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

Ron Stabinsky: Free for One

Read "Free for One" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
May 31, 2016

Pianist Ron Stabinsky, officially became the fourth member of the Mostly Other People Do the Killing with Mauch Chunk (Hot Cup Records, 2015) after having performed with the group live in 2013 and on Blue their recreation of Miles Davis' Kind Of Blue (Columbia, 1959) expertly restoring the Wynton Kelly/Bill Evans parts. The pianist has been part of the Peter Evans Quintet since the 2013 recording Destination Void (Self-produced, 2014). Stabinsky has also worked with Dave Liebman and Tony Marino ...

Album Review

Ellery Eskelin Trio Willisau: Live

by Mark Corroto
May 31, 2016

I considered writing just this sentence as my review of Ellery Eskelin's trio recording Live, “A thing of beauty is a joy forever." Taken from poet John Keats' 1818 poem “Endymion," the line just about says it all. Ok, to appease those that need a bit more information, Keats continues, “its loveliness increases / it will never pass into nothingness / but still will keep a bower quiet for us." The bower being a shady place to rest ...

Album Review

Masabumi Kikuchi: Black Orpheus

Read "Black Orpheus" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
May 30, 2016

Black Orpheus, the solo piano CD from Japanese-born pianist Masabumi Kikuchi, may be the starkest, loneliest music in the world. Masabumi Kikuchi (1939-2015) was a versatile, if ultimately idiosyncratic artist. Early in his career he worked with a panoply of mainstream music makers, everyone from drummer Elvin Jones, to producer arranger Gil Evans, tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson and pianist/composer Mal Waldron. But he proved--from 1990 on--too individualistic, a musician with no technique (or so he said), who never ...

Album Review

Jane Ira Bloom: Early Americans

Read "Early Americans" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
May 30, 2016

Over a fruitful career versatile soprano saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom has demonstrated a singular artistic voice and a restlessly explorative spirit. Since 2010 she has gone from the free flowing, edgy and electrifying Wingwalker (Outline 2010) to the serene and ethereal Sixteen Sunsets (Outline 2013) and now she presents the earthy and exuberant Early Americans. Her easily recognizable sound and facile virtuosity leave her indelible mark on all these recordings, making them each unique yet simultaneously integral parts of the ...

Album Review

Pia Boda: Chasing Pixies

Read "Chasing Pixies" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
May 30, 2016

The debut solo album of Los Angeles-Born, Danish saxophonist and educator Pia Boda is an evocative attempt to relive old Viking stories about elves and fairies. The symbolic images about a living nature, the chase of the invisible elves and fairies who were supposed to hover in the air, and we can only sense “contours of creatures moving to somewhere," motivated Boda to create her own personal musical universe. Chasing Pixies, features Boda's Copenhagen-based quartet which formed a ...

Extended Analysis

Cuong Vu Trio Meets Pat Metheny

by Dave Wayne
May 30, 2016

A good chunk of the jazz-consuming public first became aware of Cuong Vu's virtuoso trumpet playing via his work with the Pat Metheny Group during the 2000s. For those of us already familiar with Vu's work, the move seemed a bit out-of-character, as the young trumpeter was a prominent player in the hyper-adventurous downtown NYC scene that coalesced around the Knitting Factory. To some, Metheny was a part of the jazz establishment; the very thing that the Knitting Factory scene ...

Live Review

String Theory 2016

by Ian Patterson
May 30, 2016

String Theory 13 North Great Georges Street Dublin, Ireland May 20-21, 2016 String Theory, a two-day celebration of avant-garde guitar craft was no ordinary festival. The fact that the music was experimental, largely improvised and inherently risk-laden isn't what set this inaugural Dublin festival apart, after all it's what we've come to expect from co-promoters Improvised Music Company, Note Productions and festival curators Bottlenote Music--a collective of renowned local and international musicians.

Album Review

Michael Lauren All Stars: Once Upon A Time In Portugal

Read "Once Upon A Time In Portugal" reviewed by Mark Sullivan

by Mark Sullivan
May 30, 2016

Drummer/educator Michael Lauren moved from New York City in 2003 to become the Professor of Drum Set studies at the Escola Superior de Música, Artes e Espectáculo (ESMAE) in Porto, Portugal. He formed his All Star band with some of Portugal's best jazz musicians to continue performing the hard bop he loves. Almost everyone contributes a tune, along with two period-appropriate covers. The septet stakes out their stylistic territory by opening with “Minor Strain," a Bobby Timmons composition first recorded ...

Live Review

Snarky Puppy at the Ogden Theater

by Geoff Anderson
May 29, 2016

Snarky Puppy Ogden Theater Denver, CO May 24, 2016 The Snarky Puppy website describes the group as a “quasi-collective." Indeed, an organization that numbers perhaps as many as three dozen doesn't really fit the traditional definition of a “band." Thirty six members? That almost sounds like an orchestra. Well, they don't all play together at the same time. It's more like a rotating cast of characters (or musicians). Their latest album, Culcha Vulcha (Ground Up ...

Album Review

Rez Abbasi & Junction: Behind the Vibration

Read "Behind the Vibration" reviewed by Mark F. Turner

by Mark F. Turner
May 29, 2016

With a unique touch and distinct abilities, guitarist Rez Abbasi has produced some captivating recordings that have combined modern jazz and Pakistani/American in forward thinking projects like 2015's Intents and Purposes (Enja) with his Acoustic Quartet which put a fresh spin on popular 1970s jazz-rock compositions. Here he presents Junction, a new electric project of original music delivered by like-minded musicians with a lively plugged-in aesthetic--throbbing keyboards and funky yet tricky rhythms that lean heavily toward his early rock influences. ...