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

London Jazz Festival 2015

by Duncan Heining
December 1, 2015

London Jazz Festival London, UK November 13-22, 2015 Like many city-fests, the London Jazz Festival criss-crosses the town, spanning the River Thames that splits it in two. Two Southbank Centre venues--the Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room--are being refurbished this year, making Kings' Place an even more significant festival stage and bringing the Cadogan Hall near “posh" Sloan Square into major service. The festival's programming is, as ever, eclectic and highly creative ...

Album Review

Scott Jeppesen: Wonders

by Dan Bilawsky
December 1, 2015

Ancient history and current times collide on the sophomore release from California-based tenor saxophonist Scott Jeppesen: with Wonders, he offers up an intelligent, semi-programmatic look at the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World as seen through a modern jazz lens. Jeppesen, a once-upon-a-time protégé of saxophonist Joe Henderson and a jazz studies doctoral student at the University of Southern California, fuses his passion for history with some serious composing and playing chops. Descriptive writings and drawings documenting ...

Album Review

Matthew Shipp Trio: The Conduct of Jazz

Read "The Conduct of Jazz" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
December 1, 2015

A glance at pianist Matthew Shipp's discography reveals that small group work has long been a focus. Indeed in recent times one of the prime outlets for his artistry is his classic piano trio, which ranks among the pre-eminent outfits in modern jazz. The Conduct Of Jazz represents Shipp's twelfth release in the format. Although there has been gradual change in personnel over the years--Newman Taylor Baker makes his debut on the drum stool alongside monster bassist Michael Bisio, replacing ...

Album Review

Five Play: Live at the Deer Head Inn

Read "Live at the Deer Head Inn" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
December 1, 2015

I haven't been to the Delaware Water Gap in Pennsylvania in years. But if I make it there, I hope to time my visit to coincide with Five Play at theDeer Head Inn, which bills itself as the “oldest continuously running jazz club in the country." Long may it prosper, for there are good musical things happening there. Big bands and their leaders have always had small groups:from Benny Goodman to Stan Kenton, and Woody Herman and Tommy ...

Album Review

Ken Vandermark Resonance Ensemble: Double Arc

Read "Double Arc" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
December 1, 2015

For the most part, we only follow the trajectory of an artist's career many years after his work has been completed. Looking back at the career of Miles Davis, you can now play connect-the-dots from bebop to Gil Evans to modal jazz to electric Miles. Certainly, back in the day, many a listener knew not where Bitches Brew (Columbia, 1970) came from. We are fortunate today to have access to so much more music and an artist like saxophonist Ken ...

Live Review

Ginger Baker's Jazz Confusion in Bergheim

by Phillip Woolever
December 1, 2015

Ginger Baker's Jazz Confusion Medio.Rhein.Erft Bergheim, Germany November 27, 2015 Ginger Baker looked a bit stiff in his casual shades, but he sure as hell got the job done with unique style. He had people clapping and yelling their approval by around the two-minute mark and from then onward. Too bad there was no photography allowed, because this was a picture of precision. “I'm so old I think I'm getting dementia ...

My Blue Note Obsession

Stanley Jordan: Standards Volume 1 – 1986

by Marc Davis
November 30, 2015

In my lust for Blue Note CDs, I've mostly focused on the label's classic period: the 1950s and '60s. That's where you'll find the very best hard bop and soul-jazz ever produced. But nothing good lasts forever, and no particular musical style stays popular for long. As bop and soul faded, so did Blue Note. The label limped into the '70s, producing not much of interest. Finally, inevitably, the label died in the 1980s. It simply stopped producing ...

Album Review

César Cardoso: Bottom Shelf

Read "Bottom Shelf" reviewed by Roger Farbey

by Roger Farbey
November 30, 2015

"Além" starts unceremoniously, almost mid-tune, tenor sax and guitar evoking a sultry Stan Getz mood. The labyrinthine structure of the title track adds to its appeal and benefits from strong playing with a feisty guitar solo. César Cardoso's soprano on “Ónica" evinces a delicate interplay between the sax and the guitar. It might be a bit too much to suggest that the essential pairing of this saxophonist and guitarist is as effective as that heard on John McLaughlin's classic album ...

Album Review

Dave Douglas Quintet: Brazen Heart

Read "Brazen Heart" reviewed by Dave Wayne

by Dave Wayne
November 30, 2015

Leading a quintet whose debut recording, Be Still (Greenleaf Music, 2012) was an elegiac song cycle dedicated to his late mother, Dave Douglas' Brazen Heart, sadly, finds the trumpeter / composer in mourning once again. Damon Douglas, Dave's brother, passed away in June 2015. Yet, the overall tenor of Brazen Heart is completely different than Be Still and its direct antecedent Time Travel (Greenleaf Music, 2013). There are no vocals on Brazen Heart. Also, after many months of touring and ...

Album Review

Double Basse: This Is Not Art

Read "This Is Not Art" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
November 30, 2015

Although the group moniker might suggest two bull fiddles, in fact it describes the French pairing of bassist Benjamin Duboc and contrabass clarinetist Jean-Luc Petit. No strangers to each other (Petit appears on the bassist's leadership debut under his own name on Primare Cantus (Ayler, 2011)), they nonetheless pile up the challenges for themselves: no charts; restricted palette; exposed situation; and difficult instrumentation, especially the unwieldy woodwind. The two lengthy spontaneous inventions were recorded in the pre-Romanesque chapel of Saint ...