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

Hristo Vitchev Quartet: In Search of Wonders

Read "In Search of Wonders" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
January 28, 2016

Marking his seventh project as a leader, internationally-renowned impressionistic guitarist Hristo Vitchev presents In Search of Wonders, his first double album of original world-tinged modern jazz delivered in the same creatively unique style this guitarist, is known for. One thing remains the same, the music is intellectual, soul-searching, harmonically-rich and thoroughly enchanting. With a double album containing a total of fifteen new pieces, Vitchev offers plenty more of wonders to sample than he has in the past. Performing ...

Album Review

Konstantin Ionenko Quartet: Noema

by Mark Sullivan
January 28, 2016

Ukrainian bassist/composer Konstantin Ionenko introduces a striking new quartet on Noema. His previous release Deep Immersion (Fancy Music, 2013) was a quintet with piano, trumpet and saxophone. Only Ionenko and drummer Pavel Galitsky remain from that group, joined by new members Dima Bondarev (flugelhorn) and Alex Maksymiw (guitar). There was precedent for working with a guitarist, in the form of the Deep Tone Project, which he co-led with guitarist Alexandr Pavlov on the album Flow (Fancy Music, 2014). Both of ...

Big Band Report

Buddy Rich Rides Again

by Jack Bowers
January 27, 2016

Those who believe that Buddy Rich is the greatest big-band drummer who ever lived (yes, I'm one of them) can look forward to a marvelous treat this spring when Ken Poston and the Los Angeles Jazz Institute present Time Check: A Buddy Rich Alumni Reunion May 19-22 at the Sheraton Gateway / LAX Hotel. The four-day event will spotlight big bands and smaller groups comprised in part of Buddy Rich alumni, all-star alumni-plus bands performing original arrangements written for Buddy's ...

Album Review

Mateusz Palka/Szymon Mika Quartet: Popyt

by Ian Patterson
January 27, 2016

The title of the debut album from the Polish quartet co-led by Mateusz Palka and Szymon Mika translates as “demand," reflecting the group's belief that greater melodic expression is what the modern jazz fan pines for. It follows that the six originals--and a cover of Sonny Rollins' “Airegin"--are above all tuneful, with the extended soloing, that is one of the album's strengths, following sharply defined melodic contours. Stylistically, the music is subtly diverse from one track to another and the ...

Album Review

Hristo Vitchev Quartet: In Search of Wonders

Read "In Search of Wonders" reviewed by Roger Farbey

by Roger Farbey
January 27, 2016

With six previous albums already to his name, guitarist Hristo Vitchev has now released a double album of his own compositions, benefitting from the inclusion of three exceptionally talented musicians constituting his quartet. Vitchev's dextrously lithe playing is evident from the start on the (initially) pastoral opener “The Transitory Nature," recalling the styles and fluidity of John Abercrombie and Bill Frisell. After a short tranquil piano-led opening statement “It May Backfire," the longest track at nearly fourteen minutes, ...

Album Review

Wayne Bergeron: Full Circle

Read "Full Circle" reviewed by Nicholas F. Mondello

by Nicholas F. Mondello
January 27, 2016

Track and field aficionados will remember Olympic gold-medal-winning high-jumper, Dick Fosbury. Fosbury revolutionized his event by developing an unorthodox “backward flop" to hurdle the bar. No flop, for sure, but Full Circle from trumpeter Wayne Bergeron and his stellar Los Angeles teammates raise every aspect of the trumpeting and big band bar to atmospheric heights. Bergeron, a mainstay in the L.A. studios, is revered for his high note precision and acrobatic ability on the horn. His talent to ...

Live Review

Septeto Nacional at the Brava Theater

by Harry S. Pariser
January 27, 2016

Septeto Nacional Brava Theater San Francisco, CA January 17, 2016 In 1927, Ignacio Pineiro formed a group to play Cuba's traditional son music, a genre germinated in the black communities of rural Cuba. Pineiro added a cornet player to add zest and appeal, and the band, the Septeto Nacional, really took off. While the band has dissolved only to be reborn a few times, his innovative creation, the son habanero so und, proved ...

Jazz Near Me

Due Mari Joins the New Brunswick Jazz Project

by Gloria Krolak
January 27, 2016

Thanks to the efforts of three friends, Virginia DeBerry, Jimmy Lenihan and Mike Tublin, creators of the New Brunswick Jazz Project, it's getting harder to dine out in that Middlesex County city without hearing some jazz. The Hyatt Regency, Tumulty's Pub, The Garden State Ale House and Esquina Latina all offer jazz on a regular schedule. Since last May, add Friday nights at Due Mari to that list. Due Mari is a modern Italian restaurant on Albany Street ...

Album Review

Bokani Dyer: World Music

Read "World Music" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
January 27, 2016

It's not exactly a secret that the concept of “World Music" isn't all that its name implies. That tag, still in wide use today, became somewhat meaningless a couple decades back, serving primarily as an umbrella category to market any and every form of non-Western music to Western ears. But South African pianist Bokani Dyer sees it differently. His own vision of this ideal is based on musical egalitarianism, or, as noted on his own website, “a celebration of all ...

My Blue Note Obsession

Big John Patton: Along Came John - 1963

by Marc Davis
January 26, 2016

If you like Booker T and MG's, you'll love Big John Patton's Along Came John. It is, without a doubt, the funkiest, bluesiest, most soulful organ jazz record of all time, bar none. And that includes everything ever done by the legendary Jimmy Smith. Along Came John is a great party record, and once you hear it, you'll be moving your feet and feeling the groove. This is blues, pure and simple--and I do mean simple. ...