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

Pat Martino Trio at Bucks County Community College

by Victor L. Schermer
April 30, 2015

Pat Martino Trio Kevin and Sima Zlock Performing Arts Center Bucks County Community College Newtown, PA April 23, 2015 In the 1960s and 70s, spurred on by the support he received from the great Les Paul, a youthful guitarist Pat Martino evolved his unique style of controlled intensity, “fat" sound, and adherence to the blues idiom he acquired from his work with tenor saxophonist Willis Jackson and organists such as Don Patterson, as ...

Nite & Disk

Eliane Elias: Made in Brazil - Swung at Birdland

by Dr. Judith Schlesinger
April 30, 2015

Eliane Elias is a paradox. An artist of rare talent, experience, and range, she is a keyboard master with few peers whose deep musicality transcends genre. An astonishing singer, composer, arranger, and songwriter, her performances are celebrated for their swing, lyricism, and unique sound. Elias is also a beautiful woman with long blond hair who's been known to kick off her stiletto heels to play the piano barefoot. I expect some people will have difficulty reconciling the pin-up cover of ...

Album Review

Soukast/Benjamin Taubkin: Sounds Of Life

Read "Sounds Of Life" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
April 30, 2015

Electronic threads, street party drums, lively piano runs, meditative moments, metallic zest, and rhythmic seasonings all come to the surface when pianist Benjamin Taubkin and Soukast--the duo of Simone Sou and Guilherme Kastrup, two percussionists who artfully mix sampling into their work--set sail with “Pifaiada," the opening track on Sounds Of Life. There's no simple way to describe all of the sounds of life, so it should come as no surprise that there is no simple way ...

Album Review

Chris Cortez: Top Secret (For Your Ears Only)

Read "Top Secret (For Your Ears Only)" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
April 30, 2015

Houston, Texas is such a hot bed of jazz music that it has its own jazz mafia. However, as of late the Houston jazz mafia's Godmother, vocalist Tianna Hall has been letting several of her high-ranking officers get away. First to go was trumpeter capo regime Carol Morgan, who decided to start her own jazz “Family" in New York City. Then went consigliere vocalist Jacqui Sutton, who decided to go legit with a professor type while remaining a jet setter. ...

Album Review

Matthew Shipp Trio: To Duke

by John Sharpe
April 30, 2015

So has pianist Matthew Shipp finally clambered aboard the repertory album bandwagon? Certainly on To Duke he addresses seven standards derived from the Ellington Orchestra, alongside four originals. But if you cast an eye over Shipp's discography you'll find such pieces are nothing new. Actually popular songs constitute an enduring part of his repertoire. What's unusual here is the focus on several from the same songbook on the same set. But there's no question of special treatment. In terms of ...

Album Review

Kyle Nasser: Restive Soul

Read "Restive Soul" reviewed by Budd Kopman

by Budd Kopman
April 30, 2015

Saxophonist Kyle Nasser's background story is very interesting. Very involved in jazz from grade school through college at Harvard, he nevertheless was enrolled as an economics and political philosophy major. That is, until he heard Hank Jones give a master class and play a gig, which (making the story a bit compressed) completely changed his life's direction, convincing him that jazz was what he wanted, and needed, to do. In 2010, after attending Berklee on a full scholarship ...

Multiple Reviews

Ambient Jazz: Pauseland & Jakob Sørensen

by Jakob Baekgaard
April 30, 2015

In a world that is fast-paced and in constant movement, contemplation has become an increasingly important value. However, it is a value that it is sometimes hard to achieve. A possibility is to listen to music that invites it. The albums from Danish jazz group Pauseland and trumpeter Jakob Sørensen both offer room for introspection and meditative beauty. Pauseland At the End of the Day Pauseland Music 2015 The drummer-less group ...

Album Review

Soft Machine: Switzerland 1974

Read "Switzerland 1974" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
April 30, 2015

Much has been written about this vastly influential and time-honored jazz fusion unit that skirted the avant-garde spectrum, especially when saxophone great Elton Dean was in the band, in addition to its psychedelic persuasions during the 60s. This 1974 live concert in Switzerland, features soon-to-be guitar god Allan Holdsworth's entry into the band's lineup. At this time, keyboardist Mike Ratledge loomed as the only founding member of the unit. These historic performances are supplemented by the concert footage DVD, underscored ...

Live Review

12 Points 2015

by Ian Patterson
April 29, 2015

12 Points 2015 Project Arts CentreDublin, IrelandApril 15-18, 2015 In an international calendar absolutely bulging with jazz festivals, 12 Points--conceived in Dublin by Improvised Music Company in 2007--stands out as one of the more original. It's not just the diversity and quality of the music that sets Twelve Points apart, after all, there's no shortage of festivals boasting great, eclectic programmes. Nor is it just the fact that 12 Points alternates between Dublin and other ...

688

Building a Jazz Library

Angels on Earth: Best Living Jazz Chanteuses

by Nathan Holaway
April 29, 2015

Let's begin by saying that jazz has definitely been swarmed by a plethora of female vocalists. Just because they can sing a Cole Porter or a George Gershwin tune, and remember all the words... does that make them great? No. Just because they look terrific, does that mean that they'll be the next Billie Holiday? Absolutely not! This may work in pop music, but most jazz fans can tell if a female jazz vocalist has hope or is just hype. ...