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

Marnix Busstra: Firm Fragile Fun

Read "Firm Fragile Fun" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
November 12, 2015

Can a single word sum up the meaning and magic of a song? In the large majority of cases, the answer is no. But that doesn't mean a brief descriptor can't serve as a window into a composition's bearing. Just look at the track titles on the latest release from Dutch guitarist-composer Marnix Busstra: each song on Firm Fragile Fun gets its name from a single word assigned to it by some of Busstra's non-musician friends, instantaneously bringing to light ...

Album Review

Mike Holober: Balancing Act

Read "Balancing Act" reviewed by Mark Sullivan

by Mark Sullivan
November 12, 2015

Pianist/composer Mike Holober has had an active career with big bands (including HR Big Band Frankfurt, WDR Big Band Cologne, Stockholm Jazz Orchestra, and the Westchester Jazz Orchestra in the U.S.). So he brings a refined approach to the composing and arranging on this octet recording. He set himself an ambitious goal: to feature a vocalist, but as another frontline instrument rather than the primary focus. “I wanted to use a singer and lyrics in extended form compositions--not wrapped up ...

Album Review

Hans Olding & Sigurdur Flosason: Projeto Brasil!

Read "Projeto Brasil!" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
November 12, 2015

The bossa nova, samba and popular Brazilian music of the 60s and 70s are the main theme on Projeto Brasil!, a stylish collaboration from Swedish guitarist/composer Hans Olding and Icelandic saxophonist Sigurdur Flosason as the duo pay tribute to the music of Antonio Carlos Jobim, Milton Nascimento and Vinicius de Moraes. The two co-leaders provide innovative arrangements to seven Brazilian standards and include two original homages to Jobim and Nascimento in the mix using a non-standard piano-less quintet to interpret ...

Album Review

Deux Maisons: For Sale

by John Sharpe
November 12, 2015

The two houses name-checked in the outift's moniker refer to the twin countries represented by the string pairing of French brothers Théo and Valentin Ceccaldi and the Portuguese duo of trumpeter Luis Vicente and drummer Marco Franco. Vicente already boasts a well received previous disc in Clocks & Clouds (FMR, 2014) which matched both him and Franco with two thirds of the Red Trio, namely fellow countrymen pianist Ricardo Pinheiro and bassist Hernani Faustino. This release with its idiosyncratic group ...

Album Review

Jakob Norgren Jazz Orchestra: Pathfinding

Read "Pathfinding" reviewed by Budd Kopman

by Budd Kopman
November 12, 2015

One look into the eyes of composer/reed man Jakob Norgren tells you that he is an extremely purposeful, self- directed and intense person. His music for his Jazz Orchestra reflects these attributes, making Pathfinding quite an aural ride. Stylistically, this music fits somewhere between Ayn Inserto's story-telling Home Away From Home and John Fedchock's more traditional Like It Is. This is a very tight big band that can swing like crazy ("Serendipity") or blow the roof out (the ...

Interview

Michael Janisch: The Whirlwind, Paradigm Shift and London's Label of the Moment

by Phil Barnes
November 11, 2015

However you look at it Michael Janisch is an extraordinarily driven, highly motivated, success story. Not only has he been the founder, owner and force behind London's wonderful Whirlwind Recordings for the last five years, but he has also just released one of 2015's finest albums in the adventurous 2CD set Paradigm Shift. It's no coincidence that the label takes Janisch's nickname “the whirlwind"--at the time of the interview in late October he was two thirds of the way through ...

Live Review

Irakere 40 at SFJAZZ

by Harry S. Pariser
November 11, 2015

Irakere 40 SFJAZZ San Francisco, California October 30, 2015 “They were smoking." That was KPFA's Art Sato, host of “In Your Ear"--a weekly Saturday afternoon Latin Jazz, jazz and flamenco music program on KPFA in Berkeley, California--evaluating legendary Cuban band Irakere's then-ongoing performance at SFJAZZ in San Francisco. Indeed they were! Presenting sizzling, searing music, leaping from a polyrhythmic frying pan, the band has melded a variety of musical forms ...

Album Review

Sullivan Fortner: Aria

by Dan Bilawsky
November 11, 2015

New Orleans has produced a bumper crop of notable pianists over its long and storied history--Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Domino, Professor Longhair, Allen Toussaint, James Booker, Dr. John, Ellis Marsalis, Henry Butler, Harry Connick Jr., Jon Batiste--and it's not done yet. Sullivan Fortner, a twenty-eight year old piano phenom who's been a hot topic since receiving the American Pianists Association's 2015 Cole Porter Fellow award, is the latest notable NOLA piano export to register on a national level. He's done ...

Album Review

Moonlight Saving Time: Meeting At Night

Read "Meeting At Night" reviewed by Roger Farbey

by Roger Farbey
November 11, 2015

"Clouds" opens this set with a barely audible intake of breath, Emily Wright's dulcet voice, augmented in resplendent harmony by multi-tracking, is instantly indicative of her prodigious ability. The “Englishness" of Wright's vocal delivery is also obvious on the title track (with words by Victorian poet Robert Browning), where at times she channels that doyenne of British jazz, Norma Winstone. It's here too that Nick Malcolm turns in a fluid trumpet solo and guest saxophonist Jason Yarde contributes an alto ...

Album Review

June Bisantz: It's Always You: June Bisantz Sings Chet Baker Vol. 2

Read "It's Always You: June Bisantz Sings Chet Baker Vol. 2" reviewed by Mark Sullivan

by Mark Sullivan
November 11, 2015

Vocalist June Bisantz pays tribute to the singing of legendary trumpeter/vocalist Chet Baker on this collection of standards associated with him. Along with collaborators pianist Alex Nakhimovsky and guitarist Norman Johnson (plus a number of other musicians), the group achieves its goal by emulation rather than imitation. Bisantz captures Baker's soft, intimate vocal sound, the key to making the project work. It's a vocal style completely out of step with current “diva" practice: seemingly almost casual, with no overt technical ...