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

Nils Lofgren: UK 2015 Face the Music Tour

Read "UK 2015 Face the Music Tour" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
November 7, 2015

On the back cover of the UK 2015 Face the Music Tour CD, Nils Lofgren isn't outfitted in a much less colorful outfit than on his eponymous solo album of 1975. And that's reflective of the music inside which, appropriately enough for such a stripped-down duo approach, emphasizes the man's well-wrought material and an effervescent performing style. But then Nils Lofgren has long radiated a persona that virtually defines panache and here that understated humble braggadocio, also in ...

Live Review

GoGo Penguin at Riverbank Arts Centre

by Ian Patterson
November 6, 2015

GoGo Penguin Riverbank Arts Centre Newbridge, Ireland October 31, 2015 With the Curragh Racecourse just a few furlongs away, Newbridge is more famous for horse racing than for its bridge that spans The Liffey. However, the independent Riverbank Arts Centre--just forty minutes from Dublin--is doing its bit to broaden the town's profile as, in addition to a great place for a flutter, a home to local, national and international arts. On this Halloween night, ...

Album Review

Kai Hoffman: Luckiest Girl Alive

Read "Luckiest Girl Alive" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
November 6, 2015

Kai Hoffman is the self-confessed Luckiest Girl Alive, or so this album would have it. She certainly sounds like a contender for the title across most of the 14 songs, crafting a definite and infectious feel-good atmosphere along with her quintet. Hoffman was raised in Boston but has been based on London for some years, hosting regular club nights at Ronnie Scott's Club since 2008. Her striking visual image is matched by her musical style--which results from her ...

Album Review

Rotem Sivan Trio: A New Dance

Read "A New Dance" reviewed by Dave Wayne

by Dave Wayne
November 6, 2015

You can only imagine the hurricane-like storm of hyperbole that accompanies every new release by every single fresh young jazz artist on today's scene. We are promised, every time, that the artist in question (...always immensely-talented) is a “musical genius" and “true innovator" who is going to “transform the jazz world as we know it." The only thing such purple prose engenders in me is a healthy sense of skepticism. You hear such stuff once, twice, a million times and ...

Multiple Reviews

Livelove Radio Bremen series continues: Working Week and Jazz Passengers

by Mark Sullivan
November 6, 2015

The Livelove series issuing archival live Radio Bremen recordings began with Larry Coryell & The Eleventh House from January 1975 (Promising Music, 2015) and the Horace Silver Quintet from June 1977 (Promising Music, 2015). That seems like a pretty wide range: from jazz fusion to hard bop. But the third and fourth releases in the series broaden the range even more, with the jazzy pop of Working Week and the eclectic jazz of The Jazz Passengers. Every release in the ...

Album Review

Nicole Mitchell/Tomeka Reid/Mike Reed: Artifacts

Read "Artifacts" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
November 6, 2015

Flutist Nicole Mitchell, cellist Tomeka Reid and drummer Mike Reed are three of the most prominent members of the third generation of Association for Advancement of Creative Music (AACM). Each one is a consummate musician; equally adept at composing and improvising. Each one of them has forged their boldly unique artistic path with an instantly recognizable soundTheir collaborative album Artifacts is a compelling and exquisite work that augments their innovative individual styles with a superb almost telepathic camaraderie. ...

Album Review

Ochion Jewell Quartet: Volk

by Budd Kopman
November 6, 2015

From the opening notes of its introductory overture, “At the End of the World, Where the Lion Weep" which leads to the improvisatory “Pathos/Logos," Volk feels like an important record with a seriousness of intent, precision of execution combined with emotional depth and breadth. A vast sound scape is opened into which we peer, quickly followed by the realization of the music's geographic/cultural diversity. There is no need to read the notes, or to learn of how or ...

Album Review

Mose Allison: Mose Allison: American Legend in California

Read "Mose Allison: American Legend in California" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
November 6, 2015

Tippo, Mississippi is about as far from Charleston as it is Tutwiler, the two county seats of Tallahatchie County, located on the northeastern edge of the alluvial Delta plain, before the land turns to rolling hills. There lives in Tippo, an Allison family, who thirty years ago were patients of mine when I was practicing pharmacy while attending graduate school. That is Allison...as in, Mose Allison. I Mose Allison's mother and brother frequently during the 10 years I kicked around ...

Film Review

Laurie Anderson: Heart of a Dog

by Nenad Georgievski
November 6, 2015

Laurie Anderson Heart of a Dog Nonesuch 2015 Renaissance woman and maverick Laurie Anderson is one of the most intensely engrossing artists of our time. Her work, whether music or performance or art is electric, alluring, thought provoking, forward thinking, funny, witty, ironic and deeply emotional. She does many things in different areas whether it's music, art, video, performances, design, dance, but above all she tells stories, where all these interests morph together to ...

Guitarist's Rendezvous

Steve Herberman, Hristo Vitchev, Rick Stone and Harvey Valdes

by Dom Minasi
November 5, 2015

Welcome back to Guitarists Rendezvous, our third installment in a series that introduces readers to emerging or established guitarists who fly just under the radar of public recognition. Each will field the same four questions and we've included audio and video so you can sample their music. This installment includes a diverse group of musicians from New York, California, and Washington DC. Meet Steve Herberman Steve hails from Washington DC. I met ...