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

Thomas Johansson/Øyvind Storesund/Paal Nilssen-Love: Revolution Before Lunch

Read "Revolution Before Lunch" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
June 2, 2016

There is probably no way to avoid the parochial mindset of the American jazz listener. Take the release Revolution Before Lunch by the Scandinavian trio of Thomas Johansson, Øyvind Storesund, and Paal Nilssen-Love. You might listen to a few notes of Johansson's trumpet as “Close As Hail" opens the affair and think, oh yeah, it's Magnus Broo performing. Well, no, Broo is Swedish and Johansson--Norwegian. Mistaking a Norwegian for a Swede is just about as wrong as assuming a New ...

Multiple Reviews

Nate Wooley Makes America Great Again

by Mark Corroto
June 1, 2016

In his excellent book of literary and cultural criticism, The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness, Kevin Young describes the term Jazz as both a noun and a verb. He further explains that jazz from the time of its origins through, let's say the 1980s, was a word used to describe action. Such as the actions and creations of Armstrong, Ellington, Davis, and Coltrane. But when it ceased its movement it became a noun, or a word to identify ...

Album Review

Nikki Yeoh: Solo Gemini

Read "Solo Gemini" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
June 1, 2016

Pianist and composer Nikki Yeoh makes her solo debut with Solo Gemini. The title encapsulates the performer and the performance--a solo piano recording by musician with the star-sign of the Heavenly Twins. Yeoh shares a birthday with Bob Dylan, but her musical style is far removed from that particular troubadour. Solo Gemini encompasses music written over a 25 year period (during which time Yeoh has, among other activities, played with Neneh Cherry and Courtney Pine and composed for ...

Album Review

Pat Martino: Nexus

Read "Nexus" reviewed by Victor L. Schermer

by Victor L. Schermer
June 1, 2016

This CD is not only a fine addition to the Pat Martino catalogue, it is also of historical importance with respect to his personal and musical development. Recorded at the well-known eclectic nightclub the Tin Angel in Philadelphia in the mid-nineties (the exact date is not given and probably unknown), it is a duet set (or selections from multiple sets) featuring Martino with pianist Jim Ridl, a giant creative force in his own right, who for about ten years worked ...

Album Review

Sun Ra & His Astro-Ihnfinity Arkestra: The Intergalactic Thing

Read "The Intergalactic Thing" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
June 1, 2016

If you are a Sun Ra devotee, let's not use the terms “fanatic" or “zealot," you probably measure your collection in board feet instead of inches. Unlike many jazz legends of the 1950s, and 1960s, Herman Sonny Blount had the foresight to record his ensemble's rehearsals and concerts. He even established his own label El Saturn Records in 1957. Yes, nineteen-fifty-seven, when other jazz giants were bound to onerous contracts with major labels, Ra was producing what we now have ...

Album Review

Four Letter Words: Blow

by Budd Kopman
June 1, 2016

Four Letter Words is a trio consisting of tenor saxophonist Jake Wark, pianist Matt Piet and drummer Bill Harris, and Blow is their highly intelligent, extremely intense and deeply rewarding debut recording. As usual, labels are almost useless. Their music manages to sound quite free while simultaneously being organized around motifs, if not full melodies. Aural imagery is strongly projected, with each track exploring a particular area of emotional complexity as well as creating an almost concrete listening ...

Live Review

Jazzkaar 2016

by Martin Longley
May 31, 2016

Jazzkaar Tallinn, Estonia April 22-May 1, 2016 The Jazzkaar festival has been an annual event in Tallinn, Estonia, since 1990, when Soviet dominance was crumbling. Its roots lie in the original 1966 and '67 jazz festivals, before these were banned by those Russian occupiers. Surely the presence of honorary hippie Charles Lloyd, on a ground-breaking Eastern Bloc tour might have been a factor? Jazzkaar's artistic director Anne Erm was involved in those first two ...

Multiple Reviews

Miles Ahead Soundtrack / Live in Tokyo 1975

by Geno Thackara
May 31, 2016

Miles Davis / Various Artists Miles Ahead (motion picture soundtrack) Sony Legacy 2016 It's hard to imagine why the world would ever need yet another Miles Davis compilation. We're talking about a catalogue big enough to fill its own library and eclectic enough to give you whiplash for the ears if you skim through it too fast. If you start comparing albums even a year or two apart, you're often looking at completely ...

Album Review

Samo Salamon & Stefano Battaglia: windS

by Mark Sullivan
May 31, 2016

Slovenian guitarist Samo Salamon and Italian pianist Stefano Battaglia are not an obvious pairing for a duet recording. Salamon's discography features his own compositions, frequently with an electric, fusion edge; classical/jazz pianist Battaglia's most well known recordings for ECM are in an impressionistic style. There are two Salamon compositions here, but the bulk of the program is made up of impromptu performances by the duo, emphasizing the more abstract playing that is sometimes part of their styles. “Rain Forest" opens ...

Album Review

Miramar: Dedication To Sylvia Rexach

Read "Dedication To Sylvia Rexach" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
May 31, 2016

The modern Latin-American bolero (romantic ballad) of Spanish heritage, originated from the Cuban trova. Mexico influenced the genre with numerous prolific trios recording boleros, gaining an international audience. Its popularity spread with the development of cinema and phonograph records, reaching a zenith between the 1930's and 1960's. Puerto Rico was not immune to this musical phenomenon, and during the 1950's, Sylvia Rexach became the island's prominent interpreter of boleros. Though dying in 1961 at age 39, she has garnered an ...