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

Tyler Kaneshiro: Amber of the Moment

Read "Amber of the Moment" reviewed by Dave Wayne

by Dave Wayne
December 31, 2015

First impressions mean everything. Amber of the Moment, trumpeter / composer Tyler Kaneshiro's debut album opens with a cloying cover of Bjork's “Who Is It." While nicely rendered, and suitably arranged, Kaneshiro's version plays it safe, replacing all of the oddness of the original with slick nu-jazz gloss. The cover of Bon Iver's “Holocene" fares better, though it's not that interesting a tune to begin with. Further penetration into the tracklist of Amber of the Moment, however, reveals that Kaneshiro's ...

Album Review

Jon Davis: Changes Over Time

Read "Changes Over Time" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
December 31, 2015

While there are no liner notes to accompany pianist Jon Davis' third date for the Posi-Tone imprint, there's a quote inside the package, attributed to author Anne Rice, that gets to the heart of the matter: “None of us really changes over time. We only become more fully what we are." So is personal evolution and growth an illusion? Is development a figment of the individual's imagination? Yes and no would be the correct answer(s). It really just comes down ...

Album Review

Peter Paulsen Trio: A Few Thoughts

Read "A Few Thoughts" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
December 31, 2015

Bassist and composer Peter Paulsen is not reticent in his willingness to quote the bible. He specifically cites Matthew 13: 31-32 in stating an approach to creating music rooted in observation and execution through improvisation, communication and impulsiveness. He references a line regarding the mustard seed, saying it is..."the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree...." In that vein, we have A Few Thoughts, Paulsen's trio outing ...

Album Review

Jason Miles/Ingrid Jensen: Kind of New

Read "Kind of New" reviewed by Jeff Winbush

by Jeff Winbush
December 31, 2015

When your first or last name is “Miles" and you play jazz and you make an album dueting with a trumpet player and you call it Kind of New, you're opening yourself up to all sorts of assumptions and expectations. Well, let's get those expectations out of the way. Kind of New is not an update, reimagining, homage or tribute to Miles Davis' Kind of Blue, one of the most quintessential jazz albums ever. Miles and Jensen are ...

Year in Review

Phil Barnes' Favourite Albums of 2015

by Phil Barnes
December 30, 2015

I am grateful to All About Jazz for their continued loyalty and support for my writing during a difficult year when I learned some things about what David Sylvian called the 'banality of evil' that I'd rather not know. Musically the year in the UK was distorted by the London Jazz Festival in November, with many releases being held back until the autumn to enable higher profile launches to be coordinated with festival gigs. This unwittingly makes compiling a year ...

Album Review

CEO Experiment: CEO Experiment

Read "CEO Experiment" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
December 30, 2015

CEO Experiment's eponymous debut, merging jazz's more traditional roots with a modern aesthetic, is proof not only of a fine trio in the making but also of Dublin's thriving cosmopolitan jazz scene. Born of a jam session in The International Bar--one of the city's most renowned jazz sanctuaries--in 2013, the palpable chemistry felt that day between Hungarian electric bassist Peter Erdei, Venezuelan pianist/keyboard player Leopoldo Osio and Peruvian drummer Cote Calmet engendered what surely ranks now as one of Ireland's ...

Album Review

Jose Gurria's Gurrisonic Orchestra: Three Kids Music

Read "Three Kids Music" reviewed by Dave Wayne

by Dave Wayne
December 30, 2015

Accompanied by a richly illustrated, full-color 46-page booklet (with notes by Jeff Tamarkin, the Associate Editor of JazzTimes Magazine) and packaged in a lush trifold paper sleeve, Three Kids Music by José Gurría and his 21-piece Gurrisonic Orchestra projects a sort of hugeness and importance whose portent is completely fulfilled by the quality of the music therein. In light of all this, it seems ironic, however, that the first track is titled “Constant Deprivation of Monetary Funds (The Beast)." Clearly, ...

Album Review

Heinz Holliger: Machaut-Transkriptionen

Read "Machaut-Transkriptionen" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
December 30, 2015

Over a period spanning eight years (2001-2009) Swiss oboist and composer Heinz Holliger has radically reinterpreted the works of medieval composer and poet Guillaume de Machaut. Holliger calls the resulting disc, Machaut-Transkriptionen “transcriptions" but in fact it is much more than that. By changing rhythmic structures here, time signatures there, even improvising on de Machaut's themes Holliger has created new, modern and even Avant-Garde pieces rooted in 14th century motifs.Holliger pairs his progressive adaptation of three of de ...

Album Review

Jazzedelics: Jazzedelics

Read "Jazzedelics" reviewed by Graham E Peterson

by Graham E Peterson
December 30, 2015

Opening with the burning re-harmonization of Jimi Hendrix's “Fire," the Jazzedelics incorporate all of the rhythmic intensity of the king of psychedelic rock's massive sound while reimagining the song in fresh and new harmonic territory. The band sets out to take some of the 1960's most notable recordings and recreate them as if jazz musicians had composed them. These arrangements embody what jazz has always stood for, that's to say risk and innovation. In the world of modern jazz much ...

Album Review

Bastian Weinhold: Cityscape

by Dave Wayne
December 30, 2015

German-born drummer Bastian Weinhold came to New York City in 2009 to study at the Manhattan School Of Music. He quickly got a lot of traction around town, recording and subsequently releasing his debut album, River Styx (Frame Music, 2010) just over a year after his arrival. His backing band on that release included Linda Oh, guitarist (and Bastian's brother) Nils Weinhold, pianist Pascal Le Boeuf and tenor saxophonist Adam Larson. It's telling that nearly the same band appears on ...