Blade, Mark Isham has, nevertheless, demonstrated his instrumental prowess as a trumpeter on albums including pianist Art Lande's Rubisa Patrol (ECM, 1976), singer/songwriter Van Morrison's Beautiful Vision (Warner Bros., 1982), David Sylvian's Brilliant Trees (Virgin, 1984), David Torn's Cloud About Mercury (ECM, 1987) and ...

Album Review

Leila Bordreuil & Michael Foster: The Caustic Ballads

Read "The Caustic Ballads" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
August 24, 2016

Brooklyn based Cellist Leila Bordreuil and saxophonist Michael Foster explore the emotional boundaries of tonality on the otherworldly and daring Caustic Ballads. The thirteen improvised duets, with their disturbing and poetic titles are abstract in their conception, intimately delivered and deeply visceral in their impact.The hypnotic “Into the Peristyle of Love's Temple" for example conjures images of cavernous spaces with its ethereal and solemn opening. Bordreuil and Foster echo each other's prayer like phrases that transform into anguished ...