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

Mostly Other People Do the Killing: Mauch Chunk

Read "Mauch Chunk" reviewed by Troy Collins

by Troy Collins
October 24, 2015

Any concerns that a personnel change would affect the mercurial disposition of the “terrorist bebop band" known as Mostly Other People Do the Killing have been confirmed as unfounded by Mauch Chunk, the wily ensemble's eighth studio recording for Hot Cup Records. Trumpeter Peter Evans, an original member since the core quartet's founding in 2003, left after the release of last year's Blue--a perplexingly pointless note-for-note remake of Miles Davis' iconic Kind of Blue (Columbia, 1959). Evans' ostensible replacement, pianist ...

Album Review

Tom Csatari Band: Outro Waltz

Read "Outro Waltz" reviewed by Dave Wayne

by Dave Wayne
October 24, 2015

Deliberately low-fi and available as a download only (though you will be sent a repurposed album cover with a download code Scotch-taped to it if you request one), Outro Waltz by the Tom Csatari Band is, depending on your mood or musical orientation, completely charming or somewhat annoying. The download, ironically, is divided into two sides: one recorded direct to two-track in a studio, the other side recorded live in a small club. After a few listens, both Csatari's music ...

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Album Review

Gabriel Vicéns: Days

by Chris Mosey
October 24, 2015

A varied mix of influences has gone into the songs on this, Gabriel Vicéns' second album. There are the the loves of the guitarist's young life, the vampires and werewolves of the horror films he enjoys and the everyday trials and tribulations of the working people of his native Puerto Rico. He says: “I wrote 'Days' as a tribute to ordinary people who need to wake up early and work hard every single day... doing the same ...

Album Review

Dalannah and Owen: Been Around Awhile

Read "Been Around Awhile" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
October 24, 2015

It takes a lot of creative momentum to drive a bass/vocals duet for an entire collection of songs. It takes a lot of guts also. The duo Dalannah and Owen take a running stab at it...and mostly succeed. Been Around Awhile collects eleven originals and time-tested covers in the small space of their chosen performance format. Included here are interesting covers of Robert Johnson's “Come on in My Kitchen" and Eddie “Son" House's “Walkin' Blues." The sonic room is starkly ...

Live Review

Jackson Brown at Walmart Arkansas Music Amphitheater

by C. Michael Bailey
October 24, 2015

Jackson Browne Walmart Arkansas Music Amphitheater Cox Concert Series Rogers, Arkansas Saturday, October 17, 2015 I love nostalgia. It is the romance in my thought and it indeed had its way with me seeing Jackson Browne. The problem with nostalgia is it will never be 1974 again and I will never hear Late for the Sky for the first time again. Nevertheless, the diptych of “For a Dancer" and “Fountain of Sorrow" was ...

Live Review

Smokey Robinson at the NYCB Theatre at Westbury

by Mike Perciaccante
October 24, 2015

Smokey Robinson NYCB Theatre at Westbury Westbury, NY October 11, 2015 Smokey Robinson stood at the center of the small revolving stage of the NYCB Theatre at Westbury. It was just him and a lone spotlight, the band situated off-stage in the pit, Robinson, dressed all in white (white suit, white shirt, white shoes and a contrasting dark tie) commanded the stage and had the audience's full attention. “Stevie Wonder is my ...

Album Review

Michael Janisch: Paradigm Shift

Read "Paradigm Shift" reviewed by Roger Farbey

by Roger Farbey
October 23, 2015

This impressive double album recorded live over two nights in 2011 at Pizza Express Jazz Club, London is Michael Janisch's follow-up to his 2010 debut album Purpose Built. The release has been some four years in gestation for the U.S. born, Berklee educated and now UK-based bassist and composer. Additional post-production electronics and effects were introduced over a period of roughly a year, between 2014 and 2015, yielding an extremely satisfying result. The low groan of looped bass ...

Album Review

Michael Cain: Sola

by Karl Ackermann
October 23, 2015

In his long and well-established career, keyboardist/composer Michael Cain has often flown under the radar. Dating back to 1991, Cain was part of the bassist Anthony Cox's impressive quartet which included saxophonist Dewey Redman drummer Billy Higgins in its initial formation. His fine piano trio outing Circa (ECM, 1997) with trumpeter Ralph Alessi and saxophonist Peter Epstein was worthy of wider recognition as well. Among the top talent Cain worked with in those intervening years were Dave Holland, Oliver Lake, ...

Album Review

Keigo Hirakawa Trio: And Then There Were Three

Read "And Then There Were Three" reviewed by Mark Sullivan

by Mark Sullivan
October 23, 2015

Pianist Keigo Hirakawa clearly loves bebop, and bandmates Eddie Brookshire (bass) and Fenton Sparks (drums) are on the same page. There's energy and swing in abundance here, and while it is contemporary jazz, it's also telling that their cover of the great bebop pianist Bud Powell's classic “Dance Of The Infidels" fits right in with the rest of the program. But there are certainly ample examples of more modern approaches. The title tune gives the lead line to the bass, ...

Album Review

Geof Bradfield Quintet: Our Roots

Read "Our Roots" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
October 23, 2015

Tenor saxophonist Geof Bradfield's inspiration for Our Roots came from Clifford Jordan's Huddie “LeadBelly" tribute, These are my Roots: Clifford Jordan plays Leadbelly (Atlantic, 1965). While there is a bit of overlap in material from both recordings, Bradfield adopts a very different format for his presentation. Jordan employed a standard jazz rhythm section, while Bradfield eschews a harmony instrument in preference to a three-horn front. It is no mistake that this recording recalls alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman's seminal Atlantic recordings ...