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

Brad Mehldau Trio: Blues and Ballads

Read "Blues and Ballads" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
June 19, 2016

Call Brad Mehldau's Blues and Ballads the pianist's “Every Man Set." There has been, from the beginning of Mehldau's career, a sense of the cerebral in his approach, with its classical music influences and his deep technical virtuosity. Throw the sometimes dense and erudite writing for selected liner notes (mostly earlier in his career) into that mix, and “Too deep for me" might be a reaction of the perennial everyman. Except for the beauty.

Bailey's Bundles

Jazz Quanta June: Sacred Voices Old and New - Harry Christophers, Eamonn Dougan & The Sixteen, Magnificat, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Seraphic Fire

Read "Jazz Quanta June: Sacred Voices Old and New - Harry Christophers, Eamonn Dougan & The Sixteen, Magnificat, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Seraphic Fire" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
June 19, 2016

Sacred Music, that music associated with religion and religious observance, has been a fertile and endless loam of material since as early as 500 A.C.E. The Sixteen, Harry Christophers The Deer's Cry Coro Records2016 The Deer's Cry is part of the Harry Christophers and the Sixteen's 2016 Choral Pilgrimage performance schedule. The disc contains music composed by William Byrd (1543--1623), Thomas Tallis (1505--1585), and Arvo Pärt (b. 1935). The inspired pairing ...

Extended Analysis

Neil Young & The Promise of The Real: Earth

by Doug Collette
June 19, 2016

Ninety-plus minutes of performances recorded live on tour in 2015, then interspersed with sounds of the planet natural (birds and thunder) and manufactured (car traffic and trains), Neil Young's double-CD Earth documents his social concerns and the synergy he's developed with his most recent accompanists, Lukas Nelson and The Promise of the Real. A song selection spanning the rock icon's career, plus one unreleased number (an ode to the weed movement “Seed Justice" was originally and cryptically titled “I Won't ...

Album Review

Chris Cheek: Saturday Songs

Read "Saturday Songs" reviewed by Budd Kopman

by Budd Kopman
June 19, 2016

Sometimes, combining seriousness of intent and high musicianship with pure fun is just the thing one needs, and is exemplified by Saturday Songs from tenor saxophonist Chris Cheek. Cheek does not make a lot records as a leader (see Blues Cruise from 2006), but is on literally scores of albums as a sideman (see Paul Motian's Garden of Eden from 2006 and Chris Lightcap's Epicenter from 2015), or his own discography, which is not completely up to date. ...

Album Review

John Lindberg / Anil Ereslan: Juggling Kukla

Read "Juggling Kukla" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
June 19, 2016

Bassist John Lindberg is best known for his tenure with jazz heavyweights like trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, and saxophonists Roscoe Mitchell and Anthony Braxton. Equally deserving acclaim are his own swinging but adventurous outfits such as the quartet which waxed A Tree Frog Tonality (between the lines, 2000) and The Catbird Sings (Soul Note, 2000). But none of those will prepare listeners for his duet with Turkish cellist Anil Ereslan. Across seven spontaneously created cuts on a limited edition LP, ...

Album Review

Steve Washington: Right to Love

Read "Right to Love" reviewed by Jim Olin

by Jim Olin
June 19, 2016

A gifted vocalist with over three decades of experience dating back to his early years doing theatrical works at Princeton University, Steve Washington has a skillful, soulful way of covering a classic song and invigorating it for a modern audience as he does on his second album, Right to Love. Collaborating with the Thad Wilson Jazz Orchestra, Washington breathes new life to a tasteful selection of standards, all of which are personally and beautifully interpreted. Washington plumbs the ...

Album Review

Oscar Pettiford & Jan Johansson: In Denmark 1959-1960

Read "In Denmark 1959-1960" reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard

by Jakob Baekgaard
June 18, 2016

If anyone should doubt how much it has meant to the Danes that a number of prominent American jazz musicians have lived in Denmark for a shorter or longer time, they just need to walk around the streets of Copenhagen. Here you will find street names such as Ben Webster Street, Ernie Wilkins Street and Kenny Drew Street. Another jazz street is named after bassist Oscar Pettiford. Pettiford, along with Swedish pianist Jan Johansson, is the subject ...

Album Review

Theo Saunders: Jassemblage

Read "Jassemblage" reviewed by Chuck Koton

by Chuck Koton
June 18, 2016

Veteran Manhattan-born pianist, composer and arranger, Theo Saunders, has been a driven artist since his days at the High School For Performing Arts. In the ensuing decades, whether in NYC or California, his devotion to improvisational music has led him to stamp his personal vision on the music he plays, whether composing compelling original music or rearranging standards. Six years ago, after a typically unfettered, emotionally searing performance at one of LA's great jazz hangs, the late Charlie ...

Extended Analysis

Grateful Dead ‎– Dave's Picks Volume 18: Orpheum Theatre, San Francisco 7/17/76

by Doug Collette
June 18, 2016

The Grateful Dead exhibit the positive effects of their self-imposed 1975 hiatus on Dave's Picks Volume 18 and its accompanying bonus disc recorded at the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco. Of course, the quietly relaxed approach to the setlist, and the choices thereon, might well be signaled by the opening of Chuck Berry's “Promised Land"--the band played his material when they already felt REALLY good or were anxiously trying to--and the first set closing of “Johnny B. Goode."

Album Review

Little Charlie and Organ Grinder Swing: Skronky Tonk

Read "Skronky Tonk" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
June 18, 2016

The organist/guitarist combination was popularized by the legendary Jimmy Smith in 1957. Grant Green and Larry Young took it a step further in 1964, but Smith and Wes Montgomery on their 1966 “Dynamic Duo," album, arguably defined the format. Smith also catapulted the jazz organ trio into another dimension, and set the standard for that ensemble configuration; one of the most difficult, as it requires immense technical skills. Little Charlie and Organ Grinder Swing, is comprised of Little Charlie Baty ...