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

Steve Lacy Quintet: Last Tour

by John Eyles
January 19, 2016

As its title says, this album dates from Steve Lacy's last tour, which ran from the summer of 2003 in NYC through to March 2004 in Boston, (where Lacy was living at the time, as he was teaching at the New England Conservatory of Music). The eight tracks on this album were recorded in Boston's ICA on March 12. Lacy was joined on the tour by musicians he knew well, his wife Irène Aebi on vocals, Jean-Jacques Avenel on bass, ...

Album Review

Benoit Delbecq 3: Ink

by Glenn Astarita
January 19, 2016

Berlin-based bassist Miles Perkin handles the duties previously held by revered French bassist Jean-Jacques Avenel (Steve Lacy, Pharoah Sanders) who passed away in 2014. Therefore, this enterprising piano trio led by Frenchman Benoit Delbecq surges forward with the similar level of ingenuity conveyed on The Sixth Jump (Songlines, 2010). In addition, Congolese drummer Emile Biayenda intersperses a world music vibe during various tracks while seamlessly integrating a tightknit jazz component into the mix. On a side note, famed pianist Fred ...

Film Review

Rick Stepton: Off-The-Cuff Trombone

by Nicholas F. Mondello
January 19, 2016

There's a fascinating--almost stunning--moment mid-way through Off-the-Cuff Trombone wherein the late Buddy Rich is accompanying and intently observing trombonist Rick Stepton as Stepton solos with great intensity and zeal. Perceptive eyes can see that Rich, the toughest of tough customers, is visibly and physically moved at what he's heard. It's a not-so-subtle acknowledgement of the utmost respect of one musician to another. It is also one of the many intriguing moments in this videographic re-telling of Stepton's marvelous career in ...

Album Review

Nicolas Bearde: Invitation

Read "Invitation" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
January 18, 2016

A jewel always shines brightest when placed in just the right setting, and boy does this album emphasize that point. When Nicholas Bearde's soulful and affecting baritone sits atop these impeccably tailored arrangements of sterling standards, the results are absolutely stunning. With his four previous albums, the Bay Area-based Bearde has managed to dance around labels. He's flirted heavily with the smoother side of jazz, delivered R&B-centric music, and dabbled in a variety of other settings, never ...

My Blue Note Obsession

Dizzy Reece: Star Bright – 1959

by Marc Davis
January 18, 2016

In the 1950s and '60s, there were two jazz trumpeters named Dizzy. One was famous. This is the other guy. Dizzy Reece is a pretty obscure name, even among Blue Note fans. He was a young hard bop trumpeter from Jamaica who spent most of the 1950s playing in Europe, recorded four very good records as a leader from 1958 to 1962, mostly in America, then vanished for 20 years. Fortunately, some of Reece's best work ...

Album Review

Hristo Vitchev Quartet: In Search of Wonders

Read "In Search of Wonders" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
January 18, 2016

Only in his mid-thirties, Hristo Vitchev has led or co-led eight releases; three previous albums with the core of this quartet. With each outing representing a creative and additive progression that should rightfully place him in the class of guitarist/composers that span skill sets from Jim Hall to Pat Metheny, Vitchev is overdue in finding a wider audience. More importantly, as an artist (and his quartet, as a group) has documented each collection has contributing to a style that has ...

Album Review

Pixel: Golden Years

Read "Golden Years" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
January 18, 2016

Pixel is not your prototypical Scandinavian jazz ensemble, evidenced by many ECM Records recording artists' known for integrating atmospherics and chamber-jazz proclivities into wide- open or temperate jazz improvisational forums. Of course, this is not a bad thing, yet the quartet adheres more to an Indie progressive jazz-centric rock vibe, largely fed by bassist, vocalist Ellen Andrea Wang's contempo and pop-like singing atop brisk grooves and hummable melodic content. With its third album, the Norwegian quartet takes a ...

Album Review

Jon Irabagon: Inaction is An Action

Read "Inaction is An Action" reviewed by Budd Kopman

by Budd Kopman
January 18, 2016

Inaction Is An Action, simultaneously released with its almost polar opposite Behind The Sky, is a force of nature embodied in the sopranino saxophone as “played" solo by Jon Irabagon. From the point of view of how each piece “sounds," and each track truly is a composition, its range is astounding. It should not be surprising that Irabagon has been working on the instrument (which sounds an octave above an alto sax) for a decade, by himself and with others. ...

Extended Analysis

ON

by John Kelman
January 18, 2016

While it's true that, in the rock world, there are relatively few female guitarists, especially those leaning towards the heavier and more progressive side of the equation, that doesn't mean that those intrepid enough to enter what has traditionally been a man's world should be assessed on anything but their own merits. Good guitarists are good guitarists, regardless of gender; great guitarist, too, are great guitarists, irrespective of their hormonal dispositions. Guitar Player Magazine may have rightfully deemed Jane Getter ...

Book Review

The Allman Brothers Band: Classic Memorabilia 1969-1976

by Doug Collette
January 17, 2016

The Allman Brothers Band: Classic Memorabilia 1969-1976 Willie Perkins & Jack Weston 150 Pages ISBN: 088146547X Mercer University Press 2015 Galadrielle Allman, the daughter of the late founder of The Allman Brothers Band Duane “Skydog' Allman, wrote the best book on the seminal Southern Rock band, Please Be With Me: A Song for My Father, Duane Allman (Spiegel & Grau, 2014), so it only stands to reason she would be ideal to offer ...