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.

Live Review

Baby do Brasil at Blue Note Jazz Club

by Ernest Barteldes
August 25, 2015

Baby do Brasil Blue Note Jazz Club New York, NY August 17, 2015 On the first set of her appearance at the Manhattan Jazz Club, Baby do Brasil was backed by a 6-piece band under the musical direction of her guitarist son Pedro Baby that included Ze Grey (bass), Skoota (drums) and Daniel Sadownick (percussion) playing an extended set focused on her greatest hits and some new material, kicking off with a ...

Album Review

Michael Gibbs & The NDR Bigband: Play A Bill Frisell Set List

Read "Play A Bill Frisell Set List" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
August 25, 2015

Guitarist Bill Frisell probably never had a preconceived notion that he'd one day record with famed British arranger, conductor and composer, Michael Gibbs after taking several of his classes as a student at Berklee College of Music back in 1975. Thus, Gibbs and the legendary NDR Bigband instill a symbiotic musical relationship throughout this cunningly envisioned game-plan, where Gibbs' arrangements encapsulate and boost a Frisell set list by conveying a bilateral succession of prismatic tonal contrasts. Moreover, in- demand American ...

Take Five With...

Take Five with Cesar Orozco

by AAJ Staff
August 24, 2015

Meet Cesar Orozco: Orozco, a prolific pianist, composer, and arranger, fuses jazz with Cuban and Venezuelan musical styles in unexpected ways that fans in North and South America find irresistible. Born in Cuba in 1980, he moved to Venezuela in 1998, then to the United States in 2012. He has performed and recorded with numerous international artists and toured extensively (United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Scotland, The Netherlands, Colombia, Argentina, and Mexico). He holds music degrees from both ...

Extended Analysis

Miles Davis at Newport 1955-1975: The Bootleg Series Vol. 4

by Doug Collette
August 24, 2015

There's a theory a nascent jazzlover could build an estimable collection of the music simply by picking and choosing from the discography of Miles Davis and the various musicians with whom he's collaborated over the years. Likewise, the mercurial alterations of style enacted by the man with the horn reflect the evolution of the music itself, never so vividly captured as this edition of The Bootleg Series. On Vol. 4 At Newport 1955-1975, the ascension of Davis as ...

Live Review

Ben Haugland Quintet at The Falcon

by David A. Orthmann
August 24, 2015

Ben Haugland Quintet The Falcon Marlboro, NY August 13, 2015 In any given jazz performance, nothing exists in isolation, everything is subject to multiple influences, and each act or gesture has a genuine purpose. The weight of the music's tradition, the rapport and mutual respect of the players, the aura of a venue on a particular night, as well as the relationship between the performers and audience, are all part of every note executed ...

Album Review

Roberto Magris: Enigmatix

Read "Enigmatix" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
August 24, 2015

As a showcase for Italian-born pianist Roberto Magris' exceptional talents, Enigmatix works quite well. Magris, who has devoted several albums to the music of others (Lee Morgan, Elmo Hope, Cannonball Adderley) and shared center stage with saxophonists Herb Geller and Sam Reed on others, turns the spotlight on himself and his keyboard this time around in a program that encompasses five of his original compositions, Stevie Wonder's “My Cherie Amour" and Steely Dan's “Do It Again." In ...

Album Review

All Included: Satan In Plain Clothes

Read "Satan In Plain Clothes" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
August 24, 2015

Cooperative five piece All Included goes from strength to strength on Satan In Plain Clothes, building on the already considerable charms of their debut Reincarnation Of A Free Bird (Stone Floor, 2012). Connections abound in the unchanged line up which reflects the burgeoning, almost incestuous, Scandinavian scene. Check out the overlaps in personnel among groups such as Exploding Customer, Angles, Universal Indians, Friends & Neighbours, Cortex, and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love's Large Unit, and you'll see for yourself. Like all those ...

Album Review

Lorraine Feather: Flirting with Disaster

Read "Flirting with Disaster" reviewed by Nicholas F. Mondello

by Nicholas F. Mondello
August 24, 2015

The release of a new Lorraine Feather recording consistently brings a sense of excitement and delicious anticipation. What does this gifted singer-lyricist who, like a figure-ground illustration simultaneously brilliant at both, have in store for us? More than likely, if she's true to her own Muse, I'd suppose it's going to be a sublime rendering of relationship-themed, thoughtfully poetic, yet sparkling verbiage that's delivered paired with highly stylized and impeccably-performed music. In the case of Flirting with Disaster the supposition ...

Album Review

Bobby Shew with the University of Florida Jazz Band: Bobby Shew - Live 1983

Read "Bobby Shew - Live 1983" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
August 24, 2015

What once was lost, now is found. Scott Wilson, head of the jazz studies program at the University of Florida, recently discovered this recording of a concert from 1983 that features Bobby Shew as the guest soloist with the University of Florida Jazz Band, then under the direction of Gary Langford. And what a find it is. Shew's creative soloing and stratospheric statements merge seamlessly with this tight band, an outfit that can pack a mean wallop when the music ...

Album Review

Kat Reinhert: Spark

by Dan Bilawsky
August 23, 2015

Vocalist Kat Reinhert's Spark is a musical treatise on navigating the bends and sharp turns on the road of life. It's a journey of self discovery, personal expression, and empowerment, bravely put on display for all to hear. Reinhert, a New York-based vocalist who splits her time between teaching and performing, delivers thirteen songs here, touching on topics ranging from body image issues to infatuation with the Big Apple to divorce. In some places, the emotional weight ...