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.

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Live Review

Lisa Fischer & Grand Baton At UCD Mondavi Center

by Walter Atkins
February 27, 2016

Lisa Fischer & Grand Baton UCD Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, Jackson Hall Valentine's Day Davis, CA February 14, 2016 Grammy winner Lisa Fischer & Grand Baton put on a superlative show at the Mondavi Center For The Performing Arts located on the beautiful University of California campus in Davis CA. Grand Baton featured: musical director JC Maillard, guitar and keyboards, bassist Aidan Carroll, and drummer Thierry Arpino. Fischer's wide ranging set covered ...

Album Review

Grateful Dead: Dick's Picks Volume Two: Columbus, Ohio 10/31/1971

Read "Dick's Picks Volume Two: Columbus, Ohio 10/31/1971" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
February 27, 2016

As Real Gone Music winds down its the four-year long reissue campaign devoted to the Grateful Dead's 'Dick's Picks' o the label presents one of the most distinctive titles in the archive series. recorded on Halloween night in 1971 at the Ohio Theatre in Columbus, Ohio. In a single cd, the only one of its kind the late Latvala curated, the album consists of the second set of the concert, comprising of a remarkable cross section of material culled from ...

Live Review

Merle Haggard at the Paramount Theater

by Harry S. Pariser
February 27, 2016

Merle Haggard Paramount Theater SFJAZZ Oakland, CA February 13, 2016 Some consider Merle Haggard to be “The Poet Laureate of California." Certainly, he is the state's most famous singer-songwriter and bandleader. His straight-shooting songs, with their wonderful lyrics, have the drama and controversy befitting a country music “rebel." Merle has been nothing if not resilient. He is recovering from a bout with double pneumonia, which had forced a postponement of the initial ...

Album Review

Rhythm Future Quartet: Travels

Read "Travels" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
February 27, 2016

Gypsy jazz started, in terms of popular recognition, with guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stephane Grappelli, and their lively and supremely swinging Qunintette du Hot Club du France. The group recorded hundreds of tunes in the thirties and and forties, released on the 78 rpm discs that were the recorded music mode at the time, and left a lasting and perhaps unmatchable legacy. Drawing deeply on that legacy, the Rhythm Future Quartet does its part by pushing the ...

Album Review

André Fernandes: Dream Keeper

Read "Dream Keeper" reviewed by Roger Farbey

by Roger Farbey
February 27, 2016

Born in Lisbon in 1976, guitarist André Fernandes is becoming a significant international player in jazz. He studied at the Lisbon Hot Club School and later at Berklee College of Music for two years in the late nineteen nineties. He has contributed to the projects of many internationally renowned jazz musicians including Julian Arguelles, Avishai Cohen, Lee Konitz, Joshua Redman, Tomasz Stanko and Maria Schneider. Already well-established in his native Portugal, in 2002 he co-founded the punningly titled record label ...

Profile

Jimmy Greene: Beautiful Life

by John Wesley Reed Jr.
February 27, 2016

“Love Wins," says Jimmy Greene, Saxophonist, Newtown, Connecticut. Inspired by his daughter, Ana, Beautiful Life is emotionally fulfilling towards remembrance of all things for the love of Ana. The children's choir made up of Ana's and her brother, Isaiah's friends from when the family lived in Canada, exemplifies the spirit of joy in which Ana lived. Isaiah, Nelba, her mother, and Jimmy hold a candlelight in their hearts for Ana and the children killed in the ...

Album Review

James Bruce Moore: Soul’s Journey Home

Read "Soul’s Journey Home" reviewed by Jim Olin

by Jim Olin
February 27, 2016

James Bruce Moore is back to pluck his guitar as well as heartstrings with his new album, Soul's Journey Home. Fresh off the success of his debut album Lisbeth, Moore sounds renewed, and ready to share to the world more of his thoughts on life and love. In Soul's Journey Home, the Toronto-based singer/songwriter croons of love in all its forms in an eclectic collection of tracks. Songs like “Open Your Heart" and “Bridge to Love" are the ...

Album Review

The Rhythm Surf Monkeys: Reinvented

by Jim Olin
February 27, 2016

The Rhythm Surf Monkeys' new album Reinvented is a collection of powerful rock tracks imbued with AOR, blues, and jazz elements. There is no song-skipping on this one. Every track has a compelling message, engrossing music, and pervasive appeal. The brainchild of songwriter/guitarist Jim Hiltz, the band has created an album that will reverberate in the minds and hearts of its listeners. The CD kicks off with the title cut, a crackling opener that is a toe-tapper from ...

Album Review

Lyle Mays Quartet: The Ludwigsburg Concert

Read "The Ludwigsburg Concert" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
February 26, 2016

He has been referred to as Pat Metheny's alter ego, in the way that Billy Strayhorn was to Duke Ellington. Pianist/composer Lyle Mays was born with perfect pitch in a tiny rural hamlet of Wisconsin. Had it not been for his family's strong affinity for music, Mays may have had little exposure in that environment. Mays wrote, or co-wrote, with Metheny, almost all of the original Pat Metheny Group catalog from their second ECM release, Watercolors (which included Eberhard Weber) ...

Album Review

Interplay Jazz Orchestra: Detour

by Dan Bilawsky
February 26, 2016

Making a big band album is no easy feat, what with the organizational aspects, the musical demands, and the costs associated with such a venture. But as difficult as all of that may be to deal with, the real trick is in sustaining and developing this type of ensemble. Extrinsic benefits for participation are few, as many such groups make little to no money and receive few bookings, but the intrinsic rewards, thankfully, are many. Anybody who's ever encountered the ...