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

Sun Ra Arkestra Under the Direction of Marshall Allen: Babylon

by Mark Corroto
October 9, 2015

If the recording Babylon is any indication, the second century of Sun Ra's music will be as entertaining as the first hundred years. Recorded live at Istanbul's Babylon Club in 2014, the full effect of Sun Ra's Arkestra is captured in all its glory with this CD and bonus DVD recording. The Arkestra has been under the direction of nonagenarian Marshall Allen since Sun Ra's death in 1993. Allen, an alto saxophonist and sideman to Ra since the ...

Album Review

Geof Bradfield: Our Roots

Read "Our Roots" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
October 9, 2015

Without the blues, there would be no jazz, and arguably, no rock-and-roll. Think about it, if there were no rock-and-roll, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, who stole every American blues lick they could find in the 1960s, would have had to get real jobs. Jazz musicians suffer no illusions that their music wasn't born of the African-American blues tradition and its music is unequaled when it deals overtly with this tradition. Saxophonist Geof Bradfield is a skilled composer ...

Album Review

Noah Preminger: Pivot: Live At The 55 Bar

Read "Pivot: Live At The 55 Bar" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
October 9, 2015

With few exceptions, there has always been a disconnect between live performance and recorded jazz. They are almost two worlds divorced from each other. Sure, listening to an LP of Sonny Rollins or Bill Evans captured at the Village Vanguard has a historic aura about it, but capturing that moment in time is nearly unachievable. Nothing can compare to sitting (or standing, drink in hand) in a club to witness, not only the sounds, but the physical aspects of performance. ...

Live Review

Doug Webb at The Turning Point Cafe

by David A. Orthmann
October 8, 2015

Doug Webb The Turning Point Cafe Piermont, NY September 28, 2015 The Monday Jazz Sessions, a fixture at The Turning Point Café since 2007, are a product of the dauntless efforts of series curator John Richmond. Among other responsibilities, Richmond books the musicians, publicizes the events, enthusiastically greets visitors, tends to the lighting, interacts with the staff, serves as master of ceremonies and, after a set by the featured artists, manages a jam session. One ...

Album Review

Joyce Moreno/Kenny Werner: Poesia

by Dan Bilawsky
October 8, 2015

Though it may be a nonsensical thought, it's tempting to wonder if Kenny Werner has figured out how to clone himself. Lately, it would seem that he's everywhere: if you've opened the pages of DownBeat you've seen his “Zen And The Art Of Jazz" columns staring back at you; if you've headed up to Berklee you've seen him in action, acting as Artistic Director of that institution's Performance Wellness Institute; if you frequent New York's Blue Note or Jazz Standard ...

Live Review

Ornette Coleman Tribute at Blue Note NYC

by Tyran Grillo
October 8, 2015

Dave Liebman & Friends Blue Note New York, NY June 23, 2015 It's not often one can claim a musician to have redefined the jazz landscape, but that's exactly what saxophonist Dave Liebman said of the late Ornette Coleman (1930-2015), subject of a spontaneous tribute at the Blue Note in New York. Since making his 1959 debut in that city's Five Spot Café, Coleman broadcast his grip on the genre at its very core, ...

Album Review

St. Germain: St. Germain

Read "St. Germain" reviewed by Nenad Georgievski

by Nenad Georgievski
October 8, 2015

There are really a handful of artists that are as eclectic as producer/DJ Ludovic Navarre and which have managed to enjoy major chart success. Navarre, better known under the moniker St. Germain, has created a seamless blend of jazz and deep house that captured the imagination of listeners worldwide with the release of the seminal album Tourist. The album was not just simple electronic music using samples or fusing elements from jazz and marrying them with dance beats, but it ...

Live Review

John Zorn and Bill Laswell at The Stone

by Tyran Grillo
October 8, 2015

John Zorn/Bill Laswell The Stone New York, NY June 25, 2015 Associations between composer John Zorn and bassist Bill Laswell go back at least to the formation of their band Painkiller (with drummer Mick Harris) in 1991, and it was trailing the shadows of that potent abyss that they reconvened for a rare duo performance during a week-long Laswell residency at Zorn's curatorial sound space, The Stone. Both musicians are, of course, towering figures in ...

Album Review

Bambi Pang Pang featuring Andrew Cyrille: Drop your plans

Read "Drop your plans" reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard

by Jakob Baekgaard
October 8, 2015

In many aspects of life, bringing someone in from outside can provide a new perspective on things. This is also true in music where a guest musician can transform or enrich the established language of a closed unit. In the case of Belgian group Bambi Pang Pang, the inclusion of free jazz drummer Andrew Cyrille opens a vista where the exploration of emotions becomes the key ingredient in experiments with form. Drop your plans is the name of the album ...

Album Review

The Kora Band: New Cities

Read "New Cities" reviewed by Roger Farbey

by Roger Farbey
October 8, 2015

Pianist Andrew Oliver formed The Kora Band in 2008 following a tour in West Africa and a chance meeting with a kora player, leading him to track down Kane Mathis, whom he recruited and whose presence naturally gave birth to the group's name and its idiosyncratic sound. Mathis is one of the foremost kora players in America and brings to the band a completely different dimension. The kora is a kind of traditional harp, originally played by musicians of the ...