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.

Live Review

Sari Kessler: Live At The Kitano

by Tyran Grillo
May 10, 2016

Sari Kessler The Kitano New York May 5, 2016 On May 5, 2016, Sari Kessler led a multitalented ensemble at the Kitano in celebration of her first album, Do Right. Yet from the way the New York-based singer carried herself, one would've thought it was her fifth. Slowly but surely, Kessler has been carving a name into the pantheon of great jazz vocalists, from whom she has gathered apparent inspiration. And if her debut project ...

Album Review

Martin Perret's L'Anderer: Don't Try You Are

Read "Don't Try You Are" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
May 10, 2016

The moody and mystical Don't Try You Are is a concept album--"the musical investigation of the murder of a mysterious man in an indefinite country just after a war." The music--written by drummer Perret--is high on atmosphere and mystery, often dark and sometimes unsettling. It's not an album to encourage an outbreak of dancing, but it is a striking and highly impressive debut release. Perret is a busy player in a range of ensembles--including the Hellmuller Trio, Objectif ...

Album Review

Eleonore Oppenheim: Home

by Karl Ackermann
May 10, 2016

The high-concept and experimental nature of Home builds in a level of musicality that shines through peripheral effects. A big part of the charm in bassist Eleonore Oppenheim's solo debut lies in the variety of ways she uses her core instrument to interact with electronics, noises and vocal components. The Julliard alumni has worked with a wide array of artists including the Philip Glass Ensemble, Norah Jones, Meredith Monk and Steve Reich. Oppenheim also performs and records with a group ...

Album Review

Terrie Odabi: My Blue Soul

Read "My Blue Soul" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
May 10, 2016

Blues singers have always been scarce, maybe that's why they are so special. It requires real-life experience, intense commitment and a profound sense of emotion to interpret this music, which represents so much for so many. After paying dues in her hometown of Oakland, blues singer Terrie Odabi finally steps into the national spotlight and tells her story on My Blue Soul. Backed by some of the Bay Area's finest players, and with Kid Anderson handling production duties, this record ...

Album Review

Lyle Mays Quartet: The Ludwigsburg Concert

Read "The Ludwigsburg Concert" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki

by Chris M. Slawecki
May 10, 2016

Intentionally or not, keyboardist Lyle Mays seems to maintain a public profile that's lower than low. His most famous engagement is his tenure in a group named for someone else (The Pat Metheny Group), and The Ludwigsburg Concert is only his sixth solo release since his eponymous solo debut for Warner Bros. Jazz in 1985, and his first since Solo: Improvisations for Extended Piano for Warner Bros. in 2000. (Mays does appear in the Metheny Group for The Way Up ...

My Blue Note Obsession

Cannonball Adderley: Somethin' Else – 1958

by Marc Davis
May 9, 2016

Is there anything new to say about a jazz classic that features one of the greatest two-horn tandems ever to lay down a blue note? How about this: You must own this record. Period. I suspect that everyone with even a passing interest in jazz owns Miles Davis' Kind of Blue, the best-selling jazz record of all time. Well, Somethin' Else is Kind of Blue one year earlier. Same two horns--Davis on trumpet, Cannonball Adderley on alto--supported by ...

Live Review

Aaron Parks Group and Joel Ross at the SOUTH Jazz Kitchen

by Asher Wolf
May 9, 2016

Aaron Parks Group SOUTH Jazz Kitchen Philadelphia, PA May 4, 2016 I apologize in advance if the following descriptions come off as grandiose. But regarding the Aaron Parks Group, anything that doesn't walk the line of hyperbole feels like an undersell. They were one of the most exciting acts I've had the pleasure of witnessing, and I don't mean interesting or hope inspiring, but rather the type of excitement you feel after injecting ...

Album Review

Entourage: Things Are Looking Up

Read "Things Are Looking Up" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
May 9, 2016

Even with interest in the genre waning, most decent-sized cities are home to one or more local jazz groups, which vary in size, membership, temperament and ability. Entourage, formed in 2007, is an Albuquerque, New Mexico-based quintet led by vocalist Emerson Susan Corley whose core group has been enlarged to as many as fifteen for its third recording, Things Are Looking Up. The album embodies a dozen selections, on nine of which Corley sings; the other three are capably overseen ...

Album Review

Darren English: Imagine Nation

Read "Imagine Nation" reviewed by Mark Sullivan

by Mark Sullivan
May 9, 2016

South African trumpeter Darren English (now living in Atlanta) makes an impressive debut on Imagine Nation, a mix of originals and standards. The album's centerpiece is formed by three compositions that are part of a suite paying tribute to freedom fighter Nelson Mandela. The title tune opens the album, an anthemic piece played by English with the core group of pianist Kenny Banks, Jr., bassist Billy Thornton, and drummer Chris Burroughs. English makes an immediate impression, as a composer and ...

Album Review

Cecil Taylor: Live In The Black Forest

Read "Live In The Black Forest" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
May 9, 2016

A retrospective look at the sixty-year career of Cecil Taylor, in progress at the Whitney Museum of American Art, incorporates the museum's unobstructed spaces and impressive views of New York City with multimedia documentation of the great composer/pianist's sixty years of creative invention. That openness is emblematic of Taylor's own absence of artistic boundaries. He has worked with dancers, poets, filmmakers and playwrights all while creating the most innovative avant-garde music that modern jazz has to offer. Throughout his career ...