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

Gabriel Vicéns: Days

by Roger Farbey
October 12, 2015

Gabriel Vicéns recorded his first album Point in Time in 2012, when the guitarist was only 23 and which featured jazz bass legend Eddie Gomez. Days, his second album was recorded in his home town of San Juan, Puerto Rico. He currently teaches guitar at a collegiate level in the Music Department of the Interamerican University of Puerto Rico. Thanks to its tight ensemble,"El Teatro" sounds like a big band arrangement with initial solos from Alex Sipiagin on ...

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Genius Guide to Jazz

The Loneliest Monk

by Jeff Fitzgerald, Genius
October 11, 2015

This article was first published in August 2005. This is an apocryphal story. During Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign, he was doing an interview with supposed intellectual, Tabitha Soren of MTV. Soren asked him if there was anything he dreamt of doing. Clinton replied that he had always wanted to play sax with Thelonious Monk. Soren screwed on her best smart-girl face and replied, “And who was the loneliest monk?" At the current rate of production, ...

Live Review

Kosi at The Way Station

by Tyran Grillo
October 11, 2015

Kosi The Way Station Brooklyn, NY June 24, 2015 Kosi has devalued the phrase “unsung hero" by being a valuable heroine of song. The New York-based singer-songwriter has dropped three albums so far in her fiercely independent career. Between the intimate guitar-accompanied One More Cup of Coffee and her full band follow-up Pictures of Us, she had already described a lifetime's worth of ups and downs for the self-reflective listener. In anticipation of her latest ...

Album Review

Humphrey Lyttelton: In Canada

Read "In Canada" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
October 11, 2015

The most prolific of the British trad jazz revivalists, trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton had a long and varied career both as a musician and a broadcaster. In 1983 Lyttelton lead a Toronto based group on a session for Sackville interpreting eight songs penned by him. In Canada now reissued on Delmark showcases not only Lyttleton's superb trumpet mastery but also his skills as a composer and a clarinetist. The most memorable tune on the album is the Calypso flavored ...

Album Review

Duke Ellington: At The Cotton Club

Read "At The Cotton Club" reviewed by Chris Mosey

by Chris Mosey
October 11, 2015

These recordings by Duke Ellington from 1937-39 emphasize his unique place in the history of jazz. On the eve of the Swing Era, they open with a solo piano piece. Ellington introduces it as “Swing Session" but it's actually “Soda Fountain Rag," the first piece he ever wrote, in 1913, aged 14, while working as a soda jerk in the Poodle Dog Café on Georgia Avenue in his home town, Washington D.C. Ellington recalled: ...

Album Review

Stolen Hearts: Dirty Southern Soul

Read "Dirty Southern Soul" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
October 11, 2015

Multi-instrumentalists Pam Taylor and Robert Johnson, Jr. tacitly make up the durable blues-R&B-soul duo Stolen Hearts. Piedmont born and bred, the two fell in love and decided to make music together. This fortuitous coupling of talent has led to a serious survey of American music aptly called Dirty Southern Soul. The two trade duties singing, both with that authentic Southern grit one hopes to hear in this curious combination of blues, jazz, R&B, rock 'n' roll, soul and funk. Both ...

Album Review

Lizz Wright: Freedom & Surrender

Read "Freedom & Surrender" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
October 11, 2015

Few musicians, that have been commercially successful and artistically praised, have, at the height of their popularity, decided to take a hiatus to discover themselves. Renowned expressive vocalist Lizz Wright, did just that, and guided by a warrior spirit, propelled her music into a renewed direction on Freedom and Surrender. After a string of acclaimed records for the Verve label, and a number of guest side projects, Wright signed with Concord Music Group, savoring the opportunity to create music on ...

Interview

Maciej Lewenstein: Quantum Mechanics of Polish Jazz

by Cezary L. Lerski
October 11, 2015

Maciej Lewenstein was born in 1955 in Warsaw. He is a theoretical physicist and currently an ICREA professor at Institut de Ciències Fotòniques (ICFO) in Castelldefels near Barcelona, Spain. He has written more than 500 scientific papers and is the recipient of many international and national prizes. Next to theoretical physics his other passion is music and jazz in particular. First edition of his new English-language book Polish Jazz Recordings and Beyond, was published in 2014 by ...

Book Review

Los Lobos: Dream in Blue

by Doug Collette
October 10, 2015

Los Lobos Dream in Blue Chris Morris 182 Pages ISBN: # 029274823X University of Texas Press 2015 The best books about music and musicians are a direct reflection of their subjects and Chris Morris' chronicle on Los Lobos, Dream in Blue, is just such a book. Like the best sets by the band itself, the story moves with no little momentum through its one-hundred eighty-two pages because the author recounts the evolution of ...

Album Review

Galen Weston: Plugged In

Read "Plugged In" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
October 10, 2015

Moving from his high school listening experiences of groups like ACDC and Kiss, guitarist Galen Weston discovered jazz through the influences of well-established guitarists such as Pat Metheny and Mike Stern. After attending the highly-regarded jazz program at Toronto's Humber College, Weston opted out of music for more than ten years while pursuing other business interests. While traveling, a chance sit-in at a bar session in a small Greek town reignited Weston's interest in music. The result of his self-imposed ...