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

Sylvain Rifflet & Jon Irabagon: Perpetual Motion

Read "Perpetual Motion" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
August 2, 2015

The composer, poet and instrument inventor Louis Thomas Hardin, alias Moondog remains one of the most celebrated and eccentric figures in the annals of modern music. The Kansas born Hardin, who lost his sight in a farming accident at 16, went from a unique street performer in New York to a published and recorded influential musician in Münster Germany. Who better to celebrate his singular legacy than two of today's most idiosyncratic and creative saxophonists, the Frenchman Sylvain ...

Live Review

Def Leppard with special guests Styx and Tesla at the Nikon at Jones Beach Theater

by Mike Perciaccante
August 2, 2015

Def Leppard with special guests Styx and Tesla Nikon at Jones Beach Theater Wantagh, NY July 23, 2015 Def Leppard is a band of survivors. The English rock group was formed in 1977 and at the time featured Rick Savage (originally on guitar, later on bass), Tony Kenning on drums, Pete Willis on guitar and Joe Elliot on vocals and occasionally on guitar. In early 1978, guitarist Steve Clark joined the band. Legend has it ...

Album Review

Satoko Fujii Orchestra Berlin: Ichigo Ichie

Read "Ichigo Ichie" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
August 2, 2015

If there is any doubt that a Satoko Fujii orchestra is an ensemble of a different color, one simply needs to look at the bleeding-edge personnel that have played a part in her New York, Chicago and several Japan based versions. Now a Berlin variety of her troupe presents Ichigo Ichie, the pianist's first European player dominated big band. Like all of Fujii's compositional collections, she creates and arranges to the strengths of the assorted band members and the results ...

Album Review

Luis Perdomo: Twenty-Two

Read "Twenty-Two" reviewed by Dave Wayne

by Dave Wayne
August 2, 2015

There are so many really good jazz piano trio albums bouncing around of late, that it's truly unusual to hear something that stands out these days. The first few tracks of Luis Perdomo's seventh album as a leader, Twenty-Two, are as technically accomplished and downright pretty as anything out there, but they struck me as less than extraordinary. Just really pleasant and really incredibly well- executed. A native of Venezuela who's best known for his decade- long collaboration with Ravi ...

Album Review

Steven Mayer: Louis Moreau Gottschalk: A Night in the Tropics / Solo Piano Music

Read "Louis Moreau Gottschalk: A Night in the Tropics / Solo Piano Music" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
August 2, 2015

New Orleans native Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829--1969) was the first important American composer and pianist. The son of a Jewish business man and a Creole mother, Gottschalk was urbane and cosmopolitan is a way not typical for the period. He composed and played on a Chickering piano as big as a house and heavy as a battleship with a showman's personality to match. He forged his reputation by fusing the European classical tradition with American musical elements like folk music, ...

Live Review

Dave Mason's Traffic Jam at The Paramount

by Mike Perciaccante
August 2, 2015

Dave Mason's Traffic Jam The Paramount Huntington, NY July 25, 2015 Dave Mason has seen and done it all. He, along with Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi, co-founded Traffic. He was a member (although briefly) of both Delaney, Bonnie & Friends and Fleetwood Mac, served as a temporary second guitarist in Eric Clapton's Derek & the Dominos and participated in the recording of George Harrison's All Things Must Pass (Apple Records, 1970). In 1971 he ...

Album Review

Stephan Micus: Nomad Songs

Read "Nomad Songs" reviewed by Mark Sullivan

by Mark Sullivan
August 1, 2015

Multi-instrumentalist Stephan Micus has lived in a sound world of his own for many years. World Music usually means borrowing from disparate musical cultures and combining them. But Micus creates World Music for a world of his own creation. He adopts traditional instruments from all over the planet, then combines them in original compositions without referencing their original styles. As he says, “It makes little sense for a German to interpret Asian or African traditional music in public. This is ...

Live Review

Dawes at Higher Ground, South Burlington, VT

by Doug Collette
August 1, 2015

Dawes Higher Ground South Burlington, VT July 21, 2015 Dawes is making up for lost time in 2015. The Los Angeles-based band reasserted themselves as recording artists in the studio with All Your Favorite Bands (Hub Records, 2015) and is now taking the next logical step in their development as a performing unit. In doing so, the group is enhancing an abiding and honest connection with their followers that justified Dawes' position as headliners this ...

Album Review

The Timeless All Stars: Time for The Timeless All Stars

Read "Time for The Timeless All Stars" reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard

by Jakob Baekgaard
August 1, 2015

A common strategy of promotion in jazz is to highlight the famous musicians that any given musician has played with. It seems that being a name is a sign of quality in itself and, naturally, it follows that many stars make a great record. However, there is also an old saying that “too many cooks spoil the broth." Too many stars can mean too many egos battling for attention and too little music. Fortunately, the constellation of ...

Album Review

Theo Travis’ Double Talk: Transgression

Read "Transgression" reviewed by Roger Farbey

by Roger Farbey
August 1, 2015

The chiming notes of a very Mahavishnu Orchestra sounding guitar open the tension-rich “Fire Mountain" hotly pursued by Theo Travis' intense tenor sax soloing and coruscating axe work from Mike Outram. A change of pace is heard in the title track, beginning slowly but gradually building-up in pace and volume, Outram's fuzzy guitar twinned with Travis' sax comprise the melodic driving force, all underpinned by organ from Pete Whittaker and crackling drums from seasoned percussionist Nic France. The ...