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

David Patrick Octet: The Rite Of Spring

Read "The Rite Of Spring" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
October 13, 2015

Igor Stravinsky's “The Rite Of Spring," written for the Ballets Russe, premiered in Paris on 29 May 1913. Puccini called it “the creation of a madman": it seems to have held a fascination for jazz musicians ever since it appeared. Scottish pianist David Patrick is the latest jazz musician to create a version--a “re-adaptation" as he puts it--and it's a notable success. “The Rite Of Spring" was originally written for a seriously large orchestra (although Stravinsky also published ...

Album Review

Yago Vazquez/Scott Lee/Jeff Hirshfield: Stream

Read "Stream" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
October 13, 2015

These are good times for piano trios. Emerging groups like those of Pier Luigi Salami and Romain Collin, as well as the more establish work of Stefano Battaglia, have contributed to a recent spate of highly creative and renewed approaches to the format. Add to that list pianist Yago Vazquez, bassist Scott Lee, and drummer Jeff Hirshfield, collectively known as Stream, with their debut release of the same name. While Vazquez is in the process of establishing his resume, the ...

Album Review

Glenn Zottola: Charlie Parker with Strings Revisited

Read "Charlie Parker with Strings Revisited" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
October 13, 2015

Saxophonist and trumpeter Glenn Zottola came out of retirement from a long distinguished career, for the specific purpose of paying tribute to jazz artists who influenced his life and his music. The tribute series of albums which, include homages to Miles Davis, Clifford Brown and Stan Getz among them, concludes with a tip of the hat to the legendary Charlie Parker with a reprise of his classic Charlie Parker with Strings sessions of 1949 and 1950 capturing the romantic and ...

Album Review

9 Horses: Perfectest Herald

Read "Perfectest Herald" reviewed by Budd Kopman

by Budd Kopman
October 13, 2015

Perfectest Herald is another release that stretches the label “jazz" or even that of “creative improvised music" as it casts its spell and ultimately becomes completely enveloping. 9 Horses, the trio put together by composer and mandolin virtuoso Joseph Brent, consists of two other extraordinary players: violinist Sara Caswell and bassist Shawn Conley who seem just perfect for Brent's music. What is heard is a wonderful mixing of many styles and genres, including classical, jazz and folk which ...

Live From New York

CocoRosie, Dastan Ensemble, Arto Lindsay, Chick Corea, Béla Fleck, John Hammond, G.Love & Trio 3

by Martin Longley
October 12, 2015

CocoRosie Webster Hall September 25, 2015 The Casady sisters are one of the quirkiest teamings in... what? Rock, folk, hip-hop, reggae, electronica, performance art? All of these, and more, are present in their wildly gambolling songs, discernible as trace elements, but none fully emerging as what could be deemed an overbearing style. Sierra and Bianca are somewhat akin to an imagined avant music hall act, who are trying to escape from ill-advised opera ...

Album Review

Karrin Allyson: Many a New Day: Karrin Allyson sings Rodgers and Hammerstein

Read "Many a New Day: Karrin Allyson sings Rodgers and Hammerstein" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
October 12, 2015

Karrin Allyson projects always have all five points of the creative star pinned down: theme, repertoire, arrangement, sequencing, and support. Her recordings Ballads: Remembering John Coltrane (Concord, 2001), In Blue (Concord, 2002), Footprints (Concord, 2006), and 'Round Midnight (Concord, 2011) are all evidence of her unsurpassed musicianship and creative heart. Karrin Allyson's worst recording is still outstanding. Artistically fearless, Allyson again spins golden lace from her talent arsenal. Many a New Day: Karrin Allyson sings Rodgers and ...

Multiple Reviews

The Nordic Fusion of BoogiePost Recordings

by Eyal Hareuveni
October 12, 2015

Swedish, Copenhagen-based guitarist Samuel Hällkvist and Swedish, Gothenburg-based guitarist Thomas Gunillasson suggest two different perspectives on the legacy of fusion on their new recordings, one reaches for infinite, futuristic sounds and the other is rooted in fusion technical legacy. Samuel Hällkvist Variety of Live BoogiePost Recordings 2015 When Hällkvist took his dream team, the Variety of Loud ensemble--King Crimson's drummer Pat Mastelotto (here on traps and buttons), Pink Floyd's sideman-bassist Guy ...

Album Review

Steve Olson: The Ruthless Shapes of Paradise

Read "The Ruthless Shapes of Paradise" reviewed by Budd Kopman

by Budd Kopman
October 12, 2015

From the opening bell, which sounds for all the world like that which signals the beginning of a Zen meditation session, The Ruthless Shapes of Paradise creates a wondrous, ethereal and all-encompassing time/space continuum all of its own. Drummer/percussionist Steve Olson, whose previous album, Conversations explored free improvisation between himself and various other instrumentalists, had been deeply exploring a number of 20th century classical composers, and seemed to be particularly moved by the music of Morton Feldman (see ...

Album Review

Howard Riley: Discussions

Read "Discussions" reviewed by Roger Farbey

by Roger Farbey
October 12, 2015

The reissue on CD of Howard Riley's Discussions is to be welcomed, since it only ever saw a highly limited pressing of 99 copies when first released on the Opportunity label in 1967. It is also an important historical artefact because it provides a tangible clue as to how Riley progressed, via the foresight of David Howells at CBS, to record two outstanding albums Angle and The Day Will Come for that label. The sound quality on Discussions is not ...

My Blue Note Obsession

Point Of Departure

by Marc Davis
October 12, 2015

I have put off writing this blog post as long as possible. For three weeks, I've been listening to Andrew Hill's Point of Departure and contemplating what I can say that isn't blatantly subjective and negative.I give up. I just don't like it.I honestly thought I might appreciate this, even though I don't generally like avant-garde jazz. Almost everyone seems to love this record. Let me count the ways:The new book Uncompromising Expression, a ...