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.

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Highly Opinionated

The New Orleans All-Star Brass Band: Do You Know What It Means?

by Ian Patterson
September 2, 2015

This article was originally published in October 2006. It has been said that the truest expression of a people is in its music and dance. That being the case, then pianist {m: Herbie Hancock was right on the money when he described New Orleans as “the soul of our country. The nation's soul however, was laid painfully bare for the world to see when hurricane Katrina struck. Katrina killed over fifteen hundred people and forced the displacement of ...

My Blue Note Obsession

Larry Young: Unity – 1965 – The Missing Link

by Marc Davis
September 2, 2015

In high school and college in the 1970s, I was a huge fan of progressive rock, especially Yes and Emerson Lake & Palmer. As a pianist myself, I was floored by Rick Wakeman and Keith Emerson. How did they do that? Fast, creative, loud, part-rock, part-jazz, part-classical. Wow. My obsession with Moog synthesizers led me to classical music through the back door. ELP led to Switched On Bach, which led to, well, real Bach. Later, the same impulse ...

Live Review

Anais Maviel with Miya Masaoka and Al Margolis at Y Not Jazz Room

by Alandra Markman
September 2, 2015

Anais Maviel with Miya Masaoka and Al Margolis Y Not Jazz Room Solo, Duet, and Trio Performances New York, NY August 9th, 2015 It is no hyperbole to call the French-Haitian singer Anais Maviel a force of nature. She sings from the heart and the gut, her voice merging with her environment for healing and revelation wherever she goes. Any context, from spare, painfully intimate solo shows to sprawling twenty-piece orchestral projects, is ...

Album Review

Rob Reddy: Bechet: Our Contemporary

Read "Bechet: Our Contemporary" reviewed by Troy Collins

by Troy Collins
September 2, 2015

With so much history to explore, tribute albums to jazz greats have become an established custom, regularly issued by artists of varying experience, from neophytes to masters. The most efficacious of these homages provide a fresh perspective on longstanding traditions, tracing the lineage of current concepts to past advances. A salient example of this phenomenon is Bechet: Our Contemporary, Rob Reddy's inspired ode to fellow soprano saxophonist and legendary innovator Sidney Bechet. Reddy has been active in the New York ...

Album Review

Banda de los Muertos: Banda de los Muertos

Read "Banda de los Muertos" reviewed by Matt Marshall

by Matt Marshall
September 2, 2015

It is common practice among groups that play Sinaloan banda music--a style that emerged from small village brass bands in Northwestern Mexico after the Revolution, typically featuring a few clarinets, trumpets, trombones and saxhorns, plus a tuba, snare drum and tambora--to link their name to their place of origin. Thus we get Banda El Recodo and La Arrolladora Banda El Limón, two of the music's most popular groups. This village association, and the broader regional identity of the music, is ...

Album Review

Caili O'Doherty: Padme

by Hrayr Attarian
September 2, 2015

On her intriguing debut Padme pianist Caili O'Doherty showcases her superb skills as a composer, an improviser and a bandleader. The individual musicians' spontaneous expressions are integrated within the harmonic construct of her nine originals that comprise the album. As such the solos sound as natural extensions of the prewritten music making O'Doherty's freshman effort dynamically modern and vibrantly organic.O'Doherty elegantly choreographs her band mates on the cinematic “The Promise of Old Panama City." An exciting melee of ...

Album Review

SLD Trio: Anfitrion

Read "Anfitrion" reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard

by Jakob Baekgaard
September 2, 2015

A piano trio without a leader? The concept is not unknown, but the norm in jazz is that a trio has a leader. Even pianist Bill Evans' trio with bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian, famous for dissolving the fixed hierarchy in a trio setting, was formally presented as the Bill Evans trio. Behind the acronym SLD Trio hides three charismatic musicians: pianist Paula Shocron, bassist Germán Lamonega and drummer Pablo Diaz. Both Shocron and Diaz ...

Mr. P.C.'s Guide to Jazz Etiquette and Bandstand Decorum

September 2015

by Mr. P.C.
September 1, 2015

Dear Mr. P.C.: Should it matter whether a jazz musician is or isn't pretty or handsome? --Can't Understand The Etiquette Dear CUTE: No it shouldn't, but unfortunately it does anyway. Jazz has historically been music of the down-trodden, disenfranchised and disfigured, and that's led to tremendous prejudice against good-looking players. What can we do? A full-fledged affirmative action plan would be hard to implement, but a sensible informal policy would ask each ...

Album Review

Jon Irabagon: Inaction is An Action

Read "Inaction is An Action" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
September 1, 2015

Saxophonist Jon Irabagon, a central figure in Mostly Other People Do the Killing, guitarist Mary Halvorson's Quintet and leader of his own trio with drummer Barry Altschul and bassist Mark Helias is one of the most prolific composers and performers in music. Still in his thirties, Irabagon has amassed about eighty recordings as a leader, co-leader or sideman and his portfolio covers the breadth from big band swing to free improvisation. As his career has zig-zagged its way through diverse ...

Live Review