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

Randy Newman at the Space in Westbury

by Mike Perciaccante
April 16, 2016

Randy Newman The Space in Westbury Westbury, NY April 6, 2016 Satire is defined as the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues. For the modern world, perhaps satire might best be defined simply and eloquently as--a Randy Newman song. The Oscar, Emmy and Grammy winning songwriter and composer, best-known for his 1977 hit ...

Book Review

Drummer Stan Levey Improvised His Life with a Steady Beat

by Victor L. Schermer
April 16, 2016

Stan Levey: Jazz Heavyweight Frank R. Hayde 224 Pages ISBN: # 13-978-1595800862 Santa Monica Press 2016 The word “Heavyweight" in the title of this fast-paced biography of the late great jazz drummer Stan Levey is not just a metaphor for his reputation as a musician. Levey, in addition to having been a revered drummer who helped jump-start the bebop movement, was also a fair to middlin' prize fighter! Growing up in Prohibition ...

Extended Analysis

New Order: Complete Music

by Nenad Georgievski
April 16, 2016

For a band of magnitude and history like New Order's the lines between “indie," “dance" and “mainstream" always get blurred. Somehow the band has always transcended these labels ever since it rose from the rubble of the much-beloved band Joy Division. At the start of the '80s the band grew more inspired and fascinated by popular dance club culture of the moment and successfully blended those experiences into its own idiom. New Order was the first among the big pop/rock ...

Inside AAJ

All About Jazz: The Innovation Game

by Michael Ricci
April 15, 2016

2015 marked All About Jazz's 20th year online. From the humble beginnings as a simple link site to the largest database in jazz media, AAJ has continually improved over the years and through some inspired stretches, has made significant advancements for jazz online. For me personally, operating All About Jazz since its inception has been a rewarding and life changing experience. And though it hasn't been without its dramatic moments, we have always navigated through the rough patches and improved ...

Album Review

Keir Neuringer/Rafal Mazur: Diachronic Paths

Read "Diachronic Paths" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
April 15, 2016

The aptly named release Diachronic Paths by the free improvising duo of Keir Neuringer and Rafal Mazur continues the transformation discourses of their evolving musical language. One that is based on their dialogue of discovery. Keir Neuringer, a Philadelphia-based saxophonist lived in Kraków and The Hague for a time and established a strong relationship with the Polish bassist Rafal Mazur. This recording from 2013, follows The Kraków Letters (For Tune , 2014), Unison Lines (Not Two, 2010), and ...

Album Review

Ralph Peterson: Triangular III

Read "Triangular III" reviewed by C. Andrew Hovan

by C. Andrew Hovan
April 15, 2016

At the age of 53, Ralph Peterson has come full circle in terms of his role in modern jazz. Back in the '80s, he was considered a “young lion" when he debuted with hard bop collective Out of the Blue. These days, he can be considered an accomplished jazz elder, giving back generously to a new generation of up and comers as a dedicated educator. It is in this spirit that he has assembled a new piano trio group with ...

Album Review

Aaron Irwin Quartet: A Room Forever

Read "A Room Forever" reviewed by Budd Kopman

by Budd Kopman
April 15, 2016

Reedman Aaron Irwin is a very ambitious composer and on his latest, A Room Forever, shows how to plumb emotional depths with subtlety and grace. The inspiration for this music is the short stories by Breece Dexter John Pancake, sometimes written Breece D'J Pancake, the spelling of which comes from a typo in the Atlantic Magazine. Pancake lived to be only twenty- six and died by his own hand; his stories focus on his native West ...

Album Review

Various Artists: Hungarian Noir

Read "Hungarian Noir" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
April 15, 2016

When Billie Holiday released “Gloomy Sunday," in 1941, accompanied by the Teddy Wilson Orchestra, no one could possibly imagine the back story and consequent repercussions associated with this song. Originally composed by Hungarian Reszo Seress in 1933 as “Szomorú Vasárnap," it was quickly rewritten with lyrics by poet Laslo Javor, and recorded by Pál Kalmár in 1934, becoming the infamous “Hungarian Suicide Song," among the populace. It has been imputed for the countless suicides connected with it, and considered a ...

Extended Analysis

Continuum

by John Kelman
April 15, 2016

Few musicians have continued to hone a concept as singularly unique and instantly recognizable, irrespective of context, as that being explored by Swiss pianist Nik Bärtsch since he first formed Mobile with Don Li, Kaspar Rast and Mats Eser in 1997. First emerging on record in 2001 with Ritual Groove Music (Self-Released, reissued Ronin Rhythm, 2006), Bärtsch has evolved three very different contexts with which to explore the confluence of trance-inducing minimalist elements with rigorous, ritualistic compositional constructs, a deep ...

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Genius Guide to Jazz

How to Listen to Jazz

by Jeff Fitzgerald, Genius
April 15, 2016

After surviving a near-fatal marriage and returning once again to the Original Geniusdome, the site of some of my best work (remember that really funny thing I wrote about jazz that time?), I recently took some time to reflect upon my contributions to Our Music. As the Dean of American Jazz Humorists©®, I have long considered it my responsibility both to demystify some of the more esoteric aspects of jazz and to loosen the death grip of the zealot so ...