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

Nick Millevoi: Desertion

Read "Desertion" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
June 11, 2016

Hailing from Philadelphia, guitarist Nick Millevoi possesses a comprehensive music vernacular and has recorded albums with the band Many Arms for John Zorn's Tzadik label amid his collaborations with renowned jazz artists and affiliations with other groups. Indeed, he's an adventure seeker and experimentalist. The guitarist employs top-flight session/solo artists, keyboardist Jamie Saft and drummer Ches Smith to round out a tightknit coalition via a program largely erected on brooding thematic currents. Millevoi's crunching chords, off-center phrasings and ...

Album Review

Abrazo: The Havana Sessions

Read "The Havana Sessions" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
June 11, 2016

It what might be considered a historic occasion, in November of 2015, PARMA producer Bob Lord conceptualized Abrazo: The Havana Sessions; the music of composers Bunny Beck, Roger Bourland, Donald Bowyer, Margaret Brandman, John Carollo, Timothy Miller, and Michael Murray, performed by classical musicians, and chorales of Cuba. In an expansive undertaking encompassing works for big band, jazz combos, choir and chamber ensembles, there was a blurring of genres and distinctions, creating new modes of expression, combinations, and ideas. The ...

Album Review

The Paul Butterfield Blues Band: Got A Mind to Give Up Living: Live 1966

Read "Got A Mind to Give Up Living: Live 1966" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
June 11, 2016

Real Gone Music's release of The Paul Butterfield Blues Band's Live 1966 is a godsend for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it reminds, if that's indeed necessary, of what a vital influence on contemporary blues was (and is) this sextet. Forget for a moment the profundity of an integrated group of musicians bonded together at the time of civil rights upheaval in the United States--that's for sociologists. Better instead to focus instead ...

Book Review

Better Git It In Your Soul: An Interpretive Biography of Charles Mingus

by Ian Patterson
June 10, 2016

Better Git It In Your Soul: An Interpretive Biography Of Charles Mingus Krin Gabbard 296 Pages ISBN: 978-0-520 University California Press 2016 Compared to other historically important jazz figures, few have been the books dedicated to Charles Mingus, which is strange given his enduring influence on modern jazz practitioners. Perhaps Mingus was simply too complex a figure, both as a character and as a prolific composer of wildly inventive music to invite easy ...

Bailey's Bundles

Jazz Quanta June: Todos na família: Antonio Adolfo and Carol Saboya

by C. Michael Bailey
June 10, 2016

The greatest international contribution to American Jazz may well be that from Latin America, generally, and Brazil, specifically. Brazil lends to jazz a rhythmically humid breeze that is, at once, floral, earthy, fecund, and sated. Two contemporary Brazilian gift-givers include the father-daughter forces of nature pianist/composer Antonio Adolfo and his daughter Carol Saboya. There is no greater critical pleasure than considering the two together. Presently, we have that opportunity. Antonio Adolfo Tropical Infinito AAM ...

Album Review

Ivo Perelman: Breaking Point

Read "Breaking Point" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
June 10, 2016

Tenor saxophonist Ivo Perelman usually releases albums in waves. Thus, Breaking Point is one of five concurrent productions issued on UK-based Leo Records, and offers the listener a kaleidoscopic glimpse of various ensemble lineups. Over the years Perelman has attained a comfort zone and noticeable synergy with the artists' performing on this outing, as the saga continues on Breaking Point. Perelman's super-powered lungs are in full force, but his tender side is also evident, especially during his somber ...

Album Review

Steven Davis: The Way You Look Tonight

Read "The Way You Look Tonight" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
June 10, 2016

Los Angeles songwriter and vocalist Steven Davis, finally reveals a non-holiday big band vocals album of his own with the swinging The Way You Look Tonight following in the tradition of great singers like Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Sammy Davis, Jr. and others. This is traditional big band swing with a new voice interpreting the standards we've all heard from icons who have voiced them before. Produced by Josh Charles at the legendary Capitol Records facility in Studio “A," right ...

Album Review

Fahir Atakoglu: Live At Umbria Jazz

Read "Live At Umbria Jazz" reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard

by Jakob Baekgaard
June 10, 2016

It is fascinating how different cultures can merge in music. Turkish-born pianist Fahir Atakoglu's trio is a fine example of a group where influences from around the world meet in original compositions that speak the international language of music. Atakoglu brings his advanced understanding of meter and melody to his compositions and drummer Horacio “El Negro" Hernandez adds a bit of Cuban spice with his rhythms. French-Canadian bassist Alain Caron's creamy electric bass is the final ingredient ...

Album Review

Markus Stockhausen / Florian Weber: Alba

by John Kelman
June 10, 2016

Sixteen years have passed since Markus Stockhausen was last heard on an ECM recording, but the German trumpeter (and son of renowned composer, Karlheinz Stockhausen) has continued to lead a busy life. The core trio behind 2000's exceptional Karta--notable, in addition to guitarist Terje Rypdal's participation as invited guest, for being largely based on one 90-minute collective improvisation, from which seven of its eleven tracks were excised into fully-formed pieces (despite being pulled from the ether)--continued to work together. Joyosa ...

My Blue Note Obsession

Horace Parlan: Up and Down – 1961

by Marc Davis
June 9, 2016

I have a new hero: Pianist Horace Parlan. Until recently, I had heard of Parlan, but never really heard him. I certainly never knew his back story. It's inspirational--and his music is pretty damn good, too. Parlan had a handicap. As a child, he lost some function in his right hand due to polio. Various bios disagree on the extent of the loss. Some say two fingers, others three. Either way, it's the kind of injury that makes ...