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

Schnellertollermeier: X

by Glenn Astarita
July 5, 2015

This young Swiss trio with the tongue twister moniker, derived by stringing the musicians' surnames together, helps redefine the conventional guitar-led power trio format and succeeds on many fronts. It's an adrenalized outfit that abides by a thunderous posture, amalgamating progressive rock, metal, minimalism and Sci-Fi style free improvisation amid devastating bass and drums interactions. At times, the band's high-volume force-field could make Black Sabbath sound like a hotel lounge act. The musicians dish out cyclical and mesmerizing ...

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Genius Guide to Jazz

An Evening With the Pops, Part II or, Louis Louis, We Gotta Go Now

by Jeff Fitzgerald, Genius
July 5, 2015

Well, kids, when last we left Louis Armstrong; he had solidified his place as America's first legitimate jazz superstar on the basis of his seminal recordings with his Hot Five and Hot Seven ensembles, was married to a legumicidal maniac and trusting his fortunes to a mobbed-up dandy who shared his neckwear with Al Capone. There was some nonsense about aliens and crabs, a veiled slam at the sorry state of modern celebrity, Canadians were somehow involved, and Prime Minister ...

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Genius Guide to Jazz

An Evening with the Pops

by Jeff Fitzgerald, Genius
July 4, 2015

There are several theories concerning the origin of jazz. The most prevalent is that jazz originated primarily in New Orleans, a so-called “gumbo" of influences ranging from African polyrhythms to European classical to American Negro spirituals, and permeated the turn-of-the-century culture to the point that within two decades it had established hotbeds in the two largest cities in the country at that time, New York and Chicago. Another, lesser-accepted theory is that the same aliens who built the pyramids returned ...

Album Review

Marie Kruttli Trio: Kartapousse

Read "Kartapousse" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
July 4, 2015

Kartapousse is the debut album from the Marie Kruttli Trio. Leader and composer Marie Kruttli, born in French Switzerland in 1991, is joined by two more young Swiss musicians, bassist Lukas Traxel and drummer Martin Perret, on a collection of her original compositions. It's a promising start to the trio's career. Apparently, Kartapousse is a subtle homage to the role-playing game Pokemon. Non-Pokemon fans may well find the homage to be somewhat too subtle, but it doesn't matter ...

Album Review

Bey Paule Band: Not Goin' Away

Read "Not Goin' Away" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
July 4, 2015

San Francisco, though widely recognized for its cultural sophistication, and its contribution to the psychedelic sixties, has never been celebrated for being a blues town. Well, that is apparently changing, and this has been going on while the rest of the country is going about its localized music business. Spearheading this movement is the independent Blue Dot Records, which has been releasing exceptional records for over a decade now, the latest being the Bey Paule Band record Not Goin' Away. ...

Live Review

Merle Haggard at the NYCB Theatre at Westbury

by Mike Perciaccante
July 4, 2015

Merle Haggard NYCB Theatre at Westbury Westbury, NY June 26, 2015 Merle Haggard is a true American original. The multiple-time Grammy Award winner (for Best Country Vocal Performance in 1984, Best Country Collaboration with Vocals in 1998 and the recipient of the 1999 Grammy Hall of Fame award) is also a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Oklahoma Music Hall Of Fame. Merle Ronald Haggard, who is now ...

Live Review

AWOLNATION at Irving Plaza

by Mike Perciaccante
July 4, 2015

AWOLNATION Irving Plaza New York, NY June 27, 2015 AWOLNATION grew out of the ashes of frontman Aaron Bruno's former bands Under the Influence of Giants, Hometown Hero, and Insurgence. The band started out as a solo project for Bruno, who was searching for an outlet for his songs that weren't quite right for his other musical outlets. The project allowed Bruno to create freely, mix genres and “break the rules."

Album Review

Johnny Stachela: Walk Through Fire

Read "Walk Through Fire" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
July 4, 2015

Los Angeles-native Johnny Stachela may be a Southern Californian, but he is one tempered by the Allman Brothers Band and baptized in Southern-fried Dixie. Influenced by the music of the late '60s and early '70s, Stachela presents himself as his own artist on the present EP Walk Through Fire. Stachela updates the Southern Stomp of the '70s with a practiced precision that incorporates all of the evolution in rock music since that time. Where The Black Crowes reminded us of ...

Album Review

Firebell: Impossible Vacation

Read "Impossible Vacation" reviewed by Jeffrey Uhrich

by Jeffrey Uhrich
July 4, 2015

With their impressive debut release, Impossible Vacation, Firebell establishes itself not only as a stellar post-bop modern electric guitar/bass/drum jazz trio, but also as a unified and innovative band , drawing upon the wealth of experience and musical sensibility of its three members. Firebell consists of three veteran musicians that have been playing together and creating music since 2009: Park Evans on electric guitar, Graydon Peterson on bass, and Jay Epstein on drums. All three musicians have earned ...

My Blue Note Obsession

Donald Byrd: A New Perspective - 1963

by Marc Davis
July 3, 2015

A New Perspective is unlike any jazz album you've heard before--and the change is refreshing. The biggest difference? Voices--singers, but not jazz singers. A New Perspective includes a seven-voice gospel choir, singing wordless syllables. Not scat, but pure notes. At first, the choir feels wrong. The very first notes of this 1963 album are voices. They start with a powerful gospel feel, but then quickly change to a more pop-ish, happy-happy 1960s mode. It's jarring and ...