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 Mark Sullivan

by Mark Sullivan
October 21, 2015

Mostly Other People Do the Killing, the bad boys of jazz, don't quite turn in a straight ahead hard bop album with Mauch Chunk, but it's as close as they are likely to get. The new quartet has pianist Ron Stabinsky in place of longtime trumpeter Peter Evans--which seems to ground the group sound--and there's less obvious classic jazz deconstruction and quotation than normal. Saxophonist Jon Irabagon stays on alto for the entire session, something he has not done in ...

Album Review

Nicole Glover: First Record

Read "First Record" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
October 21, 2015

Tenor saxophonist Nicole Glover has made a bold statement with her First Record. The deceptively generic title belies the stimulating music comprising this thematically cohesive album. Glover's own compositions as well as her interpretations of others' work is rooted in the august tradition of her instrument in jazz and, much like that of her idols, it has a uniquely mordant adventurous edge. The dramatic “Snow Dance" demonstrates Glover's “inside-outside" playing and writing. Pianist George Colligan, here on trumpet, ...

Live Review

Debashish Bhattacharya at Streamside Concerts

by Mark Sullivan
October 21, 2015

Debashish Bhattacharya Streamside Concerts Arden, NC October 10, 2015 The intimate house concert setting of Streamside Concerts was a perfect way to experience the playing of the great Hindustani slide guitarist Debashish Bhattacharya. Accompanied by his brother Subhasis on tabla, the pair relied upon the iTablaPro application in place of the traditional tanpura (drone) instrument. Bhattacharya demonstrated the software as he was tuning up: the name sounds like some kind of joke, but it's actually ...

Album Review

Jeremy Danneman: Lady Boom Boom

Read "Lady Boom Boom" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
October 20, 2015

The CD Lady Boom Boom slides across the desk, with its provocative woman on the cover--a tight black dress with a shoulder strap slipping down--and the first thought that comes to mind is a Lady Gaga knock off. Thankfully, it's not. Lady Boom Boom is the work of Jeremy Danneman, a New York based saxophonist/clarinetist with his quartet, laying down some music that brings free jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman to mind, with its slinky opener, “Sugar Cane." Danneman, a multi-reedist, ...

Live From New York

Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Kassé Mady Diabaté, George Coleman & Tedeschi Trucks Band

by Martin Longley
October 20, 2015

Godspeed You! Black Emperor The Music Hall Of Williamsburg September 30, 2015 On the ground level, there was a tendency to simply watch the flickering images, glimmering out from old school projectors, rattlingly housed within the mixing desk corral. As most of the players in this Montréal collective, particularly the guitarists, were seated, it was difficult to discern more than their heads. This was an engaging perspective on one level, sending the sounds ...

Album Review

Tommy Castro & The Painkillers: Method to My Madness

Read "Method to My Madness" reviewed by Jim Trageser

by Jim Trageser
October 20, 2015

Few have epitomized the workingman nature of the blues as much as Tommy Castro. A popular staple of blues festivals and cruises, and steadily in demand since he issued his debut in 1994, Castro nevertheless has always somewhat resided in the second tier of blues artists: Popular, well-liked, kept working steadily, but not considered one of the greats. And yet, even as he heads into his 60s, the Bay Area resident keeps growing, keeps pushing --continues to show ...

Album Review

Ike Sturm + Evergreen: Shelter of Trees

Read "Shelter of Trees" reviewed by Mark F. Turner

by Mark F. Turner
October 20, 2015

Bassist/composer Ike Sturm has served as Director of Music for the Jazz Ministry at Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan since 2004 and presents a love offering of jazz and sacred music in Shelter of Trees. The set is elevating yet soothing, centered yet diverse as Sturm's band: Evergreen, stretches the boundaries of what might be confined to the label of consecrated music. The recording begins with the jubilant “Rejoice" with the perfect balance of music and vocals, ...

478

Live Review

Helen Sung Quintet At The Sequoia Room

by Walter Atkins
October 20, 2015

Helen Sung Quintet Sequoia Room At the Brewery Tap Room Thelonious Monk Birthday Celebration Fort Bragg, CA October 10, 2015 Prominent pianist Thelonious Monk was born October 10,1917 in North Carolina. Over his esteemed career, Monk played with the pantheon of jazz giants that included John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. He was also instrumental in the creation of Bebop. Monk's technique was uniquely inventive and also very demanding. Today, ...

Album Review

Alicia Hall Moran: Heavy Blue

Read "Heavy Blue" reviewed by Tyran Grillo

by Tyran Grillo
October 20, 2015

After years of orbiting, with projects ranging from a celebrated turn as Porgy's Bess on Broadway to her own Motown revue, Alicia Hall Moran has at last landed on Earth long enough to burrow nearly to its core in search of vocal identity on the debut recording, Heavy Blue. Here is a portrait not only of a singer, but also of one who sings, the difference being that the former adapts--mind, body, and soul--to the rhythms of an unstable world ...

Live Review

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis at the Mesa Arts Center

by Patricia Myers
October 20, 2015

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis Mesa Arts Center Mesa, Arizona September 25, 2015 A sophisticated and engaging performance by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis was a meld of the trumpeter-leader's ongoing homage to jazz history plus the spark of original compositions from his current colleagues. Dizzy Gillespie's “Things to Come" from 1946 was the opening chart, Marsalis delivering an extended solo at super-speed that exhibited his ...