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

Ecuador Jazz 2016

by Mark Holston
March 11, 2016

Ecuador Jazz 2016 Quito, Ecuador February 10-21, 2016 When jazz cognoscente discuss their favorite festival destinations, it's understandable if Quito, Ecuador is seldom, if ever, mentioned. Geographically isolated in the mountainous reaches of South America's second smallest Spanish- speaking nation, this hilly, equator-hugging capital city of some two million souls is surrounded by volcanos that pierce the horizon at 19,000 feet above sea level. On its winding, pedestrian-packed avenues, native women in bowler hats and colorful ...

Reassessing

Amigos

by Jeff Winbush
March 11, 2016

It's a cliche, but for Carlos Santana, the year of 1976 was a critical turning point in his long career. Coming after Borboletta, his third consecutive jazz fusion record, he was catching heat from the execs at Columbia Records to come up with something reminiscent of the classic Latin rock which had made him a star at Woodstock.Santana changed managers and looked change course by bringing in an outside producer (David Rubinson) and recruited a new vocalist in ...

Album Review

Joshua Bayer Jazz: Six By Five

Read "Six By Five" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
March 11, 2016

Joshua Bayer can't be called a prolific artist in terms of CD releases. The bassist/guitarist has offered up only two previous albums this millennium: Lines and Grooves (Jazzhead Records, 2003) and New Voice: Old Voice (Self Produced, 2006). Both sets grooved nicely, lively mainstream quartet sets, with a saxophone out front riding the waves of surging rhythm sections--piano-centric on Lines and Grooves, then cranking it up a notch on New Voice: Old Voice by bringing in the Fender Rhodes.

Album Review

Charles Lloyd and The Marvels: I Long to See You

Read "I Long to See You" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
March 11, 2016

Rather than easing off since turning seventy in 2008, Charles Lloyd has instead upped the ante, producing some of the finest music of his career. Whatever spiritual quest Lloyd is on, it continues to spur the veteran saxophonist to heady musical heights and I Long to See You (Blue Note, 2016) is no exception. Lloyd's well-established rhythm team of Rueben Rogers and Eric Harland is joined by Bill Frisell--whose presence marks a return to the guitar in Lloyd's music for ...

Album Review

Lucian Ban: Songs From Afar

Read "Songs From Afar" reviewed by Budd Kopman

by Budd Kopman
March 11, 2016

It is a truism that musical art, in whatever genre, entails much more than just the technical, either physical or theoretical. True art also has that ineffable something, which could be described as the soul of the performer touching the soul of the listener. The performer brings everything (including, of course, the extra-musical) he or she has experienced to that point and channels it through the music, hopefully creating one of those magical moments when time and space collapses and ...

Multiple Reviews

Marc Copland: Zenith and Haunted Heart

by John Ephland
March 11, 2016

Zenith InnerVoice Jazz 2016 There's some shared, ongoing history here. Between drummer Joey Baron and bassist Drew Gress, pianist Marc Copland has logged some pretty decent music time. Add trumpeter Ralph Alessi and there's a new element, one not found in the rhythm section's work with guitarist John Abercrombie or in the trio where Copland and Baron find themselves with bassist Gary Peacock. And Copland has also worked with the drummer and bassist in his own ...

Album Review

The Piano & Drums Project: Motion

by Mark Sullivan
March 11, 2016

Mexican duo The Piano & Drums Project (P&Dp for short) plays extroverted populist jazz in the vein of groups like the Esbjörn Svensson Trio or The Bad Plus--they even include the requisite pop covers, “Head Over Heels" from Tears for Fears and Coldplay's “Trouble." Pianist Javier Reséndiz and drummer Jorge Fernandez produce a full sound: you never miss the bass. Their empathy is immediately demonstrated in the shifting rhythms of opening track “Reaching Some Space." “Para Téllez" has bass patterns ...

Mr. P.C.'s Guide to Jazz Etiquette and Bandstand Decorum

Audience Requests, Invisible Soloists and Rhythm Changes

by Mr. P.C.
March 10, 2016

Dear Mr. P.C.: I'm just an audience member, but I have a question on behalf of a lot of us listeners: If I make a request and the band plays it, do I have to listen to the whole thing? After they play the melody and then go into all the other stuff, sometimes I'd rather talk to my friends or just leave. --Short Attention Span Suzie Dear SASS: ...

My Blue Note Obsession

Freddie Redd: Music from The Connection – 1960

by Marc Davis
March 10, 2016

What sweet music from what sounds like a perfectly harrowing stage play! Freddie Redd is one of those long-forgotten names in Blue Note history. He was a pianist in the bebop tradition of Bud Powell, with a tinge of Thelonious Monk. He recorded exactly two albums as a Blue Note leader, a few more as a session man, then disappeared for a number of years. And yet, based on the evidence of Music from The Connection, ...

Album Review

Brian Groder Trio: R Train On The D Line

Read "R Train On The D Line" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
March 10, 2016

A New York City jazz scene regular, the trumpeter and flugelhorn player Brian Groder returns with the trio that helped make Reflexology (Latham Records, 2014) such a highly satisfying recording. Bassist Michael Bisio and drummer Jay Rosen are well-suited to supporting Groder's flexible, energetic and probing objectives. Following their previous work together, their mutual empathy of free-form approaches, combined with uncompromising melodies, the trio has proven to be an ambitious unit with a truly different sound.The title--R Train ...