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.

Live Review

The Downeast Jazz Trio at H.D. Moore Library and Community Center

by David A. Orthmann
June 29, 2015

The Downeast Jazz Trio featuring Ann Delaney H.D. Moore Library and Community Center Jazz & Dessert Gala Steuben, ME June 20, 2015 The only thing edgy about the experience of hearing live jazz in Steuben, ME was the sugar rush I got from greedily sampling four desserts from an impressive array of homemade concoctions at the Jazz & Dessert Gala, prior to the start of an hour plus set. In contrast to witnessing ...

Album Review

Michael Vlatkovich: Mortality

by Dave Wayne
June 29, 2015

Wow. Where to start? Apropos of its title, Mortality is huge. Vast. Complex. Quixotic. Musically, it's a mega-ambitious work that fuses operatic vocals, several styles of jazz, heavily-scored contemporary classical music and flat-out improvisational wailing in the most appealing ways possible. Interestingly, Michael Vlatkovich, a West Coast trombone virtuoso and composer / improvisor of considerable merit, is a guy who devotes considerable time to small group projects of various types--most notably tenor saxophonist Rich Halley's quartet--plus his own septet with ...

Album Review

Dmitry Baevsky: Over and Out

Read "Over and Out" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
June 29, 2015

New York based saxophonist Dmitry Baevsky's fourth release as a leaderOver and Out finds the St Petersburg native in a spare setting backed only by bass and drums. With his alto's warm, organic tone in the spotlight, Baevsky interprets a mixture of his originals and standards with intense lyricism and confident and mature bravado. Baevsky endows pianist Cedar Walton's “Turquoise" with an eastern mysticism as his warm, languid saxophone meanders fantastically around the main theme. His clever improvisation ...

Album Review

Maria Schneider Orchestra: The Thompson Fields

Read "The Thompson Fields" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
June 29, 2015

It's always interesting to discuss the jazz greats of yesteryear and swap thoughts on how the new generation of artists stacks up against the likes of John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington. And it's quite possible that the consensus opinion there would be that virtually no one working today can compare favorably to those iconic figures. But in a much different time, when the artistic offerings competing for our entertainment dollars and attention are vast compared ...

Album Review

Universal Indians with Joe McPhee: Skullduggery

Read "Skullduggery" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
June 29, 2015

Throughout his career multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee has always appeared remarkably open to collaborations with musicians from different scenes. Sometimes these blossom into more established groupings such as his regular hook ups with the Scandinavian power trio The Thing and more recently with the English improv outfit Decoy (witness Oto (Bo'Weavil, 2010) and Spontaneous Combustion (OtoRoku, 2014)). To this roster can be added Universal Indians: an Amsterdam-based collective comprising American saxophonist John Dikeman and the Norwegian rhythm pairing of bassist Jon ...

Album Review

Konstantin Scherbakov: Eroica

Read "Eroica" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
June 28, 2015

Why Konstantin Scherbakov? Why Beethoven? Why ask Why? In the Book of Exodus, when Moses asked God what to call Him, God said, “I AM WHO I AM." Same thing with Scherbakov and Beethoven. Scherbakov is a Beethoven monster who recorded the Liszt transcriptions of the Beethoven Symphonies in the late-1990s, early-2000s to considerable acclaim. Scherbakov follows in the Russian tradition of authoritative Beethoven and Liszt interpreters that include Vladimir Horowitz, Nikolai Demidenko, Emil Gilels, and Sviatoslav Richter.

Live Review

Melissa Etheridge at The Paramount

by Mike Perciaccante
June 28, 2015

Melissa Etheridge The Paramount Huntington, NY June 18, 2015 Melissa Etheridge is an open book. The whole world knows about her battle with breast cancer and her indomitable spirit. She even wrote a song about it as “I Run for Life" which was released in 2005 on Greatest Hits: The Road Less Traveled (Island Records) was inspired by that battle. Her personal and family life is known the world over. She released an album called ...

Album Review

Juan Dhas: Embracing Clarity

Read "Embracing Clarity" reviewed by Budd Kopman

by Budd Kopman
June 28, 2015

Guitarist Juan Dhas's full name is Juan Diego Chandra Dhas which gives some idea of his initial life influences through his Colombian mother and Indian father. After getting a scholarship to the Berklee College of Music in 2010, and graduating in 2014, Dhas recorded Embracing Clarity, which is only available digitally due to financial constraints. Blessed with seemingly endless guitar technique in both hands (see here), Dhas can do whatever he wishes technically. However, on his seven original ...

Album Review

Daymé Arocena: Nueva Era

Read "Nueva Era" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
June 28, 2015

In one of the most interesting commerce and art collaborations of recent times, Cuba's famed rum Havana Club, with its Havana Cultura project, has joined forces with the local Cuban artist community to promote Cuban culture throughout the world. Covering a wide variety of musical styles and genres while at the same time adhering to Cuban roots, they are opening up venues for an ever growing stable of young musicians many of which are securing record contracts as a benefit ...

Album Review

Mads la Cour's Almugi: Quartet

Read "Quartet" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
June 28, 2015

Almugi is an ancient Scandinavian word that describes free men of the Kingdom who are gifted with exceptional goodness. It is also the name of an ongoing musical project of Danish cornet and trumpet player Mads la Cour, member of the Danish Radio Big Band. The first recording of this project featured la Cour in a duet with drummer Anders Mogensen and the second with a large ensemble. The Quartet is comprised with Danish musicians--clarinetist Lars Greve, double bassist Andreas ...