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.

Multiple Reviews

Jeff Oster: An Emotional Journey into Sound

by Jakob Baekgaard
June 16, 2015

Everything begins with sound. It is no coincidence that one of the theories of how the universe was created is called The Big Bang. You can almost hear the thunder in the name. Sound is creation. Sound is life. One way of defining a musician is to say that it is a person who shapes sound into certain patterns. When these patterns become recognizable, they evolve into genres and suddenly an identity is created. You become a ...

Live Review

Nutshell 2015

by Ian Patterson
June 15, 2015

Nutshell 2015 Bergen, Norway May 27-30, 2015 For a decade now, Nutshell has been an important engine in promoting Norwegian jazz talent abroad. This year, Nutshell's four-day program presented nine acts of quite diverse stripes to an audience of festival directors, radio programmers, booking agents and journalists from fifteen European countries. For bands who impress, Nutshell potentially offers a direct route to the stages of jazz festivals and clubs the length and breadth of ...

My Blue Note Obsession

Joe Henderson: Page One – 1963

by Marc Davis
June 15, 2015

Joe Henderson is one of those jazz guys who made such a spectacular comeback late in life that you tend to forget how good he was in the beginning. Page One is all the evidence you need of Henderson's early heroics. Let's start at the end. The last four albums of Henderson's long, outstanding career were arguably his very best. Each was a tribute to music's past and each was amazing. In 1992, there was So ...

Album Review

Beats & Pieces Big Band: All In

by Bruce Lindsay
June 15, 2015

While almost every sensible thought screams “Don't Do It!" for good economic and logistical reasons, there are still plenty of jazz musicians for whom the big band is an ideal--and an attainable one at that. Manchester's Beats & Pieces Big Band is a fine example--the name may or may not be a nod to Manchester's '60s popsters the Dave Clark Five, but the music is firmly descended from the big bands that came before. A large ensemble that's been together ...

Album Review

The Ordinary Square: When in Paris

Read "When in Paris" reviewed by James Pearse

by James Pearse
June 15, 2015

When in Paris (Hoob Records, 2015) is a multifaceted album. The complexity of the French capital is explored with a collection of songs that range from sublime to swinging. The nine original compositions by bassist and bandleader Viktor Skokic provide a platform for the members of this intriguing ensemble to engage in energetic interaction with maximum room for spontaneity and whim.Skokic, who surfaced on the trio album Perfectly Still (Footprint, 2014), wrote the music performed here ...

Album Review

The Kandinsky Effect: Somnambulist

Read "Somnambulist" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
June 15, 2015

An active touring unit, the musicians shred musical perimeters to smithereens on their third album. Rooted in modern jazz, the trio morphs funk, rock and electronica into the big picture amid pulsating grooves, shimmering accents and otherworldly treatments, as if a UFO transported them from a distant planet. But saxophonist Warren Walker leads the charge with his up-tempo phrasings and melodically tinted extended notes, aligned with drummer Caleb Dolister's snappy backbeats and Gael Petrina's deep bass lines. They ...

Album Review

Makaya McCraven: In The Moment

Read "In The Moment" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
June 15, 2015

Somewhere in heaven Miles smiles, Miles Davis that is. Beside him, listening to In The Moment by drummer, mixmaster, and organizer Makaya McCraven is Teo Macero. Both men would have given the nod to this project that culled 73 minutes of music from 48 hours of live performance, recorded over a year of performance with an array of guests. Miles and Teo (circa 1969) loved long-form improvised jazz. However, like McCraven, they might not call this music (and ...

Album Review

Klaus Gesing: reaLTime

Read "reaLTime" reviewed by Tyran Grillo

by Tyran Grillo
June 14, 2015

Klaus Gesing is best known stateside for his collaborations with Norma Winstone and Anouar Brahem, both documented to wide acclaim on ECM Records. The German multi-reedist's work with these honed ensembles polishes only a few of his diverse facets, which reflect his equal footing in classical and jazz training, as well as beyond. Whether in the soulfulness of Jan Garbarek or the genius of Herbie Hancock, the grandiosity of Gustav Mahler or the prodigy of Michael Jackson, he has taken ...

Bailey's Bundles

Martin Taylor & Linn Records - Visions of Stephane Grappelli

by C. Michael Bailey
June 14, 2015

The British audiophile record label Linn has a sub-imprint called Echo. This imprint is dedicated to the re-release of older label titles. It is from this considerable loam of music that these two Martin Taylor releases are gleaned, both hosting appearances by violinist Stephane Grappelli from the mid-1990s. Martin Taylor & Spirit of Django with Stephane Grappelli Years Apart Linn Records 1996/2015 The Spirit of Django was ...

Album Review

Payne Lindal Liebowitz: Payne Lindal Liebowitz

Read "Payne Lindal Liebowitz" reviewed by John Eyles

by John Eyles
June 14, 2015

On paper, the instrumentation of the trio of clarinetist Bill Payne, violinist Eva Lindal and pianist Carol Liebowitz looks perfectly suited to some form of chamber music, if not classical compositions then something equally polite. But, the music produced by the threesome totally belies such expectations as it is totally improvised, with nothing preconceived. Of course, given that instrumentation, the music does still sound polite, but without the structure and formality of chamber music. So, “chamber improv" is a fitting ...