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.

Take Five With...

Take Five with Jeff Oster

by AAJ Staff
June 12, 2015

About Jeff Oster: Jeff is one of the few trumpet / flugelhorn artists working in ambient terrain. His music will take you through chilled and dramatic soundscapes, led by the silken sound of his horn. Three of his albums, Released, True, and Surrender have been voted as ZMR Album of the Year by broadcasters worldwide. His new album, Next, is now available. With Next, Jeff creates a new genre--New Age Ambient Funk--and along for the ride are guitarist ...

Take Five With...

Take Five with Althea Rene

by AAJ Staff
June 12, 2015

Meet Althea Rene: She was born December 25th in Detroit, Michigan and began her musical journey at the tender age four. She studied classical music while attending Howard University in Washington D.C. and later gained further musical inspiration from the accomplishments of Yusef Lateef, Ian Anderson, and her father, one of Motown's original Funk Brothers, Dezie McCullers. Althea has since developed her own creative style. For more than ten years she was employed as a Wayne County Deputy Sheriff ...

Album Review

Telmo Fernandez Organ Trio: The Soul Jazz Beat Vol. 1

Read "The Soul Jazz Beat Vol. 1" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
June 12, 2015

The Telmo Fernández Organ Trio is a bit of a throwback--to the classic hard bop organ trios of yore. The title of the trio's first album, The Soul Jazz Beat Vol. 1, tells it like it is--a soulful, jazzy, collection that's high on melody and groove, a head-shaking and hip-swinging sort of album, low on pretention but filled with sheer joy. Guitarist Fernández leads the trio alongside drummer Jose Luis Gómez and ex-pat British organist Phil Wilkinson. Fernández ...

Album Review

Wee Willie Walker: If Nothing Ever Changes

Read "If Nothing Ever Changes" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
June 12, 2015

Amidst all the hype, posturing and polished glam in today's music industry, when an unpretentious soul singer rises to the occasion and steps up to the microphone, it is a joyous occasion. With impeccable gospel, R&B, and soul credentials, vocalist Wee Willie Walker has been paying dues since his first recording for Goldwax Records in 1967. After shuffling between Memphis and Nashville, he wound up and persevered in the Minneapolis music scene, singing for various acts, and in 2002 put ...

Album Review

Karen Street/ Streetworks: Streetworks/ Unfurled

Read "Streetworks/ Unfurled" reviewed by Fiona Ord-Shrimpton

by Fiona Ord-Shrimpton
June 12, 2015

Women in British jazz, the stand-out sonically wonderful ones, you just don't hear them all too often, and finding them is like chasing unicorns. Outside of stoic jazz hoovers there are still too few mainstream listeners who suck it up these days, and that never helps. In the popular world of musical vacuum, perhaps the only answer budding jazz musicians ever hear is, “Die son." (The popular vacuum -looks good, it's clumsy, over-priced, breaks easy and does half a job). ...

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Album Review

Natasha Agrama: The Heart Of Infinite Change

Read "The Heart Of Infinite Change" reviewed by Walter Atkins

by Walter Atkins
June 12, 2015

The Heart Of Infinite Change (Roxboro Entertainment Group), the debut album from songwriter/vocalist Natasha Agrama is an intriguing ten-track mix of original compositions and impeccable jazz standards. The album consists of 3 songs with music and lyrics by Agrama, plus one each by Joni Mitchell and Osho with additional lyrics. The balance comes from personalized arrangements of jazz works by Mingus, Ellington, Landesman, Henderson and Bilal. Agrama shows she is a serious storyteller with diverse tastes and a well-honed jazzy, ...

Interview

Dave Burrell: Pianist Navigating the Windward Passages

by Victor L. Schermer
June 11, 2015

Dave Burrell is a master pianist and composer who encountered the avant-garde in the 1960s and has been following his own independent path ever since. He combines classical and jazz elements that are both “inside" and “outside" the mainstream. The title of a poem by J.V. Cunningham, “The Metaphysical Amorist" characterizes much of his playing, which is “romantic" (amorous) in both the sense of that era in music history and the influence of the American Songbook, and yet penetrates the ...

Album Review

Henry Threadgill Zooid: In for a Penny, In for a Pound

Read "In for a Penny, In for a Pound" reviewed by Troy Collins

by Troy Collins
June 11, 2015

Renowned composer and multi-instrumentalist Henry Threadgill has led a number of critically acclaimed groups since his formative days as a founding member of the AACM, but none have endured as long as Zooid. Formed in 2001, the unit has undergone a few personnel changes over the years, although guitarist Liberty Ellman and tuba player/trombonist Jose Davila have been involved since the ensemble's inception. The current configuration is completed by cellist Christopher Hoffman and drummer Elliot Humberto Kavee, making this particular ...

Album Review

Unhinged Sextet: Clarity

Read "Clarity" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
June 11, 2015

The debut recording from one of the most exciting new groups around, Clarity documents a boppish session of straight ahead traditional jazz delivered by the Unhinged Sextet, a well-seasoned cast of players from all corners of the country who have joined forces for this dynamic recording. Led by pianist Michael Kocour, Director of Jazz Studies at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, where the project was recorded, the band is comprised of a collection of educators and professional musicians from ...

Album Review

Patrick Naylor: Patrick Naylor/ Days Of Blue

Read "Patrick Naylor/ Days Of Blue" reviewed by Fiona Ord-Shrimpton

by Fiona Ord-Shrimpton
June 11, 2015

Days of Blue from Patrick Naylor spends time in all the pantone blue hues, the first five tracks bringing the brighter half of the spectrum, the second half diving the deeper tones. Beginning with “Baba," a bewitching Arabian influenced scale with mystery inspiring cascades, the album depicts a dance of sax and guitar from the start. Next up “Naggar," a delicate accordion intro from Dan Teper, peppered with sweet guitar and brushes, it's vocally unpretentious, with a stage school rather ...