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

Bill Frisell Trio at Peace Center

by Mark Sullivan
November 25, 2015

Bill Frisell Trio Peace Center Greenville, SC November 22, 2015 The promotional description for this Bill Frisell Trio show promised “music from Frisell's entire, and quite versatile, repertoire." A bold claim, given the guitarist's huge, varied discography, which ranges from experimental jazz with John Zorn to reinterpretations of pop songs. But although the program wasn't quite that far-ranging, it definitely had that spirit, showcasing several sides of Frisell's playing, as well as a wide ...

Album Review

Luis Merino: Blacky

by Roger Farbey
November 25, 2015

A strident piano chord progression introduces the moderately-paced majestic opener “New Day" with a lithely executed melody from the guitar of Luis Merino, leader of a quartet hailing from Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain. Proceedings hot-up with the brisk toe-tapper “El Estandar" clearly demonstrating that the guitarist is no slouch when it come to playing or writing good tunes. The more sedate “Returning" has Jose Alberto Medina on melodica-like keyboard tone lending a romantic air to this emotionally-charged ballad. ...

Album Review

Dan Wilensky: Made In Portland

Read "Made In Portland" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
November 25, 2015

Relocating is never easy, but it would seem that multi-reedist Dan Wilensky has acclimated quite well to the musical climate of Portland, Oregon since arriving there in 2012. The latest release from this man-of-many-talents puts him in close quarters with a collection of that city's finest musicians, a crew that's ready and eager to tackle Wilensky's originals and put new twists on old favorites from artists like Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Hoagy Carmichael, and, dare I say it, Neil Sedaka. ...

Album Review

Konstrukt & Joe McPhee: If You Have Time

Read "If You Have Time" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
November 25, 2015

There was a time when free jazz was a mysteriously strange and exotic beast, a music that evoked the “what did I just hear?" response. Today's jazz snob may quote the motto of the rock band Jane's Addiction and tell you “nothing's shocking." And that may be true. That is, if one's ears are not open to the energy and intelligence of musicians like Joe McPhee and the Turkish improvising ensemble Konstrukt. Konstrukt has performed and recorded multiple ...

Album Review

Larry Coryell: Aurora Coryellis

Read "Aurora Coryellis" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
November 25, 2015

In the 1970s musicians were spinning new threads on the jazz language and guitarist Larry Coryell prominently figured into these schematics while also designated as one of the grandfathers of jazz fusion, namely due to his electrified work with vibraphonist Gary Burton on Duster (RCA, 1967). This 3-CD box set complete with a detailed booklet captures the artist at three different venues performing solo acoustic guitar, fusion and a revved up modern jazz guitar trio setting. These discs present an ...

Live Review

November Music 2015

by Henning Bolte
November 25, 2015

November Music s'Hertogenbosch November 5-8, 2015 November Music is a yearly festival held in the medieval town of s'-Hertogenbosch in the southeast part of The Netherlands. s'-Hertogenbosch (also called Den Bosch) is the hometown of well-known Dutch painter Jheronimus Bosch (1450-1516). The festival is a festival of contemporary music, new music in the broadest sense: in addition to the core of contemporary composers' music, there is room for neighboring branches, such as experimental pop, sound ...

Album Review

Didier Verna @-quartet: Roots And Leaves

Read "Roots And Leaves" reviewed by Chris Mosey

by Chris Mosey
November 25, 2015

Parisian guitarist Didier Verna plays very much in the Pat Metheny tradition but with a sunny, melodic touch. His music is well thought out but never overly serious, with humor playing an important part in his compositions and improvisations. Roots And Leaves, the title of this, his second album, was chosen with care. Verna says: “Roots are our foundation, our basis, our legacy and our culture... leaves are the multiple, blooming facets of our personality, our character ...

Live Review

Larry Fuller Trio at Jazz at Kitano

by Dan Bilawsky
November 24, 2015

Larry Fuller Trio Jazz at Kitano New York, NY November 22, 2015 While jazz is a music founded and fed on innovation, it's also an art form steeped in tradition, forwarded through the passing of the torch to the next generation(s) in order to keep the life force of the music in good and capable hands. That fact was never as obvious as it was during Larry Fuller's appearance at Jazz at Kitano on ...

My Blue Note Obsession

Herbie Hancock: Speak Like a Child – 1968

by Marc Davis
November 24, 2015

Speak Like a Child feels like the mash-up of two separate albums. One is a lyrical set of three tunes--mellow songs with childhood themes. The other is a standard set of three bop tunes. Both are nice, but the quieter songs are maybe a bit too tame. Give Herbie Hancock credit for trying something new. He wrote all the tunes. Speak Like a Child is his sixth Blue Note record, and much of it sounds unlike his previous ...

Extended Analysis

Tom Barton & Diego Villalta: Connections

by Phil Barnes
November 24, 2015

There's something other worldly about this collaboration between innovative jazz vocalist Tom Barton and guitarist/composer Diego Villalta. Recorded in Osaka and inspired by the duo's experiences touring Japan the collection is wholly improvised, showcasing a broad range and variety of styles yet remaining coherent enough to suggest it could only have been this way. Barton describes it as “a free-jazz aesthetic, featuring extended vocal techniques and live looping, and electric guitar and FX" which is certainly true, if a little ...