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

David Linx / Brussels Jazz Orchestra: Brel

by Jack Bowers
March 30, 2016

While David Linx's name may not be writ large here in the States, the fifty-one year-old singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist is a mega-star in his native Belgium, and in 2005 was named Best Jazz Musician in Europe, which covers a whole lot of territory. On Brel, Linx sings music composed by his Belgian forerunner, the late and legendary Jacques Brel, accompanied by the world-class Brussels Jazz Orchestra (whose personnel are not listed on the bare-bones promotional copy save for saxophonist ...

Album Review

John Carter: Echoes From Rudolph's

Read "Echoes From Rudolph's" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
March 30, 2016

Echoes From Rudolph's captures a pivotal moment in clarinetist John Carter's career, when he abandoned his saxophones and began specializing entirely on the woodwind wand. Reissued from 1977, the NoBusiness imprint has supplemented the original LP with a contemporaneous radio broadcast by the same unit. While there is some noise on the first disc as it was transferred from a test pressing, it's not enough to present a problem. The radio broadcast is slightly murkier, with Carter himself suffering the ...

Album Review

Yaga Sunet: A Cut Through The Heart

Read "A Cut Through The Heart" reviewed by Jack Gold-Molina

by Jack Gold-Molina
March 30, 2016

Yaga Sunet are a duo from North Somerset, England, whose music is rooted in traditional English folklore and heavy psychedelia. Featuring vocalist Zoie Green and guitarist Ben Balsom, this album is powerful and moving through to its transcendent final chord. From the opening of the first track “Long Gone," as Green sings, “The sun sets in the mind, can't you feel me sinking, another place, another time," the listener is transported to an earlier age. Balsom accompanying her ...

Album Review

Naima: Bye

by Glenn Astarita
March 30, 2016

This Spanish piano trio's moniker is seemingly derived from John Coltrane's classic ballad “Naima," included on the seminal album Giant Steps (Atlantic, 1960). Nonetheless, they don't abide by conventional mainstream jazz nomenclatures. Even though the artists' engage in jazzy improvisational movements, their core methodology is not about bop or swing, and is more closely aligned with many of the youthful and hip piano trio units such as The Bad Plus, for example. So, there may be some crossover appeal via ...

Album Review

Pram Trio: Saga Thirteen

Read "Saga Thirteen" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
March 29, 2016

To the casual observer, a perambulator--pram, for short--is simply what it appears to be: a baby carriage. But to the pram's inhabitant(s), it's something else entirely. To those wee babies, the carriage is, in fact, a world in motion and a home away from home that serves as a vehicle for travel to new realms. They see prams through a different set of eyes, and that's how the three gentleman in this band must also see them. This music bears ...

Extended Analysis

Vitor Pereira Quintet: New World

by Phil Barnes
March 29, 2016

Vitor Pereira reveals in the sleeve notes that the inspiration for this collection was the fear that our world had reached a tipping point “where an increasingly globalised economic system powered by unscrupulous profit orientated multinational corporations is on the verge of collapse." It's a plea for a new, fairer, world where wealth is not concentrated in the hands of a self-appointed, entitled, elite who dictate societal outcomes without contributing their share through, among other things, taxation. So ...

Album Review

Raul Agraz: Between Brothers

Read "Between Brothers" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
March 29, 2016

Venezuelan-born and classically trained trumpeter Raul Agraz makes an impressive North American debut with Between Brothers, a vibrant album of Latin-oriented jazz whose harmonic and rhythmic quotients are about as strong and steady as one could wish. As is the case in other contexts these days, the term “brothers" is presumably used in a metaphorical sense, as there appear to be no biological brothers among Agraz's ever-changing group of sidemen that includes a guest appearance on the title song by ...

Album Review

Nils Økland: Kjølvatn

Read "Kjølvatn" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
March 29, 2016

The significance of the Hardanger Fiddle--a homespun Norwegian variation of the violin--is that while it is played on four strings, as a similar string instrument would be, it has four or five additional strings under the fingerboard which vibrate during playing. Though its use has been limited in modern music, Nils Økland has not only mastered it, but has expanded its scope across non- traditional folk styles from rock, trance and classical to jazz. On Kjølvatn he plays an assortment ...

Album Review

Alberto Vilas Quartet: Ubuntu

by James Nadal
March 29, 2016

Jazz musicians have always been in tune to external influences and open to worldly perspectives. Spanish pianist Alberto Vilas titled his release Ubuntu, based on the South African philosophy dealing with human kindness and how we become better through interaction with others. In a modern world gone mad, this is certainly a welcome idea, and the music of Alberto Vilas Quartet, is a step in the right direction. Vilas formed his quintet in 2011, releasing “Experianza," followed by ...

Album Review

Theo Ceccaldi: Petite Moutarde

Read "Petite Moutarde" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
March 29, 2016

Violinist Theo Ceccaldi is an in-demand European session artist and a prolific bandleader. He's a skillful improviser, performing for a variety of experimental labels. Yet Petite Moutarde ("Small Mustard") is his debut for the Paris, France based startup, OnJazz Records. Guitarist, composer Olivier Benoit serves as the label's artistic director, and released two superb large ensemble albums in 2015: Europa Paris and Europa Berlin. Otherwise, the black & white CD cover for Petite Moutarde may be viewed as either humorous ...