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

Tiempo Libre: Panamericano

Read "Panamericano" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki

by Chris M. Slawecki
November 23, 2015

Panamericano is more than the title of the fifth release from Afro-Cuban maestros Tiempo Libre (which loosely translates into “Free Time"); after more than a decade of blending and polishing musical styles from Latin, South, and North America, it's a great description of the smooth sound they've found. Each tune seems to literally dance off the music written by pianist and co-founder Jorge Gómez, who composed or co-composed every song. Recorded music doesn't sound much more bright or ...

Extended Analysis

Weather Report: The Legendary Live Tapes 1978-1981

by John Kelman
November 22, 2015

While live documents from Weather Report's 16-year run continue to be unearthed, and while live albums have previously documented the group's 1978 tour, there's been precious little from its final tours of 1980/81, when the group returned more decidedly to its jazz roots with one of the best albums in its discography, 1980's Night Passage. Only keyboardist Joe Zawinul's “Fast City" and saxophonist Wayne Shorter's “Port of Entry," for example, made it onto 2002's Live and Unreleased (Columbia). Thanks, however, ...

Album Review

Ottmar Liebert: Waiting n Swan

Read "Waiting n Swan" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
November 22, 2015

Ever since Eric Clapton covered “I Shot The Sheriff," back in 1974, the Bob Marley catalog has been a source for a multitude of interpretations and tributes, in every conceivable genre. His legacy in the annals of modern music is secure, and continues to be an impact on a worldwide scale, both in music sales and as an inspiration and influence to other artists. Guitarist Ottmar Liebert has been no exception to this trend, and on Waiting n Swan he ...

Film Review

The Beatles: 1+

by Doug Collette
November 22, 2015

The Beatles 1+ Apple 2015 The passionate scholarship devoted to the Beatles' archival projects is an accurate reflection of the continuing resonance of the cultural paradigm shit they ignited some fifty years ago. For the 1+ DVD/CD package, masterful technical expertise (including upgrade to the CD originally issued in 2000) combines with a rigorously academic attention to detail enclosed in the hardbound book, all of which underscores with the labor of love approach only genuine ...

Album Review

Fourplay: Silver

by Jeff Winbush
November 22, 2015

Any band in any genre of music, be it rock, country, classical or jazz can't make it two and a half decades based solely on pure dumb luck. Fourplay defied the critics who dismissed them as pop schlock when they debuted in 1991 and shook off the haters who never thought they would still be here 25 years later. The secret for the quartet's staying power is right there in the name: Fourplay. Four talented, versatile and experienced master musicians ...

Bailey's Bundles

Christmas 2015 I: Handel’s Messiah

by C. Michael Bailey
November 22, 2015

George Frideric Handel's Messiah shows no signs of slowing down 273 years after its debut in Dublin on that cool Irish Friday, 13 April 1742. This current year's batch of recordings includes a brand-spanking new release, two reissues, and one that got away from me. They are, in sum, a celebration of Il Caro Sassone and his masterpiece. Judith Nelson, Carolyn Watkinson, Paul Elliott, Emma Kirkby, David Thomas; The Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, Simon Preston ...

Extended Analysis

Jaco: Original Soundtrack

by John Kelman
November 22, 2015

With so many compilations already out there, it might be easy to question why a soundtrack to JACO is even necessary. But one look at the track listing renders its raison d'être clear: JACO: Original Soundtrack is, in some ways, the most comprehensive document of the bassist's career, even if it doesn't contain as much music as previous double-disc sets. Yes, there is plenty of time given to his leader debut, Jaco Pastorius (Epic, 1976), with everything from the soul/funk ...

Extended Analysis

Bob Dylan: The Bootleg Series Vol. 12 - The Cutting Edge

by Doug Collette
November 22, 2015

Quite apart from its existence as a deeply retrospective look at what is generally accepted as the most groundbreaking phase of Bob Dylan's career, the greatest virtue of the 2CD package of The Bootleg Series Volume 12 is a most practical one: no time or space is given over to the previously released versions of these magnificent songs from 1965 and 1966, digitally remastered or otherwise. The (un)usually astute producers of this ongoing archive project assume, and correctly ...

Film Review

JACO (The Film)

by John Kelman
November 22, 2015

Jaco Pastorius JACO (The Film) Slang East/West 2015With author Bill Milkowksi's extraordinarily detailed and honest accounting of Pastorius' life in his biography--first published in 1996 but reissued nearly a decade later as Jaco: The Extraordinary and Tragic Life of Jaco Pastorius: Deluxe Edition (Backbeat Books, 2005), with a hundred pages of additional footage garnered when those close to the late bassist were, with the passage of time, ready and willing to talk more openly about ...

Film Review

Eric Clapton: Slowhand at 70-Live at the Royal Albert Hall

by Doug Collette
November 21, 2015

Eric Clapton Slowhand at 70: Live at the Royal Albert Hall Eagle Vision 2015 Over the course of the last decade, Eric Clapton hasn't made much spectacle of crucial turning points in his life and career( reunion with John Mayall or collaborations with Steve Winwood, J.J. Cale and Jeff Beck), he's just made them happen. In that light, his run of a week at London's Royal Albert Hall, during which he marked his 200th appearance ...