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

Terry Vosbein: La Chanson Francaise

Read "La Chanson Francaise" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
May 12, 2016

There's something about the music of France that strikes a romantic chord in almost every heart. Even when writing about anguish, loneliness and ennui, the French have a way of encasing those emotions within beguiling melodies that somehow make the pain seem more endurable. It is this singular blend of gallic romance and sorrow that animates La Chanson Francaise, the newest CD by Virginia-based composer / arranger Terry Vosbein who leads an earnest and well-spoken nonet (also his ally of ...

Album Review

Hanami: The Only Way To Float Free

Read "The Only Way To Float Free" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
May 12, 2016

In 2011, Chicago-based-guitarist Andrew Trim and multi-reedist Mai Sugimoto set their sights on raising funds for victims of the horrific Japanese tsunami with a one-off concert, ultimately leading to the formation of this band. Moreover, the group moniker Hanami, equates to the Japanese custom of experiencing the fleeting beauty of cherry blossoms. With its second release, the quartet rather triumphantly bridges the outside spectrum with memorable melodic content, often paving a path for the musicians' robust improvisational exercises. Thus, it's ...

Album Review

Carter Calvert: It's A Man's World

Read "It's A Man's World" reviewed by Geannine Reid

by Geannine Reid
May 12, 2016

Sophistication, sultry and a powerhouse--though these words are often used in description of jazz vocalists, in this case it is actually true. Carter Calvert spots a six octave voice that is well-rounded, precisely tuned, and can grit and shine with the best of them. Carter is not a newbie by any sense of the word. Calvert has been touring the globe performing to sold-out audiences, garnering critical acclaim for her extraordinary talent. She has performed as a headliner internationally in ...

Live Review

Nik Bartsch's Mobile at The Rubin Museum of Art

by Budd Kopman
May 11, 2016

Nik Bärtsch's Mobile Rubin Museum Of Art New York, NY May 6, 2016 Having seen Nik Bärtsch's Ronin live (albeit eight years ago), listened to Continuum and read the detailed review which notes the differences between the groups, did not lessen the impact of Mobile in concert. The venue was perfect--a small auditorium which held about three hundred, facing a raised stage. There, the Mobile quartet was arranged with Nik ...

Multiple Reviews

Three from Henry Kaiser on Balance Point Acoustics

by John Eyles
May 11, 2016

The Balance Point Acoustics label was set up by double bassist Damon Smith in 2001 to document his own music. In the years since, the label has issued a steady stream of recordings, most featuring Smith. Significantly, the first of the label's releases not to include the bassist was the 2006 Henry Kaiser solo album Domo Arigato Derek-Sensei!, a tribute to Derek Bailey who was recently deceased at the time; Kaiser and Bailey had first recorded together as early as ...

Album Review

Empirical: Connection

Read "Connection" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
May 11, 2016

This is a young and intensely hip quartet who received a MOBO (Music of Black Origin) award in 2010 for Best Jazz Act in the UK, yet Connection is the musicians inaugural effort for USA-based Cuneiform Records. Similarities to the output of fellow countrymen, saxophonist Django Bates and Led Bib may be in order, primarily due to Empirical's creative and energized aspects, along with others who seem to be trumpeting the new era of jazz by generating high-impact, and cleverly ...

Album Review

Steve Kuhn: At This Time...

Read "At This Time..." reviewed by Budd Kopman

by Budd Kopman
May 11, 2016

The wonderful and deeply satisfying At This Time... brings together pianist Steve Kuhn leading a trio comprised of electric bassist Steve Swallow and the ubiquitous (and always smiling drummer) Joey Baron. The immediate impulse for the recording was an extended set by this trio at Birdland, in New York City in 2015. Swallow and Kuhn go back forty years to Kuhn's ECM debut, Trance, with Kuhn knowing Baron for more than twenty years. This trio also recorded Kuhn's ...

Album Review

Alabama Mike: Upset The Status Quo

Read "Upset The Status Quo" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
May 11, 2016

There is a famous song about blessing the child that's got his own. It was written at a time when making it independently was quite an achievement, though it can still be applied to musicians today. Alabama Mike (Michael Benjamin) was a truck driver that by luck and fate, in 1999, became a soul singer who's got the blues. He started his own label Jukehouse Records, in 2009, which has released three acclaimed records. His latest offering, Upset The Status ...

Album Review

Danny Mixon: Pass It On

Read "Pass It On" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki

by Chris M. Slawecki
May 11, 2016

You'd think that a pianist who's solidly served as sideman for such pillars of the jazz community as Charles Mingus, Betty Carter, Kenny Dorham, Grant Green and others (including Afro-Cuban firebrands Pucho & His Latin Soul Brothers), would be at least somewhat famous. But since his first performances in the mid-1970s, pianist Danny Mixon has maintained such a low profile that he's still relatively unknown. Mixon's first release since his self-produced Peace & Music (2008), Pass It On ...

Live Review

Bray Jazz 2016

by Ian Patterson
May 10, 2016

Bray Jazz Various venues Bray, Ireland April 29 -May 1, 2016 With first-rate music festivals mushrooming all over Ireland, Bray Jazz remains a highlight in a crowded calendar. Now in its seventeenth year, Bray Jazz' tried and tested format strikes a pleasing balance musically, with jazz, folk and world musics in the afternoon and evenings catering for the traditionalists and modernists alike. The weekend program, whilst full, is not overly cluttered, and mornings are left ...