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

Greg Burk: Clean Spring

Read "Clean Spring" reviewed by Budd Kopman

by Budd Kopman
June 21, 2016

Pianist Greg Burk has built quite a discography as a leader, including solo albums and his latest, Clean Spring will only further burnish his reputation as a deep player and thinker. In a very real sense, this album is a homage to Burk's mentor Paul Bley, who had an obvious impact of Burk's musical attitude and playing, but who also helped Burk pick out the tracks for the album in the months between the actual recording sessions and his death ...

Album Review

Lisa Lindsley: Long After Midnight

Read "Long After Midnight" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
June 21, 2016

San Francisco Bay Area jazz vocalist Lisa Lindsley, unveils her second album Long After Midnight, conceived during a year-long stay in Paris and inspired after nights spent along the Seine commercial waterway and in various Parisian Cafes. Her career change to Europe was not exactly her direct choice but rather, a request from her high school daughter who wished to pursue studies in France providing the singer with an opportunity to experience and partake in the rich musical environment that ...

Album Review

Dave Rempis/Joshua Abrams/Avreeayl Ra + Jim Baker: Perihelion

Read "Perihelion" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
June 21, 2016

These days, it's a luxury to have a working jazz band. It's funny to think in those terms, isn't it? Sure, that was a nice record, you think. But modern musicians, particularly jazz musician often play in multiple ensembles, in theatre productions, teach music lessons privately, and curate local music series. These things are often accomplished after their day jobs. So, yes, it is a luxury to have a working jazz band. Saxophonist Dave Rempis has several working ...

Live Review

Jazz Orchestra of Philadelphia with Pat Martino Trio at the Kimmel Center

by Victor L. Schermer
June 20, 2016

Jazz Orchestra of Philadelphia with Pat Martino Trio Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts A String of Pearls Philadelphia, PA June 18, 2016 The Jazz Orchestra of Philadelphia (JOP) was founded a little over two years ago, under the direction of trumpeter Terell Stafford. Featuring some of the finest Philly musicians, compositions, and trends, it has quickly emerged as a top of the line big band for the city and the region. Their ...

My Blue Note Obsession

Johnny Griffin: The Congregation – 1957

by Marc Davis
June 20, 2016

Well, this is a disappointment. Johnny Griffin is widely regarded as one of the fastest sax players in jazz history. His reputation began with his very first album, Blue Note's Introducing Johnny Griffin in 1956. He solidified his rep the next year with a frantic three-sax attack on A Blowin' Session with John Coltrane and Hank Mobley. So maybe it's not a huge surprise that Griffin wanted to try something different a few months later, in ...

Album Review

Jim Self and the Tricky Lix Latin Jazz Band: Yo!

by Jack Bowers
June 20, 2016

A tuba in a Latin jazz band? Jim Self, what were you thinking? No matter. Whatever you were thinking, the end result is far more agreeable than even you could have imagined. Yo! (sorry, we can't handle the upside down exclamation point) is a generally delightful album by Self's well-bred nonet, due in no small measure to his full-bodied tuba and a series of bright and pleasing charts. The album's subtitle reads “Featuring the Music of Francisco Torres" (who also ...

Album Review

Dawda Jobareth/Stefan Pasborg: Duo

by Karl Ackermann
June 20, 2016

Dawda Jobareth and Stefan Pasborg's Duo is unique on more than one level. A Gambian native, Jobareth is an authentic West African griot. The term--broadly associated with that region's storytellers/oral historians/minstrel artistic class--applies only to authentic griots, though the expression is widely borrowed or misused. Also unusual is the diversity of music that Jobareth has embarked on at this early stage of his career. His debut album, Northern Light, Gambian Night (Sterns Africa, 2011) was a highly acclaimed amalgamation of ...

Album Review

William Bell: This Is Where I Live

Read "This Is Where I Live" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
June 20, 2016

Stax Records was recently revived under the umbrella of the Concord Music Group, in a commendable gesture to acknowledge the southern soul artists on the legendary label. When Stax (formerly Satellite Records) originated in 1961, one of the first artists signed was a young singer/songwriter named William Bell, who hit the charts that same year with “You Don't Miss Your Water." But it would be for his monumental song “Born Under A Bad Sign" co-written by Booker T Jones, and ...

Album Review

Garrison Fewell/Gianni Mimmo: Flawless Dust

Read "Flawless Dust" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
June 20, 2016

With the passing of guitarist Garrison Fewell in the summer of 2015, the jazz world lost an educator, author and an extraordinary talent. Now that we can no longer exchange emails, or receive a music lesson from him, we still can explore his thoughts, via a fascinating book Outside Music, Inside Voices (Saturn University Press, 2014), which explored the link between creative improvised music and spirituality through interviews with musicians. Of course, the best way to know him ...

Live Review

Chuck Loeb & Eric Marienthal at Scullers

by Dave Dorkin
June 19, 2016

Chuck Loeb & Eric Marienthal Scullers Boston, MA June 17, 2016 Guitarist Chuck Loeb and saxophonist Eric Marienthal came into Boston's noted home for jazz, Scullers, co-leading an ensemble which has been quietly making a name for itself at the intersection of fusion, soul-bop and contemporary jazz. Chuck Loeb may be best known for a string of contemporary jazz albums in recent years including with Fourplay, but Loeb was also the guitarist in more burning ...