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

Luca Sisera Roofer: Prospect

Read "Prospect" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
March 13, 2016

The press release is surely accurate, pertaining to this Swiss ensemble's ability to gracefully fuse conventional modern jazz processes with avant-garde improvisational activities. Led by bassist Luca Sisera, the band's nomenclature includes post-bop, free-form soundscapes, knotty unison choruses and effervescent thematic flows, complete with melodic intervals and some hustle and bustle. Moreover, each piece imparts a distinct storyline, which is an aspect that underscores the entertaining qualities of this invigorating studio date. “ Neptune's Chant" is one of ...

London Calling

Club Inégales: Where Everybody Knows Your Name...

by Duncan Heining
March 13, 2016

If Club Inégales didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent it. What price a venue in the heart of London with a policy as open-minded and eclectic as this? Club Inégales welcomes jazzers and free improvisers, baroque musicians and folk singers, poets and comedians, Japanese and Bengali percussionists and even the occasional passing shaman. The club's very existence is both a statement of intent and a blow against the conventional wisdom of the wider musical and cultural scenes--musique sans ...

Album Review

Jon Lundbom & Big Five Chord: Bring Their 'A' Game

Read "Bring Their 'A' Game" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
March 13, 2016

Bring Their 'A'Game is an EP release, download only (for now), from the fertile musical imagination of guitarist Jon Lundbom & Big Five Chord. It is the second in a four part set--following Make Magic Happen. Lundbom's plan is to release four of these download EPs in 2016, then collect them into a four disc box set to sell in the physical copy form near year's end. The three tunes on Bring Their 'A' Game cover the same ...

Album Review

Vitor Pereira Quintet: New World

Read "New World" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
March 12, 2016

New World is the second album from this quintet, led by the London-based Portuguese guitarist and composer Vitor Pereira. Like the band's 2012 debut, Doors, the music reflects the many influences which Pereira has learnt from but New World sees his work move a step further, his voice as a writer and instrumentalist developing a more distinctive sound. The quintet has undergone a transformation since that debut album--the instrumentation remains unchanged but Pereira and altoist Chris Williams (from ...

Extended Analysis

Bob Cooper: Four Classic Albums

by David Rickert
March 12, 2016

Bob Cooper was one of the greats of the fifties West Coast scene. He was a formidable improviser whose proficiency on multiple instruments made him highly sought after for studio work, and was also a talented arranger whose had plenty of work in the studio on both big band and small group recordings. However, he seldom recorded as a leader, and most of the sessions he did record have been out of print for a long time or never released ...

Album Review

Plunge: In For The Out

Read "In For The Out" reviewed by Dave Wayne

by Dave Wayne
March 12, 2016

Trombonist Mark McGrain is one of those guys who follows his own muse. Though he's not particularly prolific, each of his albums as a leader feature some truly profound music-making. In for the Out is no exception. On his fourth album as a leader, McGrain has re-invented himself, playing with an expanded New Orleans-based group and with a completely revamped sound. Tin Fish Tango (Immersion Media, 2011) and Dancing on Thin Ice (Immersion Media, 2009), also recorded in New Orleans ...

Album Review

Vitaly Golovnev: When In Moscow

Read "When In Moscow" reviewed by Mark Sullivan

by Mark Sullivan
March 12, 2016

Russian-born trumpeter Vitaly Golovnev lives in New York City now, but he maintains ties to his homeland. He recorded this album in Moscow in May, 2015 with his Russian group. Golovnev (who was a semi-finalist in the 2007 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Trumpet Competition) also plays flugelhorn here, and provided most of the compositions. The music is hard bop all the way. He is joined on the front line by Azat Bayazitov (soprano & tenor saxophones) and flutist Anton Zaletayev ...

Album Review

Pablo Held Trio: Recondita Armonia

Read "Recondita Armonia" reviewed by Phillip Woolever

by Phillip Woolever
March 12, 2016

This solid release furthers the evidence that Held's trio (with bassist Robert Landfermann and percussionist Jonas Burgwinkel) continues to set lofty goals, and proves again the group is quite capable of splendid results. After achieving success with a project like their collaboration with John Scofield, some performers might have taken a pause simply to collect the accolades or follow up with a similar, market-proven formula. Demonstrating once again they are indeed unique, the musicians took more ...

Album Review

Svend Asmussen: The Incomparable Fiddler

Read "The Incomparable Fiddler" reviewed by Chris Mosey

by Chris Mosey
March 12, 2016

Danish violinist Svend Asmussen this year celebrates his 100th birthday. This boxed set of five CDs and one DVD looks back on a career in jazz that started in 1933 at Copenhagen's Apollo Theater, when “the Fiddling Viking" was just 17, full of youthful confidence and fronting his own quartet. Four years later the much grander Svend Asmussen Dance Orchestra made its recording debut with the two tracks that open CD1, “Jazz Potpourris 1 and 2." It ...

Live Review

Steven Wilson at Theatre St-Denis

by John Kelman
March 12, 2016

Steven WilsonThéâtre St-Denis Montréal, Canada March 2, 2016 Perhaps one of the biggest signs of multi-instrumentalist Steven Wilson's continued upward trajectory is this: less than nine months after selling out two nights at the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal in 2015, he brought his top- drawer band back to Montreal for another packed-to-the-rafters show, this time at Théâtre St-Denis, where Crimson delivered two stunning nights last November. Beyond the fact that, despite issuing an ...