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.

Profile

Dr. Dre: Straight Outta Compton

by Solomon J. LeFlore
August 14, 2015

I read a headline today in Daily Variety (motion picture industry magazine) that said: “Straight Outta Compton chronicles the origins and history of N.W.A. ("Niggaz With Attitude"), arguably the most influential hip hop group in the history of American music. The title is taken from the title of their 1988 debut studio album, and it is due to blast into cinemas on August 14, 2015." Bravo! Excited for Dr. Dre... it's been a long time coming. No, not ...

Profile

James Clay: Texas Tenor, Second Generation

by David Perrine
August 13, 2015

The term “Texas tenor" was originally coined to describe the sound and style of such swing era players as Herschel Evans, Illinois Jacquet, Buddy Tate, Budd Johnson, Arnett Cobb and others, and has subsequently been applied to second generation players from Texas that included James Clay, David Fathead" Newman and Marchel Ivery. What these players had in common was a big sound and a feeling for the blues. Cannonball Adderley, in the notes to an album by Clay and Newman, ...

Extended Analysis

Stephan Micus: Nomad Songs

by John Kelman
August 13, 2015

For his 21st ECM recording (his first six originally released on the label's sister imprint Japo but subsequently reissued on ECM), multi-instrumentalist and intrepid musical explorer Stephan Micus simplifies...well, relatively speaking...to the sparer instrumental settings of earlier recordings like The Music of Stones (1989), East of the Night (1985) and Till the End of Time (1978). That's not to say that Micus--who's recorded all his music in his own MCM Studio since 1992's To the Evening Child--has deserted his usual ...

Album Review

Birmingham Jazz Orchestra: Burns

by Bruce Lindsay
August 13, 2015

The Birmingham Jazz Orchestra--that's Birmingham, England--formed in the fall of 2014, just a few months before recording Burns, its debut album of tunes written by director/conductor Sean Gibbs. The maturity of the writing and playing, the strength of the sections and the verve of the solos belies the inexperience of the ensemble--this is a strong first outing. The Burns who's provided the inspiration for these tunes isn't the great Charles Montgomery Burns: it's the arguably even greater Robert ...

Album Review

Satoko Fujii Orchestra Berlin: Ichigo Ichie

Read "Ichigo Ichie" reviewed by Budd Kopman

by Budd Kopman
August 13, 2015

The huge dual drum opening of part 1 of the title piece is a clear signal that with Ichigo Ichie, pianist/composer/conductor Satoko Fujii is not going to hold back when introducing her latest orchestral group of Berlin (which she now calls home). Orchestra Berlin is Fujii's fifth such group (after creating and recording with orchestras in New York, Tokyo, Nagoya and Kobe) and it has a unique personality all its own. Four of the five tracks consist of ...

Album Review

John Wetton and the Les Paul Trio: New York Minute

Read "New York Minute" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
August 13, 2015

A elite member of progressive rock super-groups King Crimson, UK and the pop rock platinum selling band Asia , bassist, vocalist John Wetton engages the pop standards route, recorded live at New York City's prominent jazz venue, The Iridium. In the album notes Wetton divulges his love for midtown Manhattan, hearkening back to his days with Crimson during the summer of 1973. Here, the Les Paul Trio provides support for the aptly titled New York Minute where the artist covers ...

Album Review

Fred Hersch: Solo

by Dan Bilawsky
August 13, 2015

When it comes to the art of solo piano in jazz, there are currently two classes of performers: Fred Hersch and everybody else. A statement such as that might spur the jazz cognoscenti to ready the pitchforks and torches, but that threat doesn't make that claim any less true. Keith Jarrett may surpass all in his ability to pull completely improvised music out of thin air, Brad Mehldau's brilliance certainly shines through when he weaves his two ...

From Far and Wide

The Word is Beat: Jazz, Poetry & the Beat Generation

by Jakob Baekgaard
August 12, 2015

It is the aspiration of much literature that it wants to change the way we look at the world, but few authors and poets have been as influential as the group of writers labeled the Beat Generation. They saw a lot that they did not like about American society in the fifties when they came of age, and they did their best to change it through their literature and a new practice of living. They grew up in the climate ...

Live Review

Live From Birmingham: The Sonics, Otis Gibbs, George Huxley & John Altman

by Martin Longley
August 12, 2015

The Sonics The Institute July 28, 2015 The Sonics virtually created the garage band sound, back in the mid-1960s, taking the foundations of rhythm'n'blues and forcing a leap towards further extremity, continuing the mission begun by Link Wray, but using warped pop song structures instead of instrumental grinding. Surely this Tacoma gang's influence subsequently hung down into the eager mouths of The Velvet Underground, The Stooges, The Modern Lovers, The Cramps, The Fall, ...

Album Review

Mitchel Forman Trio: Puzzle

by Dan Bilawsky
August 12, 2015

Any good band, and this trio in particular, can be likened to a puzzle, with the players complementing one another and coming together to form a full picture. According to pianist Mitchel Forman, the listener is the final piece of that puzzle, completing the entire idea and experience behind creating and sharing music. After hearing this album, it's hard to argue with that. Puzzle pulls the listener in from the very beginning--a medley of Keith Jarrett's “Death ...