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

Rodrigo Lima: Saga

Read "Saga" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki

by Chris M. Slawecki
April 17, 2015

“I fell in love with the jazz guitar--all kinds of jazz guitarists, from Jim Hall to Pat Metheny to Luis Bonfá, by listening to their records," explains Brazilian composer, arranger, bandleader and guitarist Rodrigo Lima. Saga luxuriously extends this jazz guitar love affair across the American and Brazilian continents--it was recorded in New York, Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro and Curitiba--and across the two CDs of Lima's utterly magnificent recorded debut. Producer Arnaldo DeSouteiro elegantly ...

Album Review

Steve Coleman and the Council of Balance: Synovial Joints

Read "Synovial Joints" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
April 17, 2015

Composer and saxophonist Steve Coleman grew up in Chicago's AACM neighborhood before moving on to New York's big band scene in the 1970s. Diverse influences combined with his assorted academic interests in philosophy, world religion and nature, have made him a source for some of the most unique music of the past twenty years. While not immune from critical misunderstanding, the recent winner of MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowships and the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award has proven himself an enduring ...

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Take Five With...

Take Five With John Raymond

by AAJ Staff
April 16, 2015

Meet John Raymond: John Raymond has been making a name for himself as one of the most promising, up-and-coming jazz musicians in New York. Originally from Minneapolis, MN, John performs regularly with musicians such as Billy Hart, Orrin Evans, Linda Oh, Ethan Iverson and Gilad Hekselman among others. He has recently been a featured artist at the NYC Winter Jazz Festival as well as the FONT Festival, and has also performed at notable events such as the Austin ...

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Building a Jazz Library

Jazz Trumpet, Part 1

by AAJ Staff
April 16, 2015

Jazz trumpet is practically an art form unto itself, with a richness in terms of its greatest soloists that is hard to match. Some have even argued for it being the “classiest," most sophisticated solo instrument in jazz. Moreover, it seems that in every period of jazz history, dominant voices on trumpet have leapt to the fore and made critical contributions to developing styles. Consider swing without Roy Eldridge, bebop without Diz, hard-bop without Lee Morgan, post-bop without ...

Album Review

Josh Deutsch/Nico Soffiato: Reverse Angle

Read "Reverse Angle" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
April 16, 2015

Trumpeter Josh Deutsch and guitarist Nico Soffiato have been working together since 2006, deepening their rapport and forming strong musical bonds in the ensuing years. Five years after they first connected, these men delivered Time Gels (Self Produced, 2011)--a duo debut which found them codifying their language. Now, Deutsch and Soffiato return with their sophomore release, a more sonically scopious affair that builds and expands on the sound of its predecessor. Reverse Angle is short by today's ...

Album Review

Szandra Szoke Quintet: Memory Palace

Read "Memory Palace" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
April 16, 2015

Memory Palace is the hugely enjoyable debut recording from the Szandra Szoke Quintet, a Hungarian group led by a young vocalist and writer with a talent for both composition and performance. Szoke and pianist Gabor Cseke co-wrote the music to all but one of the songs on Memory Palace with the singer contributing the lyrics to six of the nine tracks. Szoke has a talent for writing lyrics (in English) that are filled with imaginative imagery and enough ...

Album Review

Dave Burrell / Steve Swell: Turning Point

Read "Turning Point" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
April 16, 2015

Although firmly associated with the avant-garde, pianist Dave Burrell often harkens back to pre-bop styles in his execution. On Turning Point he explicitly acknowledges such sources in his writing too. Perhaps that's appropriate in a sequence inspired by the American Civil War -what Burrell terms a war to end slavery. While composer in residence at Philadelphia's Rosenbach Museum where this recital was performed, Burrell researched the people and events of the conflict. The collection here is actually the third in ...

Album Review

Jeremy Udden - Nicolas Moreaux: Belleville Project

Read "Belleville Project" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
April 16, 2015

While housesitting in France, nascent American jazz saxophonist Jeremy Udden unsuspectingly connected with French bassist Nicolas Moreaux via social media, seeking musicians interested in playing a session. And while Udden has previously blended rock, folk and other genres into his repertoire, the twosome shared a joint interest in amalgamating the jazz vernacular with other idioms. Indeed, the sextet expresses good karma along with splashes of French romanticism and notable inferences toward Americana. Moreover, the program is garnished with the musicians' ...

Album Review

Fresh Cut Orchestra: From The Vine

Read "From The Vine" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki

by Chris M. Slawecki
April 16, 2015

In late 2012, the Painted Bride Art Center of Philadelphia commissioned local musicians Jason Fraticelli (bass), Anwar Marshall (drums) and Josh Lawrence (trumpet) to collaboratively compose new music for a ten-piece ensemble. “The Painted Bride contacted us about putting together this music, and we all agreed pretty much from the get-go about who we wanted to bring in to complete the band," Marshall explains. “Then once we got everyone together, the cohesion just happened super easily. From the first time ...

Rediscovery

Trilok Gurtu: Bad Habits Die Hard

by John Kelman
April 16, 2015

Trilok GurtuBad Habits Die HardArt of Groove2014 (1996) Well, it's been a good couple weeks since the last Rediscovery, leaving the pile of potential choices even higher than usual. So what better way to resume operations than to revisit an album that already sounded terrific when it was first released in 1996 but, remastered 18 years later as part of Art of Groove's Collectors Premium Jazz series, now sounds even better? The Collectors Premium Jazz ...