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

Matthew Shipp Trio: The Conduct of Jazz

Read "The Conduct of Jazz" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
January 2, 2016

Influential progressive jazz pianist/improviser, Matthew Shipp boasts an extensive discography as a group leader, soloist and in-demand session artiste. During the past three decades he's amassed an immense discography amid his affiliations with like-minded musicians representing the USA and Euro-jazz circuits. On this piano trio date, Shipp exemplifies to a very high degree, his uncanny knack for seamlessly bridging the avant-garde space with modern jazz. Unlike similar experimental or outside motivations by many of his peers, the pianist's muse is ...

Year in Review

Jakob Baekgaard's Best of 2015

by Jakob Baekgaard
January 1, 2016

These ten albums are just a few of the many great releases of 2015. Music was and still is a light in a world filled with problems and fear. When it is best, it encourages openness and contemplation and brings us closer together as humans. John Law These Skies In Which We Rust 33xtreme The piano as an instrument holds a special place in my heart and the British pianist John Law ...

Year in Review

Top 25 MP3 Downloads: 2015

by Michael Ricci
January 1, 2016

All About Jazz tracks how often a featured MP3 is downloaded, and the following represent our top 25 in 2015. If you missed them the first time around, give them a listen now, and enjoy! Other Minds By: Mario Dueñas From: Beliefs (Self Produced) Featured: 2015-12-28 Astrologic By: Ernesto Aurignac From: UNO (Self Produced) Featured: 2015-12-31 The ...

Year in Review

Top 12 "Recommended" Album Reviews: 2015

by Michael Ricci
January 1, 2016

All About Jazz tracks how often an album review is recommended, and the reviews listed below represent our top twelve published in 2015. Time Within Itself Michael Waldrop Big Band by Jack Bowers Published: April 2, 2015 Dreams Beyond George Spanos by Glenn Astarita Published: March 29, 2015 Heureux Comme Avec Une Femme Roberto Bonati and Diana Torto by Bruce Lindsay Published: ...

Album Review

Matador: Matador 3

Read "Matador 3" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
January 1, 2016

Uruguayan guitarist and vocalist Santiago Bogacz, stage name Matador, blends various musical influences into a unique sound with a jazz influenced spontaneity. After two intriguing EPs he has put out his first full-length album. All three are untitled as each is labeled with original art work that sets it apart from the others. On his EPs Bogacz utilized mainly Latin motifs and Americana. In contrast, on this longer recording he explores Asian themes creating a captivating union of ...

Album Review

Scott DuBois: Winter Light

Read "Winter Light" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
January 1, 2016

The journey from morning to night, from the dark and promising wintry dawn to the gelid day's goodbye, is one fraught with possibility. At least that's how guitarist Scott DuBois sees it. On Winter Light, Dubois tells the story of a single frigid day. It's as wondrous, chilling, atmospheric, and powerful as can be. Over the course of seven tracks, DuBois and his longtime band mates--German multi-reedist Gebhard Ullmann, American bassist Thomas Morgan, and Danish drummer Kresten ...

Album Review

Daniel Fortin: Brinks

by Dave Wayne
January 1, 2016

Toronto-based bassist Daniel Fortin is best known for his work in MYRIAD3, a dynamic, forward-looking piano trio whose work superficially resembles that of The Bad Plus and the Esbjörn Svensson Trio in that they're young guys in a piano trio who don't play jazz the way most piano trios play jazz. Fortin's solo debut, Brinks is just as forward-looking as MYRIAD3, though his musical persona seems a quite a bit more introspective. Sort of in the ECM mold, but not ...

Album Review

Jon Davis: Changes Over Time

Read "Changes Over Time" reviewed by Blaine Fallis

by Blaine Fallis
January 1, 2016

Jon Davis plays with a richness of soul, exhibiting a well versed jazz character that can go from Jaco (whom he worked with for several years), New Orleans swamp, and freedom jazz dance, to Stevie Wonder, and back. Although he doesn't try to sound like Bill Evans, he did pen a tune called Waltz for U, named for the trio's bassist Ugonna Okegwo who was perhaps tiring of the challenges of playing in so many of Davis' multiple time signatures ...

Year in Review

Top 12 "Read" Album Reviews: 2015

by Michael Ricci
December 31, 2015

All About Jazz tracks how often an album review is read, and the reviews listed below represent our top twelve published in 2015. East River PLS.trio by Karl Ackermann Published: February 22, 2015 The Thompson Fields Maria Schneider Orchestra by Dan Bilawsky Published: June 2, 2015 70 Strong Steve Gadd Band by Glenn Astarita Published: April ...

Year in Review

Jeff Dayton-Johnson's 2015 Mixtape

by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
December 31, 2015

The narrator of Jean-Jacques Schuhl's 2002 novel Ingrid Caven muses, “I like the connection, the splice, not the things themselves; what's between them, their rapport. Two ideas, images, the bridge between two harmonies for the jazz musician..." It's an interesting esthetic statement regarding jazz: that part of the music's appeal lies not in its components, but in its power to make connections among those components. A heady and appropriate benediction for this list of 2015 records that I listened to ...