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

Enrico Pieranunzi: Proximity

Read "Proximity" reviewed by Budd Kopman

by Budd Kopman
January 25, 2016

Enrico Pieranunzi is the senior statesman of mainstream jazz piano in Italy. His recording career goes back to 1975, with more than forty albums on such labels as Soul Note, Enja, Egea and currently CAM Jazz. His music is romantic, lyrical mainstream using lush arrangements and harmonies. The current group could be termed his “American" quartet, with saxophonist Donny McCaslin (on tenor and soprano saxophones), stylistically wide-ranging trumpeter Ralph Alessi (on trumpet, cornet and flugelhorn) and bassist Matt Penman bringing ...

Album Review

Mike Reed's People, Places and Things: A New Kind of Dance

Read "A New Kind of Dance" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
January 25, 2016

You can always count on drummer, bandleader Mike Reed to jar your neural network on a per-album basis. Indeed, he's a propulsive force; an acute progressive jazz visionary, and a luminary in Chicago's forward-moving improvisational dynamic, while also hosting and promoting jazz/improvisation festivals in the Windy City. Otherwise, his People Places & Things unit strikes again on a A New Kind of Dance, featuring guest artists, pianist Matthew Shipp and trumpeter Marquis Hill lending their respective goods on several tracks. ...

Album Review

Bob Wijnen: NYC Unforeseen

Read "NYC Unforeseen" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
January 24, 2016

The first minute of Dutch pianist Bob Wijnen's debut album is very telling, but not because of what he does. Rather, it's what Wijnen doesn't do that sets these opening moments apart: Instead of announcing his arrival by hitting on all cylinders and showcasing himself, he hands this prime piece of real estate to drummer Billy Drummond, who solos in inimitable fashion over what's essentially a vamp with some slight alterations. Wijnen eventually gets to shine on that number, but ...

Album Review

Konstantin Ionenko Quartet: Noema

by Karl Ackermann
January 24, 2016

Bassist and composer Konstantin Ionenko continues to experiment with formations as he returns with yet another revised lineup on Noema. The name refers to a Greek word meaning “thought" or the content of thought. Recorded in Kiev, Ukraine and mastered in Moscow, the quartet album consists of eight original Ionenko compositions that bridge European chamber jazz and creative improvisation. As a composer, Ionenko has favored a refined blend of evocative lyricism and post-modern innovation and this release is no exception, ...

Album Review

Tom Rainey Trio: Hotel Grief

Read "Hotel Grief" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
January 24, 2016

In spite of a bulging discography, Hotel Grief constitutes only the fourth entry under drummer Tom Rainey's leadership. It follows Pool School (Clean Feed, 2010) and Camino Cielo Echo (Intakt, 2012) by the same all star line up, comprising Mary Halvorson on guitar and Ingrid Laubrock on saxophones. After two studio dates, this time out they recorded live on home turf at the Cornelia Street Café in Greenwich Village. Being so familiar with one another's styles means that even though ...

Album Review

Rick Hannah: Handful Of Strings

Read "Handful Of Strings" reviewed by Budd Kopman

by Budd Kopman
January 24, 2016

The guitar is a deceptively simple instrument to play, as any teenager who learns the basic strumming chords, and then tries to go beyond that, in any style, will tell you. It hints at being self-contained, that the player can accompany himself. Contrapuntally however, the piano, which allows two independent hands, dwarfs the guitar, even in the realm of the Classical guitar. In jazz, the guitar has played the varied roles of being part of the rhythm section ...

Album Review

Nancy Erickson: While Strolling Through the Park

Read "While Strolling Through the Park" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
January 23, 2016

Listening to “New Year's Eve," Nancy Erickson's original composition opening her third recording, While Strolling Through the Park, makes me recall the songwriting of Dr. Louise Van Aarsen (Destiny (Self Produced, 2012)). Both sport a very contemporary and adult vision of falling in love, having a family and simply living. That is refreshing in that this songwriting lack the grandiloquent melodrama of the Great American Songbook. It is music for everyone. Erickson's “Summer Day" and “The Whippoorwill Song" echo this ...

Album Review

The Jam: Setting Sons Deluxe Edition

Read "Setting Sons Deluxe Edition" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
January 23, 2016

The Jam's muscular musicianship is a direct reflection of titular leader Paul Weller's compositions for the trio, a symbiosis never more vivid than on the ambitious likes of Setting Sons. And this double-disc edition of the British band's fourth album reaffirms the blinding speed by which the trio progressed from being earnest young musicians paying tribute to an earlier time-the Mods of the Sixties by way of homage to the Who-to a mature ensemble whose studio work embroidered upon the ...

Album Review

Johnny Summers: Piano Sessions, Volume 2

Read "Piano Sessions, Volume 2" reviewed by Steve Bryant

by Steve Bryant
January 23, 2016

Canada's contribution to jazz may not be as well documented as that of the United States, but our neighbors to the North have produced some fine players such as Oscar Peterson, Jane Bunnett, Diana Krall, and Renee Rosnes. Now add to that heralded group a young trumpet player by the name of Johnny Summers who has the talent, voice, and looks which could grant him the potential to become the next Chet Baker or John Pizzarelli. Summers has also paid ...

Album Review

Nashville Electric: Orson's Folly

Read "Orson's Folly" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
January 23, 2016

This is not an ambient-electronic, celestial voyage or new age type gala. In fact, it's a scoring of actor, director Orson Welles' “Four Men on a Raft" sequence from his 1942 documentary It's All True. This was a film that the US Government expected to be sugarcoated as part of a cultural exchange program with Brazil. In turn, expectations were not met and the film's budget was severely hacked leaving Welles with black & white footage without sound. Therefore, Nashville ...