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

Yuhan Su: A Room of One's Own

Read "A Room of One's Own" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
September 16, 2015

Vibraphonist and composer Yuhan Su's second release as a leader A Room Of One's Own is an intensely impressionistic work that captivates with its creative energy. Compared to her enchanting debut, Flying Alone (Inner Circle, 2012), the current album is more cohesive with the eleven tracks intricately interlinked. If her first was a series of charming poems around a common theme, her sophomore effort is a single, engaging novel in verse. The mystical ambience of the sublime, three-movement ...

Interview

Spirits Rejoice! An Interview with Jazz and Religion Author Dr. Jason Bivins

by K. Shackelford
September 16, 2015

When contemplating the connection between jazz and religion, many short pieces have been written about it, yet no American scholar has released an exhaustive and comprehensive book on such an important topic. Dr. Jason Bivins, a well-respected religious studies and philosophy professor, has brilliantly tackled the task. His new book, Spirits Rejoice! (Oxford University Press, 2015) is a groundbreaking piece of scholarship, offering the first book solely focused on the history of jazz and American religion from the 1940's to ...

Album Review

Julian Julien: Terre II

Read "Terre II" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
September 16, 2015

French composer/saxophonist Julian Julien has a growing fan base and a rich portfolio of work within his native country, reflecting a wide interest in genres, cultures and media. With his first composition of note coming in a 1993 Sorbonne University project, Julien went on to release his first EP album Tupperware et Bibelot (Self-produced, 1999). While he later travelled throughout Central and Southeastern Asia, he absorbed ethnic influences that would eventually be incorporated into his increasingly eclectic style of writing. ...

What is Jazz?

The Existential Intimacies of Jazz: Pat Martino Live

by Douglas Groothuis
September 15, 2015

Jazz, at its best, inducts its own into aesthetic alliances, some long-lasting, others fleeting, but all meaningful. Meaning is a matter of mortals finding something of value, something worthwhile. When two or more agree on meaning--especially in matters of music--the fellow-feeling may run deep and true. Pat Martino, jazz guitarist extraordinaire, along with a good friend helped this happen to me in the summer of 2012 in Chicago at The Jazz Showcase. This event is sweetly and securely lodged into ...

Book Excerpts

Zappa and Jazz: Did it Really Smell Funny, Frank?

by Geoffrey Wills
September 15, 2015

The following is an excerpt from “Chapter 2: Early Encounters with Jazz" of Zappa and Jazz: Did it Really Smell Funny, Frank? by Geoffrey Wills (Matador, 2015). When, at the age of fourteen, Zappa entered Mission Bay High School in San Diego in 1955, his first exposure to the elitist snobbery of a certain type of jazz fan occurred. It was like a red rag to a bull, and was no doubt the source of all his ...

Album Review

Jon Irabagon: Behind The Sky

Read "Behind The Sky" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
September 15, 2015

The grieving process is a personal journey and an act of discovery, allowing individuals to truly appreciate what was, while awakening to the reality of what is. And while no two people mourn in the exact same fashion, mourning itself, no matter the method, is almost always a cathartic experience. In the case of saxophonist Jon Irabagon, that emotional outpouring, connected to the loss of several loved ones and mentors, was channeled into Behind The Sky. Irabagon--winner ...

Album Review

Various Artists: The Magic & The Mystery Of The Piano Trio: Ballads & Lullabies

Read "The Magic & The Mystery Of The Piano Trio: Ballads & Lullabies" reviewed by John Ephland

by John Ephland
September 15, 2015

It's rare that a collection of songs that stay the course with a theme from track to track can hold interest. Especially when the tunes are so spare in execution, essentially simple love songs, performed by a collection of trios who maintain distinct musical personalities. Such is the case with The Magic And The Mystery.Across thirteen tracks we hear 12 originals by performing members, the only cover being a wistfully surprising one of David Bowie's “Life On Mars." ...

Album Review

Gene Ess: Eternal Monomyth

Read "Eternal Monomyth" reviewed by Geannine Reid

by Geannine Reid
September 15, 2015

Award winning guitarist, Gene Ess, draws upon a diverse background to form his unique style of playing and writing. Eternal Monomyth is a companion piece to Ess' last album, Fractal Attraction. Ess explains, “the music should be heard in that regard. In a transparent sense, it is a continuation of my exploration with the combined timbre of the female voice and the electric guitar wrapped up in original compositions and supported by a piano trio. But acutely, it is about ...

Album Review

Randi Cee: Any Kind Of Man

Read "Any Kind Of Man" reviewed by Budd Kopman

by Budd Kopman
September 15, 2015

Singer and all-around showbiz personality Randi Cee is a real deal throwback to the days when Tin Pan Alley and jazz intersected and produced the music that had high musical content as well high entertainment value. The nightclubs, Broadway musical and 78s were the soundtrack to the 1920s and 1930s and, to this day, this music evokes the Roaring Twenties as well as undercurrent of hope during the Great Depression. Any Kind Of Man is Cee's debut EP ...

Album Review

Kjetil Husebø: Steps

by Eyal Hareuveni
September 15, 2015

Norwegian pianist Kjetil Husebø attempted in his recent releases to integrate programmed sounds and live sampling into the sound of the acoustic piano. On Steps he focuses on the grand piano, his first solo piano album. The album was recorded in the famed Rainbow Studio in Oslo in a short session in December 2014, with the assistance of the studio master Jan Erik Kongshaug, the experienced engineer who recorded countless classic ECM albums, including the seminal solo piano album, Keith ...