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.

Building a Jazz Library

Ornette Coleman

by John Eyles
November 9, 2015

June 11th 2015 was one of those momentous days in jazz history that can truly be said to signal the end of an era--it was the day Ornette Coleman died. It is a mark of his stature that, on the day in question, when jazz fans told each other, “Ornette is dead" no-one ever asked, “Ornette who?" As with Elvis or Miles, one name was sufficient. There have been other Colemans, but there was only ever one Ornette...

Live Review

Stockholm Jazz Festival 2015

by John Ephland
November 9, 2015

Stockholm Jazz Festival Stockholm, Sweden October 9-18, 2015 The sleeper at this year's Stockholm Jazz Festival, and one this reviewer initially found more a curiosity than anything else, oddly enough was downright riveting, not to mention the first evening's headliner. More in the category of being a name crossover artist along the lines of a Dr. John, Buddy Guy or, dare I say, James Taylor, Rickie Lee Jones put on a show that presented ...

Album Review

Mike Rud: Miniatures

Read "Miniatures" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
November 9, 2015

What to do, what to do, what to do? That question must always be swimming around the mind of the creative performer. And for those who reap some sort of critical success with their work, it's magnified, as the listening public, no doubt, also ponders the next move. When faced with this endless sea of choice, many in said position try to outdo their previous successes, going bigger and broader in scope or retreading over the ground of their prize-winning ...

Album Review

Kansas Smitty's House Band: Kansas Smitty's

Read "Kansas Smitty's" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
November 9, 2015

Kansas Smitty's is the debut album from the eight-piece Kansas Smitty's House Band, a London-based octet with an open approach to the integration of many jazz styles. The result is a refreshingly original debut album filled with some of the catchiest and most engaging music around. House bands have a long history, playing regular but badly-paid gigs in dives and other dodgy establishments at the beck and call of dubious owners. Kansas Smitty's House Band follows that tradition ...

Album Review

Ifa y Xango Tentet: Twice Left Handed / Shavings

Read "Twice Left Handed / Shavings" reviewed by Dave Wayne

by Dave Wayne
November 9, 2015

A culturally improbable collaboration of Brazilian, Portuguese, and Belgian musicians, the Ifa y Xango Tentet is easily one of the most adventurous large ensembles operating anywhere in the world today. Co-operative in nature, and playing entirely their own original compositions, the group's vision, as captured on Twice Left Handed / Shavings encompasses jazz, rock, post-rock, doom / sludge, free improvisation, musique concrète, and electronic dance music in equal measure. This might seem a complete mish-mosh from this admittedly inadequate portrayal, ...

Album Review

Mike Reed's People, Places and Things: A New Kind of Dance

Read "A New Kind of Dance" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
November 9, 2015

As a drummer, promoter and composer Mike Reed is a standard bearer for Chicago's creative music scene. His club Constellation is a hot bed for improvisation and innovation that often defy narrow genre-isms. His unique musicianship, meanwhile, is on display on his many recordings particularly ones with his groups; People, Places and Things and Loose Assembly. The intriguing A New Kind of Dance is his tenth album as a leader and the sixth with People Places and Things. ...

Album Review

John Dikeman/William Parker/Hamid Drake: Live at La Resistenza

Read "Live at La Resistenza" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
November 9, 2015

The subtitle to Charles Mingus' composition “Gunslinging Bird" is “If Charlie Parker was a gunslinger, there'd be a whole lot of dead copycats," refers to the great alto saxophonist's ability to dominate a bandstand and quiet any and all comers. Parker, who died in 1955, might not have known about automatic weapons, nor the free jazz revolution which was to come in the following decade, but he certainly would appreciate a machine gunner like saxophonist John Dikeman. For ...

Interview

St. Germain: Refueling His Passion

by Nenad Georgievski
November 8, 2015

This article was translated from French. Every once in a while a new album will force you to reconfigure and re-evaluate all of the definitions and assumptions one has had about music in order to realize how vast and endless the possibilities of music can be. When it comes to producer and composer Ludovic Navarre it's a case of three albums which have shown the endless possibilities of electronic music and the endless horizons it can and has ...

Album Review

Lionel Loueke: GAÏA

by Dan Bilawsky
November 8, 2015

Those who figure that this reunion between guitarist Lionel Loueke and his longtime trio mates will be a simple trip down memory lane have another thing coming to them. While Loueke, drummer Ferenc Nemeth, and bassist Massimo Biolcati could've certainly delivered another globally-infused set replete with fluid gestures and finely-calibrated interplay, à la their work on earlier Loueke outings like Virgin Forest (OBJECT/ObliqSound, 2006) and the pair of albums they made as the cooperative trio known as Gilfema, they didn't. ...

Album Review

Mette Henriette Martedatter Rølvåg: Mette Henriette

Read "Mette Henriette" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
November 8, 2015

In her debut recording with the large Norwegian ensemble Torg on Kost/Elak/Gnäll (Jazzland Recordings, 2015), the playing of saxophonist Mette Henriette Martedatter Rølvåg may well have been lost in the pack. That Bugge Wesseltoft produced album was an unrestrained mashup of genres, styles and techniques in an octet that didn't easily lend itself to individual performance analysis. Not surprisingly, it was ECM's Manfred Eicher who recognized Rølvåg's extraordinary talent and paved the the way to this two-disc, self-titled leader debut. ...