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

Indra: Heartland

Read "Heartland" reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard

by Jakob Baekgaard
July 25, 2015

The idea of the journey is a motif that is often found in music. If you go back to the blues, gospel and old-time music, these are musical traditions that are filled with songs about restless people on the road, trains, cars and feet moving through a landscape. It can be a physical journey, moving from A to B, but often, it is just as much an inner journey towards peace and salvation or an escape from a haunting past. ...

Extended Analysis

Phish: Amsterdam

by Doug Collette
July 25, 2015

Delving in sequence into this eight CD set of the shows recorded in February and July of 1997, it sounds like the band really takes flight during “Timber" from the initial show. But Phish shows from throughout their history inevitably exhibit a relativity of momentum, the dynamics of which are dependent upon, but not limited by, context. Because after the good-natured and relaxed greeting the quartet offers with “Soul Shakedown Party," it's not long before they make a ...

Album Review

Deanna Witkowski: Raindrop: Improvisations with Chopin

Read "Raindrop: Improvisations with Chopin" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
July 25, 2015

Pianist Deanna Witkowski is a truly versatile artist and consummate musician. Her superb forays into sacred music in a jazz framework, for instance, are captivating in their free flowing spirituality and her subtly adventurous category defying explorations thrill in their spontaneity and their imagination. On her fifth release, the intimate Raindrop she goes solo in interpreting and embellishing eight of polish composer Frederic Chopin's deeply emotive pieces. She elegantly peppers these with fragments of Bossa Nova and other ...

Album Review

Majamisty TriO: LOVE

by Tyran Grillo
July 25, 2015

Pianist Maja Alvanović and her self-fashioned Majamisty Trio with bassist Ervin Malina and drummer Istvan Cik put Serbian jazz on the map. The trio's 2013 debut Mistyland showed three young artists at top of their game right out of the gate, with classical cylinders running along a track paved in jazz. The sophomore effort LOVE expands the traction of their world. “Our appetites increased," Alvanović tells All About Jazz. “We wanted to enrich our sound by adding more and more ...

Bailey's Bundles

Dietmar Berger: The Manchester and Berlin Gamba Books

by C. Michael Bailey
July 25, 2015

The gamba or viola de gamba is one of a family of bowed, fretted and stringed instruments that emerged originally in 15th century Spain and was popular during the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Having the appearance of a cello, the viola de gamba typically has six strings and have c-rather than f-sound holes. They are toned like the violin family corresponding this the violin, viola, cello, and double bass. Gambist Dietmar Berger addresses two books of gamba ...

Book Review

Bebop, Swing, and Bella Musica: Jazz and the Italian-American Experience

by Nicholas F. Mondello
July 24, 2015

Bebop, Swing, and Bella Musica: Jazz and the Italian-American Experience Bill Dal Cerro and David Anthony Witter 384 Pages ISBN: #978-1-60461-089-5 Bella Musica Publishing 2015 In this meticulously researched and anecdote-included work, authors Bill Dal Cerro and David Anthony Witter present a truly fascinating perspective on both the history and influence of jazz musicians who were Italian immigrants or who were or are of Italian descent. Certainly, there are references ...

Live Review

Paris Jazz Diary 2015: Saxophonists Lew Tabackin, James Carter, Craig Handy

by Patricia Myers
July 24, 2015

Lew Tabackin, James Carter, Craig Handy Sunside-Sunset/Duc des Lombards Paris, France July 8, July 11, July 12, 2015 Getting great sax in Paris was a sure thing this summer with three American tenor titans Lew Tabackin, James Carter and Craig Handy performing within three soul-satisfying weeks. In the fewest words: Tabackin elegantly memorable, Carter riotously powerful, Handy balladeer extraordinaire. Much better, though, to cite details of the concerts and the contrasting styles on the same ...

Album Review

Rich Halley 4: Creating Structure

Read "Creating Structure" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
July 24, 2015

The totally improvised Creating Structure is saxophonist Rich Halley's fifth release with his regular working quartet in as many years. With this exquisite album Halley achieves a new level of musical excellence as he perfects his signature sound of raw sophistication and his unique, simultaneously emotive and cerebral style. On the dramatic and free flowing “Riding the Trade Winds" for instance Halley launches into a moving and muscular solo. He utilizes short, erudite phrases to build a crystalline ...

Album Review

Mark Winkler: Jazz and Other Four Letter Words

Read "Jazz and Other Four Letter Words" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
July 24, 2015

Singer and lyricist Mark Winkler has been a common West Coast sight for many years. He has released seven releases, his previous one being the very well-received duet recording with {Manhattan Transfer}}'s soprano Cheryl Bentyne, West Coast Cool (Summit Records, 2013). That recording was right on the heels of Winkler's thematically motivated The Laura Nyro Project (Café Pacific, 2013). Again, well received and making my end-of-the-year list. Winkler returns with the clever Jazz and Other Four Letter ...

Album Review

Chimaira: There Is No Alternative

Read "There Is No Alternative" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
July 24, 2015

Eminent audio engineer Walter Quintus wields his magic on this pristinely recorded effort. The wide dynamic range of this LP offers the listener amazing detail and clarity, where you can feel every pluck of a bass string and gentle cymbal hit. From a musical stance, this superior European quartet covers all the bases within a hybrid, progressive jazz and experimental paradigm. The band has quite a few weapons in its arsenal, where many pieces are crafted on a ...