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

Ajoyo: Ajoyo

Read "Ajoyo" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki

by Chris M. Slawecki
August 19, 2015

Multi-reed player Yacine Boulares has picked up, and left behind, musical footprints literally all around the world. He was born in North Africa (Tunisia) but grew up in Paris, where he studied philosophy at the Sorbonne and jazz performance at the National Conservatory and New School for Jazz. As a Fulbright scholar, Boulares continued his musical studies and began his professional career in New York City, where he deeply connected with Cameroonian native Jojo Kuo, Fela Kuti's drummer.

Live Review

Newport Jazz Festival 2015: Day 2

by Timothy J. O'Keefe
August 18, 2015

Newport Jazz Festival Fort Adams State Park Newport, RI Saturday, August 1, 2015 Miles Davis' earliest memory was a flickering blue flame, and a similar flame, one of passion and remembrance, was clearly evident at the 2015 installment of the Newport Jazz Festival presented by Natixis Global Asset Management. “I saw that flame and felt that hotness of it close to my face," Davis stated in the 1990 Biography Miles. As part ...

Multiple Reviews

Three Shots from Siwula: Blaise Siwula & NoFrillsMusic

by Jakob Baekgaard
August 18, 2015

The emergence of free jazz in the 1950s and 1960s pioneered a new way of thinking about music that not only affected the way music sounded, but also the way it was shared and distributed. In many ways, free jazz was a movement away from mainstream and mass-distribution and the rediscovery of music as art, but also as folk music, meaning a more direct and less commercial communication with the audience. This also meant that many musicians took the matter ...

Album Review

Red Garland: Swingin’ on the Korner: Live at Keystone Korner

Read "Swingin’ on the Korner: Live at Keystone Korner" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki

by Chris M. Slawecki
August 18, 2015

It's often been written about many (sometimes less deserving) artists, but in his case it's genuinely true: Pianist Red Garland played on too many classic jazz albums--especially in bop quintets led by Miles Davis and John Coltrane--to fully count. Swingin' on the Korner, a 1977 trio date with bassist Leroy Vinnegar and drummer Philly Joe Jones recorded live at Keystone Korner, adds one more title to this uncountable list. Swingin' reunites Garland with drummer Jones, who teamed with Garland and ...

Album Review

Matt Panayides: Conduits

by Jack Bowers
August 18, 2015

Conduits, Matt Panayides' second album as a leader, pairs his resilient guitar on the front line with the reliable tenor saxophonist Rich Perry, ably supported by bassist Thomson Kneeland and drummer Mark Ferber. In spite of its esoteric name, the album is unshakably bright and accessible, with everyone abiding by Panayides' muse and playing their roles remarkably well. As Panayides wrote and arranged everything, much of the session's success rests on his musical acuity, which it should ...

Album Review

Wayne Horvitz: Some Places Are Forever Afternoon

Read "Some Places Are Forever Afternoon" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
August 18, 2015

Poet and essayist Richard Hugo, a celebrated son of Seattle, was best known in his short life for his straight-forward but moving portrayals of the stark realities of the Pacific Northwest, both people and places. His works have previously been documented in print and on film and now by pianist/composer Wayne Horvitz who pays tribute to the writer on Some Places Are Forever Afternoon (11 Places For Richard Hugo). In the wordless interpretation of Hugo's works, Horvitz brings ...

Album Review

Pete Magadini: Bones Blues

Read "Bones Blues" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
August 18, 2015

The Canadian label Sackville is known for its unique catalogue of superb Avant-Garde music and engaging trad-jazz recordings. So its 1976 Bones Blues is a bit of an anomaly as it documents a modern mainstream session that drummer Pete Magadini led and featured California based saxophonist Don Menza. Five standards and two originals comprise the delightful and lively program that is, nevertheless, safely bop-based. Menza penned the soulful title track that has a loose and infectious swing to ...

From the Inside Out

Music’s Where You Find It

by Chris M. Slawecki
August 17, 2015

Ajoyo Ajoyo Ropeadope 2014 Multi-reed player Yacine Boulares has picked up, and left behind, musical footprints literally all around the world. He was born in North Africa (Tunisia) but grew up in Paris, where he studied philosophy at the Sorbonne and jazz performance at the National Conservatory and New School for Jazz. As a Fulbright scholar, Boulares continued his musical studies and began his professional career in New York City, where he deeply connected ...

Album Review

Robert Sabin: Humanity Part II

Read "Humanity Part II" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
August 17, 2015

Although Humanity Part II, the oracular title of bassist Robert Sabin's new album, may summon images of a Mel Brooks parody (Part I must have slipped past us), the music itself is decidedly serious. In the liner notes, wherein he references Albert Camus, Ennio Morricone, John Carpenter, Ingmar Bergman, Maurice Ravel and Dario Argento, Sabin makes it quite clear that he and his tentet are scanning a road map that traverses musical pathways visibly (and audibly) removed from customary ports ...

Album Review

The Woodshed Orchestra: Brass Bandit

Read "Brass Bandit" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
August 17, 2015

"Curiouser and curiouser!" cried Alice. She was opening out like the largest telescope ever, at the time, but she could equally well have been listening to Brass Bandit, the third release from Canada's Woodshed Orchestra. An eccentric collection of curiosities, featuring musical genres as diverse as Politicized Poetry Love Scatting and Football Funk and checking in “at a Punk Rock 26:26" according to the press release. The eleven members of the Woodshed Orchestra are credited on the sleeve ...