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.

Film Review

Roger Waters: The Wall Documentary

by Nenad Georgievski
October 3, 2015

Roger Waters and Sean Evans Roger Waters the Wall Rue 21 Productions 2014 It is interesting how things from a distant past still resonate deeply with people even decades after they were first made and introduced. Pink Floyd's seminal album The Wall (EMI, 1979) was the pinnacle of this band's career, both artistically and commercially, arriving as a culmination after a decade of meteoric successes with one of the most successful recordings ...

Album Review

Carin Lundin: What Now My Love?

Read "What Now My Love?" reviewed by Chris Mosey

by Chris Mosey
October 3, 2015

Carin Lundin is a class act, one of Sweden's best jazz singers. She hangs in there year on year, ably fending off the challenge of newer arrivals, without ever getting the full recognition she so richly deserves. In 2005 her disk, “Songs We All Recognize" was named one of the year's best albums by the national newspaper Svenska Dagbladet. In 2007 she won the national Jazz Museum's Anita O'Day prize and in 2010 her album “Smulor och ...

Album Review

Slobber Pup: Pole Axe

Read "Pole Axe" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
October 3, 2015

There is a certain liquidity found in the stables of RareNoise Records keyboardist Jamie Saft is both everywhere and nowhere, a part of Berserk!, Metallic Taste of Blood, Plymouth, and Saft Swallow, & Previte. But perhaps Saft's most interesting project this that of Slobber Pup: a post-apocalyptic tenor + jazz organ trio, shot full of morphine and uranium, giving off neutron vibes laying waste to all in earshot. When the psalmist wrote of “joyful noise" he or she most certainly ...

Extended Analysis

Arvo Part: Musica Selecta: A Sequence By Manfred Eicher

by C. Michael Bailey
October 3, 2015

Talented, urbane, and well-informed colleagues like John Kelman often make for a difficult act to follow. Kelman has long been the All About Jazz resident expert on all things ECM. Occasionally, his reportage does intersect with mine as in the present case of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt (b. 1935). I want to refer the reader first to Kelman's vital coverage of the recent Arvo Part: Musica Selecta: A Sequence by Manfred Eicher (ECM, 2015). The importance of this composer, this ...

Album Review

Yago Vazquez/Scott Lee/Jeff Hirshfield: Stream

by James Nadal
October 3, 2015

Every once in a while, a studio recording depicts the spirit and sensitivity of a live club date. Stream, the self-titled release by the trio consisting of pianist Yago Vazquez, bassist Scott Lee, and drummer Jeff Hirshfield, does just that. They perform the repertoire as they have done in the countless clubs where they have taken their music. Self-produced with a light hand, letting themselves do what they do best, this is an aural exhibition of original compositions implemented with ...

Live Review

ZZ Ward at Irving Plaza

by Mike Perciaccante
October 3, 2015

ZZ Ward with Marc Scibilia and The Young Wild Irving Plaza New York, NY September 18, 2015 With a first name like ZZ, one is sure to attract some attention. With blonde hair and model-like looks like those of ZZ Ward, attention is virtually demanded. With fantastic pipes, an ability to play numerous instruments and a stage presence that draws music lovers toward the stage, much like flies are drawn to bright ...

Live Review

Monterey Jazz Festival 2015

by Josef Woodard
October 2, 2015

Monterey Jazz Festival Monterey County Fairgrounds Monterey, CA September 18-20, 2015 Try as one might to just take the venerable but vibrant Monterey Jazz Festival for its immediate, present-tense and face value pleasure, historical angles keep filtering into the event, intentionally and otherwise. For this year's big, multi-staged jazz meeting at the Monterey Fairgrounds, celebrated its 58th birthday (and born in 1958, a numerical synchronism), and number-nerds will recall that last year's model had a ...

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Live Review

Monterey Jazz Festival 2015, Part 2

by Walter Atkins
October 2, 2015

2015 Monterey Jazz Festival Monterey County Fairgrounds Monterey CA September 18-20, 2015 The 58th edition of the storied Monterey Jazz Festival continued its long tradition of bringing its rich blend of both venerable and new artists to the historic Northern California venue. This year's extensive line up included: Chick Corea, Diane Reeves, Christian McBride, Geri Allen, Ambrose Akinmusire, Wynton Marsalis and JLCO, Terence Blanchard, Nikki Hill, Lucky Peterson, Cyrille Aimee, Trombone Shorty, Liz Wright, Etienne ...

Album Review

Stream: Stream

Read "Stream" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
October 2, 2015

The piano trio and the disc have the same name: Stream. The group is a collective: Yago Vazquez piano, Scott Lee, bass, and Jeff Hirshfield drums. Vasquez is Spanish transplant to New York City, having moved there to study at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music. The set contains a generous fourteen tunes, three penned by Vazquez, nine by bassist Lee, with a couple of collective improv pieces slipped in. Lee and Hirschfield are the seasoned ...

Album Review

Jonah Parzen-Johnson: Remember When Things Were Better Tomorrow

Read "Remember When Things Were Better Tomorrow" reviewed by Dave Wayne

by Dave Wayne
October 2, 2015

In the hands (and minds) of certain artists, self-imposed limitations can actually become fertile ground for creative work- arounds, new strategies, new ways of seeing and hearing things. Multi-instrumentalist Jonah Parzen-Johnson is one such artist. Parzen-Johnson plays baritone saxophone and analog synthesizer simultaneously and spontaneously. No overdubs or studio trickery. As you might imagine, his music is quite distinctive. After listening to Remember When Things Were Better Tomorrow, I would say that what Parzen-Johnson is doing is attempting to merge ...