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

Bill Stewart: Space Squid

Read "Space Squid" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
January 8, 2016

The musicians that appear on Space Squid only played one gig together as a band before recording this music, but the connections were there prior to that performance and studio session. Drummer Bill Stewart's relationship with pianist Bill Carrothers and saxophonist Seamus Blake extends back some two decades. Both men appear on Stewart's Telepathy (Blue Note, 1997), and Stewart has appeared on a number of each of their albums. Bassist Ben Street hasn't been in Stewart's orbit as long as ...

Album Review

Eva Cassidy: Nightbird

Read "Nightbird" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
January 8, 2016

The late singer/guitarist Eva Cassidy (1963-1996) was a possibility nature did not allow fulfilled. Barely started in what promised to be a successful career, Cassidy died at 33 from malignant melanoma, the same year her notable Live at Blues Alley (Eva Music) was recorded and released. The present Nightbird is the expansion and 20th Anniversary celebration of a life ended too soon and a recording promising so much. Recorded January 3, 1996, Cassidy would be gone by November...a streak of ...

Album Review

Jenny Maybee/Nick Phillips: Haiku

by Dan Bilawsky
January 7, 2016

Trumpeter Nick Phillips established himself as a great believer in the power of toned-down art when he released the attractively mellow Moment To Moment (Self Produced, 2014) with pianist Cava Menzies. That album retained a magically hushed aura from start to finish, showing Phillips to be a less-is-more artist focused on tracing the curves of a song and setting the mood with his economical trumpet work. Haiku, an album that shines a spotlight on the newly established partnership between Phillips ...

Album Review

Alex Merritt Quartet: Anatta

by Tyran Grillo
January 7, 2016

It should be no wonder that Alex Merritt should be a practitioner of Vipassanā meditation. The English tenor saxophonist translates that very focus on mindful breathing to the horn with seamless concentration and awareness of heart. A child of Cambridge and graduate of the Birmingham Conservatoire, Merritt has found a character-building groove among bassist Sam Lasserson, pianist John Turville, and drummer Jeff Williams. As the Alex Merritt Quartet, they bring five years of connectivity to Anatta.Immediately striking about ...

Profile

Raymond MacDonald: Man with Two Brains

by Duncan Heining
January 7, 2016

By way of introduction... Saxophonist Raymond MacDonald is a busy man. He balances the life of a gigging, recording musician with a high-flying academic career and, in both respects, his reputation has grown far beyond his Glasgow home. As a musician, he is perhaps best known for his work with the George Burt/Raymond MacDonald group, with the Glasgow Improvisers' Orchestra (GIO), which he helped form, and with the saxophone quartet, the Hung Drawn Quartet. Both the Burt/MacDonald group ...

Album Review

Howard Riley: Howard Riley: Lush Life

Read "Howard Riley: Lush Life" reviewed by Duncan Heining

by Duncan Heining
January 7, 2016

With the reissues of Discussions, Angle and The Day Will Come, the last few months have offered an embarrassment of riches for Howard Riley fans. We have here two recent solo recordings, one in the studio and one live in Lithuania, and a live duo album with the late, great Jaki Byard from 1985. Of course, there was a great deal going on between The Day Will Come and 10.11.12. There were duos with Keith Tippett, quartets with Art Themen ...

Album Review

Luís Lopes/Jean-Luc Guionnet: Live At Culturgest

Read "Live At Culturgest" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
January 7, 2016

Experimental jazz improvisers, guitarist Luis Lopes (Portugal) and Jean-Luc Guionnet (France) align their creative wares for a largely ferocious program consisting of two lengthy tracks, captured live at a Lisbon venue. The respective artists employ surgical deconstruction mechanisms to get the job done with some wily Sci-fi like motifs that may summon an impending Armageddon or something to that effect. But the duo's improvisational processes are also steeped in minimalistic forays and various interludes designed with micro- themes and hushed ...

Album Review

Clear Water: Electricity

Read "Electricity" reviewed by Geannine Reid

by Geannine Reid
January 7, 2016

Clear Water represents the next evolution of American jazz with its seamless combination of Electronic Dance Music (EDM) and jazz rhythms and melodic language. This new sound is expanding the envelope of the genre and at the helm is trumpeter Donald Malloy. Clear Water's third release, Electricity, is an intuitive union of new sounds by the electronic duo of Malloy on trumpet and production and Matt Vorzimer on drums (production on “Coral Blankets"). With Tim Smith guesting on vocals on ...

Live Review

Buenos Aires Jazz.15 International Festival

by Mark Holston
January 6, 2016

Buenos Aires Jazz.15 International Festival Buenos Aires, Argentina November 10-15, 2015 Imagine opening the pages of a major daily newspaper, turning to the Op-Ed section and seeing, prominently placed amidst the usual commentaries on politics and international crises, a tome to the recently deceased jazz singer and composer Mark Murphy. Sound like an impossible dream? Not, it turns out, in Argentina, where an elevated appreciation for the arts and the contributions of artists to society have ...

Book Review

The Long Shadow of the Little Giant: The Life, Work and Legacy of Tubby Hayes

by David A. Orthmann
January 6, 2016

The Long Shadow of the Little Giant: The Life, Work and Legacy of Tubby Hayes Simon Spillett 376 Pages ISBN: #13 978 1 78179 1738 Equinox Publishing Ltd. 2015 Tenor saxophonist, author, and discographer Simon Spillett spent a decade writing The Long Shadow of the Little Giant: The Life, Work and Legacy of Tubby Hayes. Employing a wealth of interviews from Hayes' colleagues (some of whom he has performed with) and fans, ...