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.

Book Review

Just For The Love of It: Popular Music In Penang, 1930s-1960s

by Ian Patterson
June 28, 2015

Just For The Love Of It: Popular Music In Penang, 1930s-1960s Paul Augustin & James Lochhead 222 Pages ISBN: 978-967-0630-64-9 Strategic Information and Research Development Centre 2015 The story of popular music in Penang, the Malaysian island by the Straits of Malacca--from the 1930s to the 1960s--is, as co-authors Paul Augustin and James Lochhead graphically depict, a tremendously colorful tale. And little wonder, for as Lieutenant-Governor Sir George Leith observed in 1804: ...

Album Review

Dave Douglas: High Risk

Read "High Risk" reviewed by Mark F. Turner

by Mark F. Turner
June 27, 2015

A leading trumpeter and composer, Dave Douglas has never been content staying in one location for too long. Within his already diverse discography, he's produced imaginative music with numerous ensembles that include the intrepidly free Tiny Bell Trio; an acoustic-electric sextet Keystone; vivid reflections of Americana with his Riverside band. This time, he ventures once again into the realm of jazz and electronic music with the organic High Risk. Douglas presents a new quartet of likeminded individualists ...

Extended Analysis

Sticky Fingers Super Deluxe Box Set

by C. Michael Bailey
June 27, 2015

Year in and year out, much is made of the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street (Universal Music Group, 1972/2010) (EOMS) being the “greatest rock and roll album." It is traditionally beaten out in most critics' and readers' polls by either The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Parlophone, 1967) or Rubber Soul (Parlophone, 1965). Even the Clash's London Calling (CBS, 1979) has made it even or ahead of EOMS in some polls. But EOMS is not the issue ...

Album Review

Juliet Kelly: Spellbound Stories

Read "Spellbound Stories" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
June 27, 2015

Eleven songs, all inspired by favorite novels, form Spellbound Stories, vocalist and songwriter Juliet Kelly's fourth album. It's a stylistically disparate collection, centered on Kelly's light and welcoming vocal. Exactly which novels gave Kelly her inspiration isn't made clear by the songs (except for one) or the CD notes, so the literary listener might enjoy a game of “What Book?." Kelly's website does give the game away, though, for those who might rather enjoy these songs as they ...

Live Review

Dashboard Confessional at the Nikon at Jones Beach Theater

by Mike Perciaccante
June 27, 2015

Dashboard Confessional Nikon at Jones Beach Theater Wantagh, NY June 14, 2015 Chris Carrabba is the driving force behind Dashboard Confessional. As the alternative, emo, indie rocking band's lead singer/chief songwriter, Carrabba has been called the posterboy for his musical genre and generation. Many of Carrabba's songs are filled with a large amount of angst and are about love, life and failed (but also occasionally fulfilled) romance. In his songs, he definitely wears his heart ...

Album Review

Jean-Michel Pilc, Marilyn Mazur, Mads Vinding: Composing

Read "Composing" reviewed by Chris Mosey

by Chris Mosey
June 27, 2015

A magical mystery tour with two heavies of the avant garde and one good old reliable jazz bassist who fits in anywhere. To be more precise: American/Danish percussionist Marilyn Mazur, she of the frizzy hair and intense eyes; French pianist Jean-Michel Pilc, he of the goatee beard and dark, moody gaze; and Denmark's Mads Vinding, he whose eyes and beard (or lack of one) fit in anywhere. Lurking in the wings, are two muses. First there's Wayne ...

Album Review

Glostrup Trioen/Alice Carreri: Spirit

by Chris Mosey
June 27, 2015

Some time between 1000 and 1197, the Danish village of Glostrup was founded by a man called Glob. In the 17th century it comprised eight farms and 13 houses. Today, engulfed as a suburb by the capital Copenhagen, it even boasts its own jazz trio. Its members, Torben Kjaer (piano), Henrik Dhyrbye (bass) and Ole Streenberg (drums), have teamed up with vocalist Alice Carreri and Swedish tenor man Tomas Franck for this, their latest album.

Wide Open Jazz and Beyond

Ornette Coleman and Humanity: Parts 1 and 2

by Matt Lavelle
June 26, 2015

When we sleep, we're often in commune with our soul. As you wake, you may receive some gentle messages for you to try and remember or use. A few years back as I was waking up I felt that everything in my life was about to change in a way I could never expect. A massive shift was imminent. Shortly after that photographer John Rogers introduced me to Ornette Coleman. I'll always be very grateful to him for that.

Album Review

Lorin Cohen: Home

by Dan Bilawsky
June 26, 2015

What's “home?" Is it where somebody's born and raised? Is it where a person resides at a given time? Or is it any place where an individual finds a high level of comfort, joy, and possibility? For Lorin Cohen, it's all three. This talented bassist-composer makes that fact plainly apparent on this, his leader debut. With Home, Cohen pays tribute to the city that fostered his musical growth and development through childhood (Chicago), the metropolis where he ...

Album Review

Steve Barta: Symphonic Arrangement: Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano Trio

Read "Symphonic Arrangement: Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano Trio" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
June 26, 2015

French composer and pianist Claude Bolling achieved what might be considered the best example the Gunther Schuller's “Third Stream" that elusive synthesis of classical music and jazz improvisation, in his Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano Trio (CBS Masterworks, 1975). Bolling composed the seven-part musical suite with his friend, flautist Jean-Pierre Rampal, in mind. The recording was very well received, nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance in 1975. Bolling and Rampal would go on to record ...