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.

Building a Jazz Library

Jazz From Around the World: Europe

by Hrayr Attarian
June 29, 2016

Jazz has had a universal appeal since its inception. As soon as the music left its cradle of New Orleans in the early years of the 20th century it quickly spread to all corners of the world. Europeans were among the first non-Americans to embrace the music and place their unique twist on it. Below are 10 classic European jazz recordings. Beginning the list is Mosaic's massive box set of guitarist Django Reinhardt's Swing/HMV sessions. Reinhardt is arguably ...

Jazz Raconteurs

Todd Barkan: Early days of Keystone Korner

by Todd Barkan
June 28, 2016

In the summer of 1972, at the age of 25, I was working by day as a Customs Broker for the venerable San Francisco firm of Hoyt, Shepston & Sciaroni, and by night as a jazz pianist and arranger for an Afro Cuban jazz band called Kwane and the Kwandito's, which played a lot of the repertoire of Mongo Santamaria, Cal Tjader, and Horace Silver five to six nights a week throughout the Bay Area. At the end ...

Album Review

Nate Wooley: Seven Storey Mountain V

Read "Seven Storey Mountain V" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
June 28, 2016

Nate Wooley has a fairly traditional early background having played trumpet in his father's big band as a teenager. His departure from convention was quite radical as he went on to work with the likes of John Zorn, Anthony Braxton, Ken Vandermark and Evan Parker. Wooley is one of an innovative strain of trumpeters who view composing for their instrument as something more holistic to a given environment and period. Wooley's trumpet becomes the vessel of time, shape-shifting, mutating and ...

Album Review

Tobias Meier: Interesting

Read "Interesting" reviewed by John Eyles

by John Eyles
June 28, 2016

Saxophonist Tobias Meier has figured large in the short history of Alex Huber's Wide Ear Records; of the label's nineteen releases to date, Meier has now featured on nine of them--more than Huber himself. Interesting is the second of those nine on which Meier is credited as leader, fitting as he seems to have multi-tasked--composing, playing saxophone and other instruments, editing and producing. The recording is released on 10" vinyl, meaning that the playing time is less than nineteen minutes--maxi-single ...

Album Review

Liquid Trio: Marianne

Read "Marianne" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
June 28, 2016

The free jazz of the Liquid Trio might best be described as quicksilver, a sort of liquified metal. In the context of music making, their ability to move and change shape instantly makes them difficult to contain. Marianne, the follow up to Primer Dia i Última Nit (Sirulita, 2013), is the second album released by this ensemble. The draw here, of course, is pianist Agusti Fernandez, an in demand solo performer. He is also the leader of a ...

Album Review

Michael Jefry Stevens: Brass Tactics

Read "Brass Tactics" reviewed by Budd Kopman

by Budd Kopman
June 28, 2016

Anyone remotely interested “creative improvised music" (aka jazz) that intersects with the Classical aesthetic should take the time to listen closely to pianist Michael Jefry Stevens' latest release Brass Tactics. Stevens is a thinking man's player mostly known for his work in the Fonda/Stevens group (see Folk Five) and Conference Call, (with Gebhard Ullmann) as well leading his own group, for example For The Children. The instrumentation on Brass Tactics stems from Stevens' fascination with brass ...

Multiple Reviews

Montreux Through The Decades: Jazz Recordings, Part One

by Ian Patterson
June 27, 2016

To celebrate Montreux Jazz Festival's 50th edition in 2016, and as a posthumous tribute to the festival's founder, the late Claude Nobs, All About Jazz is launching a new column entitled Montreux Through the Decades, which will periodically present reviews of officially released live recordings from MJF, from its first edition in 1967 to the present. This first batch of multiple reviews features ten jazz recordings spanning the years 1968 to 2012. To coincide with this year's MJF two further ...

Album Review

Bastet: Freedom is a State of Mind

Read "Freedom is a State of Mind" reviewed by Dave Wayne

by Dave Wayne
June 27, 2016

The tough thing to do with a jazz trio of any kind is to make an impression. There are lots of trios out there--economically it's the best configuration if one wants to take home a little cash from the gig--and a lot of them are good. A few are great. Nearly all of them are more-than-competent, but... there's no there there. Not so Bastet, who now seem to be tottering on the ragged edge of greatness, as evidenced by the ...

Album Review

Marc Riordan/Tim Daisy: Joyride

by Mark Corroto
June 27, 2016

Critics often speak of the chemistry between two musicians. Why? Because, it is so very easy to toss out this abstract, non-quantifiable concept. Those who agree, nod. Those who differ, well they have nothing on which to challenge your statement. But here I go, Tim Daisy and Marc Riordan showcase a stellar musical affinity on their duo release Joyride. Chemistry is a key ingredient, no it is the most important piece of the puzzle when artists create an ...

Album Review

Federico Bonifazi: You'll See

Read "You'll See" reviewed by Chris Mosey

by Chris Mosey
June 27, 2016

Federico Bonifazi is a young, unknown Italian pianist/composer who had the wherewithal and common sense to hire Jimmy Cobb as drummer on this, his second album. The name on the cover of the last surviving member of the Miles Davis sextet that made Kind Of Blue can't help but sell records. At the age of 87, Cobb is still a hot property thanks to Kind Of Blue, hailed as the greatest jazz record ever, ...