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.

Live Review

Festival International de Jazz de Montreal 2016

by John Kelman
July 19, 2016

Festival International de Jazz de Montréal Montréal, Canada July 3-7, 2016 In many ways, the front of one of the festival's new T-Shirt designs said it all: swing blues soul improvisation latin gospel R 'n' B crossroads silence groove world Many festivals once known primarily as jazz festivals have broadened their scope. Whether or not it still gives a festival the right ...

Album Review

Miroslav Vitous: Music of Weather Report

Read "Music of Weather Report" reviewed by Mark Sullivan

by Mark Sullivan
July 19, 2016

Bassist Miroslav Vitous was a founding member of Weather Report, making him one of the architects of the highly improvisational approach taken by the original band. On his earlier album Remembering Weather Report (ECM, 2009) he evoked the spirit of the old band and its collective improvisational style (characterized by keyboardist Joe Zawinul as “No one solos, everyone solos"). This time he works directly with Weather Report repertoire (plus a few brief new compositions). Both the instrumentation and the stylistic ...

549

Album Review

Beresford Hammond Hume: The Lightning Bell

Read "The Lightning Bell" reviewed by John Eyles

by John Eyles
July 19, 2016

The Lightning Bell is the second release on the label co-founded by Charlie Beresford and Canadian photographer Gaëna Da Sylva, The 52nd. Those familiar with Beresford's previous work will find that this album builds on it and explores new territory. The label's inaugural release, The Science of Snow, featured the duo Beresford Hammond which paired Beresford's acoustic guitar and piano with the classically-trained cellist Sonia Hammond, the two improvising in an engagingly relaxed manner. For this follow-up album, that duo ...

Album Review

Paul Van Kemenade Quartet: Checking Out

Read "Checking Out" reviewed by Budd Kopman

by Budd Kopman
July 19, 2016

Saxophonist Paul van Kemenade might just be the least publicly known (at least outside of Europe) jazz musician who has a discography going back to 1979. His latest effort Checking Out, featuring Han Bennink on drums, bassist Ernst Glerum and trombonist Ray Anderson, will hopefully bring him and his music much more notoriety. The same can be said of his bandmates, besides Bennink, who seems to be the connection bringing everyone together (see ABD which finds Bennink and ...

Album Review

Josh White: Josh At Midnight

Read "Josh At Midnight" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
July 19, 2016

The pioneering music of singer/guitarist Josh White is a reflection of American history throughout the 20th century; his songs depicting racial, social, and political situations during his turbulent lifetime. With a career spanning five decades, White hit the road at age eight as a guide for blind blues musicians. In 1928, age fourteen, he signed with Paramount Records, by the 1930's he was a major blues star, and prominent developer of the Piedmont guitar style. Evolving into an outspoken critic ...

Hi-Res Jazz

Miles Davis: In Time, All Changes

by Mark Werlin
July 18, 2016

Considered the most influential small jazz group of the middle 1960s, the Miles Davis “Second Great Quintet" has often been imitated but never equaled. Critical consensus holds that the revival of jazz in the 1980s was inspired by the six albums the Quintet recorded from 1965-1968. But a set of particular cultural and personal dynamics shaped the Quintet's recordings in ways that are unrepeatable. Mobile Fidelity's SACD reissue series of Miles Davis' Columbia LPs shines a spotlight on these rightfully ...

Album Review

Fred Hersch Trio: Sunday Night At The Vanguard

Read "Sunday Night At The Vanguard" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
July 18, 2016

The thing about a Fred Hersch Trio recording, is that it's like a family meal at your favorite restaurant. While the kids want to start with dessert first, you may want them to enjoy the appetizers and settle in for a delicious meal before the sweets. With Hersch's trio, the last course is almost always a Thelonious Monk composition. But we are getting ahead of ourselves. The favorite restaurant here is New York's Village Vanguard, the incomparable club ...

Album Review

The Fred Hersch Trio: Sunday Night At The Vanguard

Read "Sunday Night At The Vanguard" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
July 18, 2016

Reach up to the CD shelf and pull a handful of Fred Hersch CDS down. You'll find that the pianist has a good thing going with the Village Vanguard. Alive At The Vanguard (Palmetto Records, 2012) a stellar two CD set, and terrific solo set, Alone At the Vanguard (Palmetto Records, 2011), are Hersch's most recent recordings from the legendary venue; and now he and his trio offer up Sunday Night At the Vanguard. Hersch says this is ...

My Blue Note Obsession

Horace Silver: Serenade to a Soul Sister - 1968

by Marc Davis
July 18, 2016

Is it possible to love an album for just one song? I think I do. Serenade to a Soul Sister is the happy marriage of jazz's funkiest pianist (Horace Silver) with its most soulful saxman (Stanley Turrentine). Throw in a fabulously underrated trumpeter with a big fat tone (Charles Tolliver) and you've got one of the best soul-jazz classics of the 1960s. Serenade features six original compositions by Silver, and every one is a gem. One, ...

Album Review

Peter Erskine Trio: John Taylor/Palle Danielsson: As it Was

Read "As it Was" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
July 18, 2016

Over the course of five years in the 1990s, drummer Peter Erskine, pianist John Taylor and bassist Palle Danielsson came very close to perfecting the contemporary piano trio presentation. Across four ECM releases, You Never Know (1993), Time Being (1994), As It Is (1996) and Juni (1999), the international group, all with prior ECM history, came together under the uncustomary leadership of a drummer. The body of their work as a collective reflected their individual aspirations toward sharing the complimentary ...