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.

Live Review

Tony Monaco Trio at BLU Jazz+

by C. Andrew Hovan
December 10, 2015

Tony Monaco Trio BLU Jazz+ Akron,Ohio November 27, 2015 When it comes to jazz hotspots in Ohio, the choices are relatively small. All that changed about a year ago when developer Tony Troppe and VP of Talent and Events Mike Wyatt II got together to put Akron on the map as a jazz destination with the opening of BLU Jazz+. With live jazz every Wednesday through Saturday evenings, the club has the distinction of recently ...

Live Review

Thelonious Monk Institute of Performance Jazz Ensemble

by Patricia Myers
December 10, 2015

Thelonious Monk Institute of Performance Jazz Ensemble The Nash Third Anniversary Concert Phoenix, Arizona November 18, 2015 An international jazz ensemble performed two polished concerts, including cameo sit-ins by New York drummer Lewis Nash, during the third anniversary weekend of The Nash concert venue that is named in his honor. High-octane energy and invention were delivered in sophisticated evergreens and original compositions by seven post-graduate fellows of the Thelonious Monk Institute ...

Album Review

Ligro: Dictionary 3

Read "Dictionary 3" reviewed by Dave Wayne

by Dave Wayne
December 10, 2015

Ligro is yet another one of MoonJune Records' stellar discoveries from Indonesia. One says “Indonesia" with caution, as each member of this supremely energetic fusion power trio hails from a culturally different part the vast region: bassist, occasional pianist, and chief composer Adi Darmawan is from Madura, drummer Gusti Hendy is from South Kalimantan and guitarist Agam Hamzah's heritage is a mix of Aceh and West Java. Their third album and second international release, Dictionary 3, has a refreshingly raw, ...

Album Review

John Abercrombie: The First Quartet

Read "The First Quartet" reviewed by Mark Sullivan

by Mark Sullivan
December 10, 2015

In many ways guitarist John Abercrombie's recordings with his first quartet represent his real coming of age, as a jazz guitarist, composer, and bandleader. He already had a substantial ECM discography behind him, including his fusion debut Timeless (1975); the overdubbed solo record Characters (1977); the first trio with Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette, the self-titled Gateway (1975); and his first duet record with acoustic guitarist Ralph Towner, Sargasso Sea (1976). But many of these recordings (and others ...

Extended Analysis

Ben Monder: Amorphae

by John Kelman
December 10, 2015

Having made his first--and, up to now, only--appearance on Munich's lauded ECM Records on the late drummer Paul Motian's Garden of Eden (2006), it's certainly taken a long time for the virtuosically talented guitarist to get a date of his own. Monder's résumé--while filled with significant associations including, in addition to Motian, composer/bandleader Maria Schneider, double bassist and occasional ECM label mate Marc Johnson, saxophonist Donny McCaslin (with whom Monder will also appear on the upcoming Black Star by David ...

Interview

Discovering Wardell Gray: An Interview with Biographer Richard Carter

by Victor L. Schermer
December 9, 2015

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 [This is one of two interviews and an article intended to bring readers' attention to the under-recognized tenor saxophonist, Wardell Gray, whose brief career spanned the transition from swing to bebop and whose life was cut short by sudden and tragic circumstances.] Richard Carter is a London writer and jazz aficionado who, as a college student, was first taken by Wardell Gray's recordings in the 1950s, around the ...

Year in Review

C. Michael Bailey's Best Releases of 2015

by C. Michael Bailey
December 9, 2015

It is easy this year, only vocal music...twelve months, twelve releases. Lyn Stanley Potions: From the '50s We Baby Boomers are a persnickety bunch. We revel in our nostalgia while keeping a jaundiced eye on current trends and how derivative they are compared with those we experienced when they were really new. Critics dismiss this nostalgia as wasted pathos, pining away for what can never be again. That is missing the point. ...

My Blue Note Obsession

Kenny Burrell: Blue Lights – 1958

by Marc Davis
December 9, 2015

The name on the cover is Kenny Burrell, but Blue Lights isn't really a Kenny Burrell album. He may be the leader, but the stars are everyone else. This is truly a democratic 1950s jam session. I came to Blue Lights fresh from Burrell's Midnight Blue, expecting another laid-back blues guitar vehicle. Not even close. Midnight Blue is where Burrell wound up in 1963. Blue Lights is where he came from in 1958 --a pretty straightforward hard bop ...

Album Review

Adam Rudolph - Go: Organic Guitar Orchestra: Turning Towards The Light

Read "Turning Towards The Light" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
December 9, 2015

This acoustic-electric guitar summit by an upper-echelon congregation of modernists yields a polychromatic listening experience, conducted and organized by composer, percussionist, Adam Rudolph. And it should come as no surprise that the musicians' distinct styles and vernaculars create added value here. Rudolph's proven track record of thinking outside the box and expanding jazz and world-beat music into newfound frontiers, is partly founded on his Cyclic Verticalism principles, “that merge African-centric polyrhythms and East Indian rhythm cycles..." into the grand schema. ...

Album Review

Fred Hughes Trio: I'll Be Home For Christmas

Read "I'll Be Home For Christmas" reviewed by Geannine Reid

by Geannine Reid
December 9, 2015

What would Christmas be without that familiar holiday sound scape of songs of yesterday? Well thankfully we will not have to find out, because jazz pianist Fred Hughes has released I'll Be Home for Christmas which is a set of 11 memorable classics that never grow old and will be a great addition to the holiday collection. What makes Hughes collection unique is his arrangements and hard swinging playing. The CD features Fred Hughes on piano, Amy Shook on bass ...