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

Allison Au Quartet: Forest Grove

Read "Forest Grove" reviewed by Dave Wayne

by Dave Wayne
March 26, 2016

The sheer number of great young jazz musicians coming out of every corner of the world is simply staggering. Allison Au is an alto saxophonist from Toronto, Ontario, Canada whose debut album, The Sky Was Pale Blue, Then Grey (Self-Produced, 2014) was nominated for a Juno Award: Canada's equivalent of a Grammy nomination. Her new album, Forest Grove, featuring all-original compositions recorded with the same group, has also been nominated for a Juno in 2016. Think about that for a ...

Album Review

Zlatko Kaućić / Milko Lazar: Ena / One

Read "Ena / One" reviewed by Budd Kopman

by Budd Kopman
March 26, 2016

Pianist/saxophonist Milko Lazar comments on the music presented live on Ena / One: “Music from this album is a result of total improvisation. No words, no rehearsals, no expectations... Just pure communication. As such, it is designed for a creative listener who seeks a path into the unknown." Lazar performs with percussionist Zlatko Kaucic (really Kaučič) at Kulturni dom Nova Gorica in November, 2013 and Stara mestna elektrarna Ljubljana in March, 2014 before very receptive audiences.

Multiple Reviews

John David Souther: Black Rose and Home By Dawn

by Doug Collette
March 26, 2016

John David Souther was an outlaw among outlaws in the Seventies clique of self-styled desperadoes of Los Angeles-based country rock. A frequent collaborator with, but never actually a member of, the Eagles, he readily admits, in one set of liner notes author Scott Schinder wisely devotes to the artist's own verbiage, that his iconoclastic nature didn't lend itself to ongoing group projects such as the admittedly contrived group David Geffen(founder of the Asylum Records label on which these solo titles ...

Album Review

Jane Monheit: Songbook Sessions: Ella Fitzgerald

Read "Songbook Sessions: Ella Fitzgerald" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
March 26, 2016

Jazz, like any art, is a rich loam of inspiration and direction. A given contemporary artist has many options for smartly programmed recordings centered on paying tribute. It may be homage to a repertoire, a selected composer, or a particular peer within their own musical neighborhood. Cassandra Wilson's recent Coming Forth By Day (Sony Legacy, 2015) is only one of the most recent such recording addressing the music of Billie Holiday. Holiday has been the focus of many homage recordings. ...

Live Review

Vocalist Sinne Eeg at Chris’ Jazz Cafe

by Victor L. Schermer
March 25, 2016

Sinne Eeg Trio Chris' Jazz Cafe Philadelphia, PA March 23, 2016 Sincerity, authenticity, and fidelity to tradition are qualities seriously lacking in what's left of jazz in America today. Computers, unbridled capitalistic exploitation, and a massive field of competing talent have led too many musicians to seek audiences through entertainment, egotism, mindless displays of virtuosity, and clever uses of ideas rather than straightforward self-expression of emotions and meaningful musical statements. Sadly, this is more ...

Album Review

Ehud Asherie: Shuffle Along

Read "Shuffle Along" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
March 25, 2016

Israeli-born pianist Ehud Asherie delves deep into a quintessentially American Music on Shuffle Along. The score for the 1921 Broadway musical--tunes that were crafted before the beginning of a true “Popular" recording industry--was groundbreaking. Written by Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle, Shuffle Along, with an all-black cast, was the first Broadway production that treated African Americans a serious characters, as something other than caricatures. Asherie draws on his knowledge of ragtime, stride, bebop and modern jazz to to ...

Album Review

Turbulence: Vortex Generation Mechanisms

Read "Vortex Generation Mechanisms" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
March 25, 2016

In several of his Evil Clown groups such as String Theory, New Language Collaborative, Metal Chaos Ensemble and Leap of Faith, David Peck (aka PEK) employs enough instrumentation to supply a marching band (though they would be an odd lot for sure). On his Turbulence project, Vortex Generation Mechanisms, he leaves much of that unconventional battery in the boot. Which is not to say that there is any shortage of musical tools in the mix.Turbulence--like many of the ...

Album Review

Mike Sopko - Simon Lott: The Golden Measure

Read "The Golden Measure" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
March 25, 2016

Cleveland, OH., reared guitarist Mike Sopko (Glimpse Trio, Birth) follows up his alliance with producer, bassist Bill Laswell and drummer Thomas Pridgen on the 2015 self-titled outing with this 2016 bass-less duo project, flanked by drummer Simon Lott (Charlie Hunter Trio, Todd Sickafoose's Blood Orange). They go for the gusto during these 21 tracks, spanning semi-structured pieces and numerous movements framed on primal improv and unabashed self-determination. The musicians abide by a stout constitution and sustain interest by ...

Live Review

Howard Riley and Keith Tippett at Pizza Express

by Duncan Heining
March 25, 2016

Howard Riley and Keith Tippett Pizza Express London March 9, 2015 It's been a while since two of the world's great improvising pianists played together--twenty-two years to be precise. This fact alone may have brought a goodly and appreciative turn-out to Soho's Pizza Express Jazz Club. If so, Howard Riley and Keith Tippett met all their expectations. delivering a three fine sets--alone and finally together. Tippett opened the event--hints of blues ...

Album Review

Chris Standring: Ten

by Jeff Winbush
March 25, 2016

Eight years have passed since Chris Standring's Love and Paragraphs (Ultimate Vibe, 2008) when he last met expectation as a seasoned, if not splashy smooth jazz guitar slinger. Then Standring had something of a musical epihamy where he became simultaneously restless and ambitious. The result was the lavish Blue Bolero (Ultimate Vibe, 2010), a radical departure for the British born artist where he fused jazz combos with a string section for a distinctive classical feel. Standring followed up ...