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

Aimee Allen: Matter of Time

Read "Matter of Time" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
November 3, 2015

Aimee Allen's previous recording, her junior release, Winters & Mays. (Azuline Music, 2011) was a well-conceived offering from this Pittsburgh native. On Matter of Time, Allen brings her uncanny feel for jazz conception. The disc is slightly schizophrenic, with two competing centers of gravity: one in the jazz mainstream ("My Romance," “Out of Nowhere") and the Brazilian ("Matter of Time," “The Island"). For the latter, guitarist Romero Lubambo, provides all of the necessary humidity. On the Bossa ...

Mr. P.C.'s Guide to Jazz Etiquette and Bandstand Decorum

November 2015

by Mr. P.C.
November 2, 2015

Dear Mr. P.C.: I played on a recording session not long ago, and took four guitar solos. When they sent me a CD, I discovered that they'd had a trumpet player come in afterwards to play throughout the project--including during my solos! So everywhere I left space in a solo you'd hear the trumpet player adding little filler licks. Then the first review came out and praised the “uncanny interplay between guitar and trumpet!" This raises all kinds ...

My Blue Note Obsession

Lou Donaldson: Blues Walk – 1958

by Marc Davis
November 2, 2015

There's a tendency among some jazz purists to poo-poo Lou Donaldson. Not flashy enough, they say. Not groundbreaking. Too bluesy, too simple. Predictable. Derivative. A notch below the best Blue Note saxmen. A craftsman, not an artist. Aw phooey! I like Lou Donaldson and I don't mind anyone knowing. It has always been a mystery to me why certain jazz artists get tagged as simplistic and not quite jazzy enough. Dave Brubeck got that a lot. ...

Album Review

Patrick Williams: Home Suite Home

Read "Home Suite Home" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
November 2, 2015

Composer, arranger and band leader Patrick Williams leads some of the finest jazz musicians in L.A. on another exciting portrait of big band swing on Home Suite Home, an album that's far more personal than all of his previous works. Documenting a personal homage to his family and his first musical love, Williams pays tribute to his children and wife stating “I tried to capture the essence of the personality of my wife and three children in musical terms...""is truly ...

Album Review

Martina Fiserova: Shift

by James Nadal
November 2, 2015

Since her 2013 debut “Clearing Fields," vocalist Martina Fiserova has been on a relentless pursuit of living her dream. This has entailed coming to America to perform and gain experience, going on a European tour, and culminating with her release of Shift. Joined once again by keyboard whiz Brian Charette, this record is more personal in approach and content, with Fiserova writing all of the songs, as well as handling production duties. Some of the songs reflect her ...

Album Review

Matthew Shipp Quartet: Our Lady Of The Flowers

Read "Our Lady Of The Flowers" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
November 2, 2015

Our Lady Of The Flowers, titled in homage to French writer Jean Genet, constitutes the second disc by Declared Enemy, a familiar foursome convened by pianist Matthew Shipp. That association apart, the participants share a lot of history together. As a result they move like a finely tuned machine with well oiled parts through a program of nine selections credited to the pianist, but which sound like group inventions. And those parts are magnificent. Drummer Gerald Cleaver creates ...

Album Review

The Ayn Inserto Jazz Orchestra: Home Away From Home

Read "Home Away From Home" reviewed by Budd Kopman

by Budd Kopman
November 2, 2015

Composer and band leader Ayn Inserto's path leading to the release of the marvelous Home Away From Home is actually circular. Italian trombonist Massimo Morganti was studying at Berklee, when he heard a performance of Inserto's orchestra featuring tenor saxophonist George Garzone and trombonist Bob Brookmeyer (with whom she studied for two years as her mentor). Returning to Italy, he decided to create a similar orchestra the Colours Jazz Orchestra, in 2002 which ultimately put out Nineteen Plus One featuring ...

Album Review

Kama Ruby: Rock Dreams in Jazz

Read "Rock Dreams in Jazz" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
November 2, 2015

Vocalist Kama Ruby's sophomore effort Rock Dreams in Jazz is closeted in the respect that it contains only two rock songs among some sturdy jazz standards. The Eagles' “Hotel California" and Fleetwood Mac's “Rhiannon/Sister of the Moon" represent the promise of a set of “new" standards among the old. As provocative as they are, these newer songs do not come close to the transformation Ruby brings to “Embraceable You" and “Nature Boy." This is not your parent's ...

Multiple Reviews

Silent Songs: Introducing Ruben Machtelinckx

by Jakob Baekgaard
November 1, 2015

The easiest way to impress as a musician is to play loud and fast, but it is not necessarily the most emotionally engaging way of playing music. Instead, some of the best music creates a quiet room that it is possible to inhabit for the listener and such a space has become necessary in a time where things move much too fast and the virtue of contemplation is threatened. In that sense, Belgian guitarist Ruben Machtelinckx comes ...

Album Review

Tom Barton & Diego Villalta: Connections

Read "Connections" reviewed by Roger Farbey

by Roger Farbey
November 1, 2015

This is the second album by Australian vocalist Tom Barton, the first being Aspirations (2014) and is an entirely improvised affair. On Connections Barton shares the credits with fellow countryman Diego Villalta on guitar and was recorded at Studio Osaka Recording, Osaka, Japan, whilst the pair were on tour in early 2015. Harmonium-like looped notes precede Tom Barton's wordless pellucid tenor vocals on the opening track “Trust." Any anticipation, garnered from this first offering, of the session being ...