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

Alfonso Calvo Septet: Sea Ahead

Read "Sea Ahead" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
July 28, 2016

From the burgeoning and prolific Spanish jazz scene comes another quality production on the progressive Free Code label, based out of Galicia. Continuing this musical momentum is local bassist Alfonso Calvo, who formed a septet to showcase his compositional and leadership skills on Sea Ahead. Calvo was motivated from his recent association with Marcos Pin's “Broken Artist," and expands upon the septet foundation with a sophisticated realization. He recorded in a quartet format in 2014, releasing “No Name," with the ...

Album Review

Eric Bibb: The Happiest Man In The World

Read "The Happiest Man In The World" reviewed by Chris Mosey

by Chris Mosey
July 28, 2016

Like his mentor Taj Mahal, Eric Bibb plays and sings acoustic country blues in praise of the simple things in life. He doesn't go in for flashy solos or what used to be called “the old moody." His career spans five decades and this is 36th album. In “Prison of Time," the best, most heartfelt song on it, he sings: “One day becomes another / So quickly, I'm left behind." His songs are superbly well crafted and ...

Album Review

Sara Gazarek and Josh Nelson: Dream In The Blue

Read "Dream In The Blue" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
July 28, 2016

The success of a story often hinges on the art of the telling. Listen to vocalist Sara Gazarek with pianist Josh Nelson and you immediately see that to be true. These two use ripples of inflection to elicit tidal waves of emotion, uncover new wrinkles in the oldest of thematic fabrics, paint scenes and/or inhabit characters so deeply and convincingly that they blur or erase the lines separating true self from role, and willingly reveal all that this world has ...

In the Studio

Leonieke Scheuble's Journey Into The Art Of Jazz

by David A. Orthmann
July 27, 2016

The setting is a living room in a suburban northern New Jersey home. For the most part, it's filled with things not necessarily available at the furniture outlets that line the local highways. An upright piano takes up most of the wall adjacent to the front door. A harpsichord spans the area between the entrances to the kitchen and the dining room. A comfortable sofa is placed between a Hammond B-3 organ and a Leslie speaker. It is clearly a ...

Album Review

Chris Cain: King of the Blues

Read "King of the Blues" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
July 27, 2016

Presumably, the title of singer / guitarist Chris Cain's new CD, King of the Blues, refers not to Cain himself but to one of his idols, the legendary bluesman B.B. King, who passed away in May 2015. Cain, who was born and raised in San Jose, CA, attended his first B.B. King concert at age three, and among the album's nine tracks are a pair written by King, “Whole Lotta Lovin'" and “So Excited." Cain composed four others to complement ...

Album Review

Myriad3: Moons

by Dave Wayne
July 27, 2016

Myriad3's third release, Moons follows very much in the vein of their first two, Tell (Alma Records, 2012) and The Where (Alma Records, 2014), yet there are subtle differences both in instrumentation and their approach to their material. In short, a lot of growth is evident when one compares Moons to its predecessors. Tell, recorded a scant 2 years after the trio's formation, is essentially a virtuosic acoustic jazz album: three young cats flexing their well-developed chops. The thing that ...

Album Review

Camille-Alban Spreng: Odil - Something

Read "Odil - Something" reviewed by Geno Thackara

by Geno Thackara
July 27, 2016

With an intuitive rhythmic malleability worthy of a drummer, Camille-Alban Spreng is the kind of pianist who enjoys playing fast and loose with meter as much as melody. The compositions on Odil -Something center around motifs that are intricate yet propulsive, which his quartet handily dashes off with easy flair. They can sound like a classic acoustic group or a funky fusion ensemble when the keys turn more electric, and the songs have no problem shifting and adjusting accordingly. These ...

Album Review

Arthur Blythe: Lenox Avenue Breakdown / In The Tradition / Illusions / Blythe Spirit

Read "Lenox Avenue Breakdown / In The Tradition / Illusions / Blythe Spirit" reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard

by Jakob Baekgaard
July 27, 2016

Jazz-reissues are important because they help to write and rewrite jazz-history. Through reissues, the prominence of an artist is maintained and the canon is confirmed, but it can also be questioned and corrected. A double-disc from the excellent reissue label, BGO, brings four key records from leader and alto saxophonist, Arthur Blythe, back into circulation. The records, all released on Columbia, are: Lenox Avenue Breakdown (1979), In The Tradition (1980), Illusions (1980) and Blythe Spirit (1981). The ...

Album Review

Steffen Kuehn: Leap Of Faith

Read "Leap Of Faith" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
July 26, 2016

Leap Of Faith is the fourth album from Grammy-winning trumpeter Steffen Kuehn, but it's the first record to truly represent and showcase every aspect of his artistry. He produced the album, he was involved in the mixing process, he wrote eight of the ten compositions featured within, and his horn playing is central to the success of the music. This is truly Steffen Kuehn in all his glory, taking his talents to new heights and levels of visibility.

Album Review

Doug MacDonald: Just for Fun

Read "Just for Fun" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
July 26, 2016

While there are no household names on guitarist Doug MacDonald's new 2-CD set, Just for Fun (alto saxophonist Lanny Morgan or perhaps drummer Roy McCurdy may come closest), the sidemen he has chosen for a lively concert date billed as a “jazz marathon" are more than likely among the more accomplished jazz musicians you've seldom or never heard. To bolster that appraisal, one need look no farther than tenor Rickey Woodard whose solos are models of perception and coherence, or ...