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

ETHEL + Robert Mirabal: The River

Read "The River" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
June 16, 2016

The long-running creative music string quartet, ETHEL, shares some common ground with the pioneering Kronos Quartet. Both share an adventurous taste for unconventional projects and unlikely alliances. ETHEL however, pushes their instruments far beyond the norm with electronics, amplification and noise and unlike any other ensemble of their kind they are more than comfortable letting the wrecking ball get disconnected from the chain. They have worked with Joe Jackson, David Byrne, Thomas Dolby, Muhal Richard Abrams and Vijay Iyer among ...

Album Review

Yana Bibb: Afternoon In Paris

Read "Afternoon In Paris" reviewed by Chris Mosey

by Chris Mosey
June 16, 2016

In the beginning: Leon Bibb. Born 1922, he sang at the first ever Newport Folk Festival, was a friend of Paul Robeson and, like him, blacklisted in the McCarthy era for his left-wing sympathies. After fighting segregation in Mississippi in the 1960s, he went to live in Canada. Next came his son, Eric Bibb. Born 1951, he started playing guitar aged seven and was advised by Bob Dylan, no less, “Keep it simple, forget all that fancy ...

Album Review

Mike Price Jazz Quintet: In Tokyo, Japan

Read "In Tokyo, Japan" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
June 16, 2016

Although the name Mike Price may be unfamiliar to you--unless, that is, you happen to live in or near Los Angeles or Tokyo--he has been around the block more than a few times, forging a lengthy and successful career that goes back to his time as lead trumpet for the Buddy Rich band and orchestras led by Stan Kenton, Gerald Wilson and Toshiko Akiyoshi, continuing thereafter as an in-demand sideman for groups of various shapes and sizes and leading more ...

Film Review

Rahsaan Roland Kirk: The Case of the Three Sided Dream

by William Levine
June 15, 2016

Rahsaan Roland Kirk The Case of the Three Sided Dream Monoduo Films 2016 Rahsaan Roland Kirk as the natural successor to Bird and Coltrane? It's certainly a debatable point, and it might overlook the place of Sonny Rollins and Ornette Coleman in the evolution of saxophone playing during the first post-bop generations, but The Case of the Three Sided Dream, a documentary directed by Adam Kahan, makes a tenable case for reassessing the multi-reed ...

Album Review

Dave Douglas: Dark Territory

Read "Dark Territory" reviewed by Mark F. Turner

by Mark F. Turner
June 15, 2016

Dave Douglas's second release with his electronic group High Risk is true to form of the trumpeter's modus operandi to avoid repeating the same thing twice. While Dark Territory is of similar species to 2015's High Risk; it is a completely different animal. Shades of Miles Davis's azure tone permeate the project but there are also a menagerie of hues, shapes and rhythms reminiscent of trumpeter Rob Mazurek's eclectic works. Even with the return of the High ...

Album Review

Sebastian Noelle: Shelter

by Budd Kopman
June 15, 2016

Guitarist Sebastian Noelle is a very busy player, but just does not make many records, which seem to come about every five years: Across The River (2006), Koan (2011) and now the marvelous Shelter. Assembling a first rate band consisting of Marc Mommaas on tenor saxophone (heard most recently on Ballads And Standards), pianist Matt Mitchell (worked with Tim Berne, John Hollenbeck Rudresh Mahanthappa), bassist Matt Clohesy (heard most recently on Gabriel Vicens's Point In Time) and drummer ...

Album Review

Dave Tull: I Just Want to Get Paid!

Read "I Just Want to Get Paid!" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
June 15, 2016

Whoa! Is that a sharp new Dave Frishberg lyric we hear poking fun at the pompous and assailing the absurd? Could it be Bob Dorough, Mose Allison or perhaps Giacomo Gates? No, the often humorous and always perceptive sentiments expressed on I Just Want to Get Paid! are those of Los Angeles- based sideman Dave Tull who actually makes his (apparently precarious) living as a jazz drummer. Based on this obscure gem of an album, recorded almost a decade ago ...

Album Review

Tyler Greenfield: Sunday Bolero

Read "Sunday Bolero" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
June 15, 2016

With the current resurgence in appreciation for Cuba and vinyl records, it is a pleasant occasion to write an article combining both. Pianist Tyler Greenfield's admiration for the Cuban bolero form created Sunday Bolero, a cultural realization produced on pristine 180 gram vinyl, yielding an intimate aural and sentimental experience. Greenfield hails from New Jersey, where he is the founder of Bim Bom Studios. A serious pianist whose minimalist technique is ideal for this setting, he also brought ...

Album Review

Daniel Bennett Group: Sinking Houseboat Confusion

Read "Sinking Houseboat Confusion" reviewed by Mark Sullivan

by Mark Sullivan
June 14, 2016

After a year of extensive touring to support last years' The Mystery at Clown Castle (Manhattan Daylight Media, 2015) the Daniel Bennett Group returns with a fresh eclectic musical blend they describe as Surf Rock + Avant-Pop + Modern Jazz. All that touring seems to have inspired a stripped-down approach, both stylistically and in the instrumentation. This is music for the road, built for speed. As on the previous album, Bennett is joined by Nat Janoff on electric ...

Album Review

Naftule's Dream: Blood

Read "Blood" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
June 14, 2016

Emerging from the ranks of the Boston area's Shirim Klezmer Orchestra, Naftule's Dream began with John Zorn's Tzadik Records when the label was young, offering up on the imprint Search for the Golden Dreydl (1997), Smash, Clap! (1998) and Job (2001). One thing about a large scale klezemer band--it offers up plenty of opportunity for madcap dervish dance shenanigans. Naftule's Blood, a pared down form of the genre--a sextet--loses none of that aspect. Blood embraces klezmer rhythms and ...