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

Kris Davis Infrasound: Save Your Breath

Read "Save Your Breath" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
June 21, 2015

Nascent New York-based pianist, composer Kris Davis presents a musical journey that may be akin to navigating through a dense forest via snaking trails, rolling hills and dusky caves. With a first-class supporting cast , the pianist's comprehensive works emphasize her luminous imaginative powers. Several movements are fashioned with cascading horns passages, supple deviations and variable cadences amid the conventional dips and spikes as the band slips, slides and locks into alternating rhythmic parameters. Davis' compositional style incorporates ...

Live Review

Burlington Discover Jazz Festival: Burlington, VT, June 5-14, 2015

by Doug Collette
June 20, 2015

Burlington Discover Jazz Festival Burlington, VT June 5-14, 2015 The continuing success of the Burlington Discover Jazz Festival not only elevates the level of participation in the city's music scene for the duration of each annual run, but also shines a light throughout Vermont's Queen City to illuminate the variety of venues and associated amenities it offers. And BDJF has created healthy competition too, to the extent the historical stronghold that is Nectar's put together a ...

Album Review

Hu Vibrational: The Epic Botanical Beat Suite

Read "The Epic Botanical Beat Suite" reviewed by John Ephland

by John Ephland
June 20, 2015

Uniquely atmospheric, this music evokes both the mysterious jungle as well as what it might be like to listen in space, outer space. Hu Vibrational Presents The Epic Botanical Beat Suite points to both the inner as well as outer journey. All of it exquisitely tethered by the Beat, or beats, beats that float in and out as if seamlessly emerging from one musician, one mind. That one musician is Adam Rudolph. And yet, this isn't a computer- ...

Album Review

John Fedchock Quartet Live: Fluidity

by Jack Bowers
June 20, 2015

When talk turns to outstanding contemporary trombonists, it's surprising that the name John Fedchock isn't mentioned more often. It should be. Not only has Fedchock been on the scene for quite a while, having played with and arranged for the renowned Woody Herman Herd (1980-87) and led his own New York Big Band for more than twenty years, he's a consistently sharp and creative soloist out of the Carl Fontana school whose compositional skills and taste in music are impeccable. ...

Album Review

John Tropea: Gotcha Rhythm Right Here

Read "Gotcha Rhythm Right Here" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
June 20, 2015

Although thirty-one musicians are listed, guitarist John Tropea's latest recording isn't strictly a big-band album, as the sidemen perform on assorted tracks in groups whose size varies from five to twelve. Tropea is always present, of course, as is his friend and fellow composer / arranger Chris Palmaro on the Hammond B3 organ or Fender Rhodes keyboard (Palmaro also plays bass, drums, strings and percussion). As the album's title denotes, rhythm is always present as well, much of it a ...

Album Review

Muddy Waters 100: Muddy Waters 100

Read "Muddy Waters 100" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
June 20, 2015

When a local guitarist and blues singer in Clarksdale, Mississippi named McKinley Morganfield made his first field recording at the Stovall plantation, on August 31, 1941, he had no idea where this music would take him. By the time he plugged his guitar into an amplifier on Chicago's Southside in 1943, he had become Muddy Waters, a man whose unique voice and sound would influence American popular music in the second half on the 20th century. Muddy Waters 100 is ...

Live Review

Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue at The Space at Westbury

by Mike Perciaccante
June 19, 2015

Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue with special guests The Pimps of Joytime The Space at Westbury Westbury, NY June 12, 2015 The new, young ambassador of the New Orleans sound stormed the stage at Westbury, NY's The Space on Friday, June 12. Troy “Trombone Shorty" Andrews is a member of one of New Orleans' most royal musical families. His grandfather was Jessie Hill, the R&B and blues artist most famous for the ...

Live Review

Moon Hooch at Shakespeare's Pub

by John Ephland
June 19, 2015

Moon Hooch Shakespeare's Pub Kalamazoo, Michigan May 29, 2015 It was an interesting combination. Two saxophones and a drummer, along with a sound system that kept everyone on their feet, if not dancing. The up-and-coming New York aspirants Moon Hooch (previously touring with They Might Be Giants, Lotus and Galactic), on a nationwide tour, made a stop at Kalamazoo's Shakespeare's Pub on Friday, May 29. And, in the wake of their 2014 release This Is ...

Album Review

Laszlo Gardony: Life In Real Time

Read "Life In Real Time" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
June 19, 2015

Life In Real Time is somewhat unique in that it's in the mold of Laszlo Gardony's previous recordings and a departure from the norm for that pianist of note. And just how is that possible? That's easy to answer: Gardony hews to his norm by working with his longtime trio mates--bassist John Lockwood and drummer Yoron Israel--and he shies away from it by adding three saxophonists to the mix. In doing so, he highlights his musical relationship with Israel and ...

Album Review

Michael Kocour: Wherever You Go, There You Are

Read "Wherever You Go, There You Are" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
June 19, 2015

Wherever You Go, There You Are is akin to visiting pianist Michael Kocour's living room or den for an hour or so and lingering while he entertains you with his singular takes on a number of favorite songs, most of which you've probably heard before but seldom played as well as this. Kocour's lyrical style has a way of drawing one's ear into its orbit, causing time to hurry by as he strolls easily through a series of eight established ...