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

Jessica Jones Quartet: Moxie

by Dan Bilawsky
November 21, 2015

Moxie is both an extension of tenor saxophonist Jessica Jones' previous work and a glimpse back to an earlier point in her career: she continues to explore the possibilities inherent in a piano-less quartet with a two-tenor front line while reuniting with a rhythm duo that she worked with in the '80s--bassist Stomu Takeishi and drummer Kenny Wolleson. The music that she makes here, with that team and fellow tenor/husband Tony Jones, is predictably unpredictable, grounded yet far-reaching, and irresistibly ...

Film Review

Van Morrison: Another Wondrous Decade: Under Review 1977-1987

by Doug Collette
November 21, 2015

Van Morrison Another Wondrous Decade: Under Review 1977-1987 Chrome Dreams 2015 Early on in Another Wondrous Decade, an exploration of Van Morrison's post-hiatus career in the late Seventies and Eighties, recording engineer Gary Ladinsky makes an ever so astute point about The Belfast Cowboy's approach to recordings: ..."he's particular but he's not picky.." This distinction may seem nothing more than semantics, but it is, instead, representative of the erudite insight in the famous Irish-born musician's ...

Album Review

Scott Flanigan: Point of Departure

Read "Point of Departure" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
November 21, 2015

In an era where it's relatively easy to self-produce an album, Northern Irish pianist Scott Flanigan has taken his time with his debut effort. Now in his early thirties, Flanigan has been a mainstay of the small but flourishing jazz scene in Belfast and beyond for over a decade, collaborating with Linley Hamilton, David Lyttle and Mark McKnight, not to mention the likes of Van Morrison and Jean Toussaint. It's been a patient apprenticeship that has paid dividends, for Flanigan's ...

Extended Analysis

Peter Case: Hwy 62

by Doug Collette
November 21, 2015

With his walrus-like goatee, dark glasses and a fedora knocked back over a straggly haircut, Peter Case looks like the devoted road warrior and musical explorer that he is on the cover of the aptly-titled Hwy 62. And the recordings inside bear out the wisdom he's gained over the years as a songwriter and musician, these eleven vivid tunes bearing witness to his insights and observations as brought to kinetic life by the presence of a single set of musicians ...

Album Review

Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp: Complementary Colors

Read "Complementary Colors" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
November 21, 2015

When a new batch of Ivo Perelman discs are released, yes he releases music from multiple groups on multiple discs, it is always wise to start with his duets with pianist Matthew Shipp. They've collaborated now for over twenty years, in duo, trio, quartet, and quintet settings. Their development of sound, each player's individual sound, has paralleled each other. Both players early works were distinguished by a torrid, blistering sound. One that struck a listener as if they intended to ...

Album Review

Mathias Algotsson: Home At Work

Read "Home At Work" reviewed by Chris Mosey

by Chris Mosey
November 21, 2015

Mathias Algotsson takes his lead from Jan Johansson, probably the most influential jazz pianist ever in Sweden. Johansson, a brilliant accompanist who played with nearly all the greats from the States who visited Scandinavia in the post-war period, delighted in mixing genres, also playing folk songs and composing for film and television. His album based on folk music, Jazz På Svenska (Jazz In Swedish) became a massive hit in Sweden at a time when the music was ...

Album Review

Spanglish Fly: New York Boogaloo

Read "New York Boogaloo" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki

by Chris M. Slawecki
November 21, 2015

Even down to its very sound, “boogaloo" is a curious word that represents a curiously Latin American music, born during the 1960s immigration wave that spread from Puerto Rico into New York City and simultaneously growing like a friendly weed in and around the pop, soul, rock, and jazz musical cultures that were blooming throughout the city at that time. Spanglish Fly brings together musicians from Canada, Cuba, Ecuador, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and of course Manhattan, led by ...

Extended Analysis

Shye Ben Tzur, Jonny Greenwood and the Rajasthan Express: Junun

by Nenad Georgievski
November 20, 2015

The idea of gathering excellent musicians with different backgrounds, from various corners of the Earth and then set them playing together somewhere picturesque as the cameras roll can turn into something much more significant as it is the case with Paul Thomas Anderson's documentary film Junun. The film follows a group of musicians that includes guitarist and composer Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead fame, Radiohead's producer Nigel Goodman, Israeli singer and composer Shye Ben Tzur and Rajasthan Express, an ...

Album Review

Tubby Hayes: The Syndicate - Live At The Hopbine 1968 Vol. 1

Read "The Syndicate - Live At The Hopbine 1968 Vol. 1" reviewed by Roger Farbey

by Roger Farbey
November 20, 2015

Out of all the Tubby Hayes archival releases over the past few years, this one should by rights generate more than passing interest for several reasons. Expertly mastered by Gearbox from the original tapes and released on vinyl and digital download, it contains four gems, but one of the chief reasons for getting hold of it is the opportunity to hear the masterly playing of guitarist Louis Stewart who Hayes employed in place of a pianist from 1968, the year ...

Album Review

Ozo: A Kind Of Zo

Read "A Kind Of Zo" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
November 20, 2015

There's a strand of Portuguese music which oscillates between the points of a triangle formed by improv, ambient and minimalism. Ozo, which comprises erstwhile classical pianist Paulo Mesquita, and rock/pop drummer Pedro Oliveira, sits somewhere in the centre of that triangle. The dominant characteristic of the nine jointly-credited cuts is a pretty melodicism allied to a basic rhythm created using unconventional textures. Although Oliveira is credited only with prepared drums, at times the result is reminiscent of electronics. ...