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

Ed Cherry: Soul Tree

Read "Soul Tree" reviewed by C. Andrew Hovan

by C. Andrew Hovan
April 10, 2016

If there were a reward given for the most consistently underappreciated guitarist with the longest staying power, it would have to go to Ed Cherry. Most known for his fifteen-year stint with Dizzy Gillespie back in the '80s and '90s, Cherry has been constantly active, but criminally undocumented as a leader throughout most of his career. Soul Tree is only his fifth album under his own name, but let's hope that Cherry has found a home with Posi-Tone that will ...

Album Review

GoGo Penguin: Man Made Object

Read "Man Made Object" reviewed by Geno Thackara

by Geno Thackara
April 10, 2016

They're not your parents' kind of piano trio. Regardless of your age, they're not the obvious idea of yours either. In a milieu that's based on exploration or at least adaptability, GoGo Penguin is still more restless and exploratory than most; this UK outfit's brew of what they call “acoustic electronica" owes a debt to Brian Eno or the Orb as much as Bill Evans. The grooves can be based in the digital world's traditions of house, drum-and-bass or chill--not ...

Album Review

Hans Luchs: Time Never Pauses

Read "Time Never Pauses" reviewed by Budd Kopman

by Budd Kopman
April 10, 2016

While it does not scream downtown, avant-garde, uber originality, guitarist Hans Luchs debut recording, Time Never Pauses, is far from a vanilla, “jazz as style" offering, and, in fact has much going for it. For one thing, his band, consisting of drummer George Fludas, bassist Clark Sommers, pianist Stu Mindeman and Shaun Johnson on trumpet is extremely tight, precise and, in many spots, smoking. Luchs does not dominate the session, and is part of the rhythm section for ...

What is Jazz?

Jazz Music Is Ecstatic Language

by David Arivett
April 9, 2016

Leonardo DaVinci once said, “Do you know that our souls are composed of music?" Music and religion are intimately linked, and music is one of the most powerful tools to convey religious meaning. As human beings, we have been given the gift of musical language which can help transform us from our humdrum, everyday existence, into something out of the ordinary. Whether music excites or soothes us, it transports us to another place. When we play and listen to music ...

Live Review

Warren Haynes and the Ashes and Dust Band at the Ogden Theater

by Geoff Anderson
April 9, 2016

Warren Haynes and the Ashes and Dust Band Ogden Theater Denver, CO April 1, 2016 Warren Haynes' musical journey continues. Is he on a quest? Certainly he's not looking for a specific “musical identity." The whole point of the journey seems to be covering as much musical territory as possible in a single lifetime. Indeed, it seems the point is the journey, not the end point. Since Haynes first hit the scene ...

Album Review

Bruno Raberg: For The Unknown

Read "For The Unknown" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
April 9, 2016

Bassist Bruno Raberg's artistry sounds as if it would be a good fit for ECM Records. His music has a drifting elasticity; space is an important component; and his muse has introduced him to electronic sound design--an approach that the Swedish-born, and now Boston-based, performer has embraced. Raberg's sound is unique. Over the course of nine CD releases as a leader, beginning with 1992's Pentimento (Boston Skyline) and building up to the release at hand, For The Unknown, ...

Album Review

Per Gärdin/Rodrigo Pinheiro/Marco Franco/Travassos: Oblique Mirrors

Read "Oblique Mirrors" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
April 9, 2016

Listening to the free improvisation recording, Oblique Mirrors brings to mind a most memorable line from the film The Usual Suspects, where Kevin Spacey as Roger “Verbal" Kint says, “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist. And like that, poof. He's gone." Maybe its the evanescent nature of instant composing that evokes the “can't step in the same river twice" maxim, or maybe the sound experience of such a delicate recording ...

Album Review

Ergo: As subtle as tomorrow

Read "As subtle as tomorrow" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
April 9, 2016

The premise for this album is based on a succinct Emily Dickenson poem, As Subtle as Tomorrow with the verse allocated to the individual track titles. Subtle is an adjective that parallels the trio's chief mode of operations. The band's muse is nestled somewhere within an existential progressive jazz format, layered with ambient-electronic treatments and hearty doses of improv. They also interlace minimalist sojourns, partly due to pianist's Sam Harris' harmonically driven ostinato phrasings. Thus, appealing melodies often serve as ...

Album Review

Brad Shepik / Ron Samworth: Quartet 1991

Read "Quartet 1991" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
April 9, 2016

Tony Reif is calling a mulligan here. Some twenty-five years ago, shortly before he founded and launched the Songlines imprint and long before he was known the world over for his work in the production and promotion of creative music, Reif went into a Seattle studio to produce a recording for a quartet fronted by guitarists Brad Shepik and Ron Samworth. It was the first session he ever helmed, and some intriguing music was created and captured in less-than-ideal circumstances. ...

Album Review

Monkbeatz: Ugly Beauty

Read "Ugly Beauty" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
April 9, 2016

Seventy years ago, nobody was playing pianist Thelonious Monk's music, except Monk. One of the originators of bebop, along with Dizzy Gillespie; Charlie Parker, and Bud Powell, he created his own language. As the 1940s turned into the 50s, Monk's music developed its own distinctive parlance. The earliest interpreter of Monk, maybe a better word is exponent, was soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy. Lacy, after a stint in the pianist's ensemble, took it upon himself to spread the Monk ...