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.

Interview

Wynton Marsalis: Driving the Jazz at Lincoln Center Engine

by R.J. DeLuke
October 14, 2015

Jazz became America's popular music during the big band era, where people with ears for music and feet for dancing heard national bands, regional bands, and local bands. Musicians that became jazz stars attained that status through their individual solo statements in small windows in songs, especially when they were lucky enough to get them on recordings. Those bands never completely disappeared, but in the 1940s the tide turned and jazz musicians relished the freedom accorded them in small groups. ...

Take Five With...

Take Five with Anthony Smith

by AAJ Staff
October 14, 2015

About Anthony Smith: Anthony Smith has been playing piano and vibraphone, as well as various keyboards, professionally for twenty-five years. He has released numerous recordings, worked in a variety of genres, and toured extensively as both a leader and a sideman, with many different projects. His last jazz vibraphone recording, Connections, made it to the top 20 of the national jazz radio charts. His new recording, Play It Forward, Volume One and Two, features a stellar lineup of New ...

Extended Analysis

Wes Montgomery: In The Beginning-Early Recordings from 1949-1958

by Hrayr Attarian
October 14, 2015

Guitarist Wes Montgomery, despite his tragically short life, was very prolific and immensely impactful. Equally adept at sophisticated instrumental virtuosity and lighter, more commercially appealing sounds, Montgomery influenced majority of guitar players who appeared on the jazz scene during the 1960s and after. Montgomery cut his first record Fingerpickin' for Pacific Jazz in 1958 at the age of 35. During the preceding decade, however, Montgomery performed regularly despite having a “day job" at a factory. With In The ...

Album Review

Mike Holober: Balancing Act

Read "Balancing Act" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
October 14, 2015

Conceptualizing and creating music is a delicate balancing act, leaving composers to strive for symmetry between head and heart, reasoning and intuition, and structure and freedom. Who better to understand that than Mike Holober? Whether penning a piece or playing piano, Holober has always shown himself to be mindful of the need to find harmony between those and other opposing principles. It's his ability to do so that, in large part, has made him such a hot commodity in the ...

Album Review

Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey: The Battle for Earth

Read "The Battle for Earth" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
October 14, 2015

The Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey has been an adventuresome group since first initiated as an eight piece ensemble in its home of Oklahoma in 1994 But the group has quite possibly never lived up so fully to its moniker since realigning itself as a trio (again) in 2013. Keyboardist and charter member Brian Haas, guitarist/lap steel/synth player Chris Combs and drummer Josh Raymer have engaged in ambitious projects like The Race Riot Suite (Kinnara Prod., 2011), as well as self-sufficient ...

Album Review

Mostly Other People Do the Killing: Mauch Chunk

Read "Mauch Chunk" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
October 14, 2015

If ever a jazz group defied labeling, it is Mostly Other People Do the Killing (MOPDtK). With their self-titled debut (Hot Cup Records, 2004), the group had demonstrated a wildly engrossing pastiche encompassing influences as diverse as Ornette Coleman and traditional New Orleans swing. MOPDtK was founded by bassist Moppa Elliott and trumpeter Peter Evans who met in the late 90s as students of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio. When the two relocated to New York, saxophonist Jon ...

Album Review

Richard Nelson / Aardvark Jazz Orchestra: Deep River

Read "Deep River" reviewed by Budd Kopman

by Budd Kopman
October 14, 2015

The inspiration for jazz composition and improvisation can come from almost anywhere. For guitarist/composer Richard Nelson it was American roots music that he played with his then 12-year-old son who had developed an intense connection to the old tunes and players. The jazz suite Deep River is the result of experiencing this music with extra intensity through his son and then translating that energy to composing. Nelson has been associated with Mark Harvey's long existing (40+ ...

Interview

Scott Colley: Staying In The Moment

by Mark Sullivan
October 13, 2015

Bassist Scott Colley was involved in three of the most well attended performances at the 2015 Detroit Jazz Festival: the Pat Metheny Trio with guest Kenny Garrett on opening night; the Pat Metheny/Gary Burton Quartet Reunion on Saturday night; and the grand closing performance featuring the North American premiere of Pat Metheny's “Hommage" to Eberhard Weber on Monday night. Our conversation ranged from lessons learned from early mentors, to the bass role in jazz ensembles, to working on “Hommage."

Film Review

Don Cheadle's "Miles Ahead"

by Solomon J. LeFlore
October 13, 2015

Miles Ahead, in which the Academy Award winning actor portrays the legendary trumpeter, marks the directorial debut of Don Cheadle, who co-wrote the script.The independently financed production was shot in Cincinnati. Co-starring with Don Cheadle are Ewan McGregor, Michael Stuhlbarg and Emayatzy Corinealdi. The production capped a nine year journey to the big screen that started with Davis' posthumous induction into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame.Rather than encapsulating the entirety of Miles Davis' life, ...

Live Review

Andy Sheppard Quartet At The Mac

by Ian Patterson
October 13, 2015

Andy Sheppard Quartet The Mac Belfast, N. Ireland October 9, 2015 Three years on from his Belfast Festival performance with Trio Libero, saxophonist Andy Sheppard returned to the Northern Irish capital with his new quartet comprised of that trio plus Norwegian guitarist/sound sculptor Eivind Aarset. That the gig went ahead following a security alert in the city centre was a sign that people in this part of the world just want to get on ...