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.

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Building a Jazz Library

1959: The Most Creative Year in Jazz

by Nathan Holaway
April 8, 2015

1959 was arguably the most creative year in all of jazz history. Bird had already passed away, and this year would see the passings of Lester Young and Billie Holiday. Musically speaking, when we read jazz history texts or see the labels among the many diverse styles of jazz (i.e “Free Jazz," “Modal Jazz," “Third Stream," etc...), we tend to separate these different styles into alternate universes. In fact, many of the contributions we now consider to be jazz “classics" ...

Album Review

EJ Strickland: The Undying Spirit

Read "The Undying Spirit" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
April 8, 2015

Drummer Enoch Jamal Strickland belongs to a technically brilliant and forward-thinking group of young musicians that include multi-reedist Sharel Cassity, vocalist/trombonist Natalie Cressman, and violinist/vocalist Nora Germaine. These musicians prove that youth is not wasted on the young. Strickland, New School-educated, is a veteran of The Ravi Coltrane Quartet, The Marcus Strickland Quartet and Trio, and The Russell Malone Quartet. He recently provided the drumming firepower for Manuel Valera's uniformly fine Live at Firehouse 12 (Mavo Records, 2015).

Album Review

Lawrence D. “Butch” Morris: Possible Universe (Conduction 192)

Read "Possible Universe (Conduction 192)" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
April 8, 2015

With the death of jazzman Lawrence D. Butch" Morris in 2013, we close the book on one of the most idiosyncratic composers, improvisors, conductors ever to work in creative music. His musical trajectory from a 1970s free jazz cornetist to the originator of his trademark 'Conductions' has been the stuff of legends. Under his baton, he turned the instant composing of free music into a sort of unified field theory of music. One that enveloped all the fundamental forces of ...

Album Review

Art Pepper: Neon Art: Volume 3

Read "Neon Art: Volume 3" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
April 8, 2015

This concludes the Neon Art series, whose life began as three vinyl LP releases in 2012. Wisely, Pepper's widow, Laurie Pepper and co-producer Cheryl Pawelski decided to re-issue these performances on CD. Neon Art, Volume 1 and Neon Art, Volume 2 preceded Volume 3 in as many months. The Neon Art performances are not perfect artifacts of jazz music. They run long or are cut off short. There are screeches and honks, wrong notes and miscues. What ...

Album Review

Martin Archer's Engine Room Favourites: Bad Tidings From Slackwater Drag

Read "Bad Tidings From Slackwater Drag" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
April 8, 2015

British multi-reedman Martin Archer is a cunning maverick who exploits the seemingly limitless expanse of progressive jazz, electronica and improvisation, evidenced by his hearty discography, performing as a solo artist or when collaborating with many of his peers. Moreover, this large ensemble's second album is influenced by the Chicago, IL based, Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), founded in 1965 by pianist, composer and supreme improviser, Muhal Richard Abrams. AACM yielded modern era icons such as ...

Album Review

Verneri Pohjola: Bullhorn

Read "Bullhorn" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
April 8, 2015

Finnish trumpeter Verneri Pohjola has earned his stripes in collaborations with Quintessence, the Ilmiliekki Quartet, UMO--the country's leading big-band--and Black Motor, with whom he recorded the sizzling Rubidium (TUM Records, 2013). It's as a leader, however, with Aurora (ACT Music, 2009)--voted Finish jazz album of the year--and Ancient History (ACT Music, 2012) that he's begun to garner greater international renown. With those two albums, alongside pianist Aki Rissanen and bassist Antti Lötjönen, Pohjola formed the nucleus of his ...

Interview

Chris Smith: At The Intersection Of Scholarship, Performance and Pedagogy

by David A. Orthmann
April 7, 2015

In the introduction to his book Jazz Matters (University Of California Press, 2010), David Ake writes about bringing “together the practical side of making jazz, the pedagogical side of teaching it, and the academic side of writing about it." (p. 12) “Nothing but good," Ake adds, “can come if we increase the numbers of scholars who can play, players who can cite the music's sociocultural history, and instructors who can do both." (p. 12) Ake's exhortation to ...

My Blue Note Obsession

A Deadly Sin: Gluttony

by Marc Davis
April 7, 2015

Many years ago, I committed the deadly sin of musical gluttony. I'm Pavlov's dog for a good box set. I love Springsteen's Tracks. I can listen over and over to all 5 CDs in the Brubeck For All Time box set. (Which isn't really a box set. It's just five previously released CDs crammed into a box. I like it anyway.) I'm a sucker for box sets of label histories, like the 9-CD RCA Victor 80th Anniversary box ...

The Big Question

How are you celebrating Jazz Appreciation Month or International Jazz Day?

by Michael Ricci
April 7, 2015

Jazz Appreciation Month (April) and International Jazz Day (April 30) represent opportunities to program special events and bring together communities to draw public attention to jazz and its extraordinary heritage. Your friends at All About Jazz celebrate jazz and the musicians who make the music every day of the year. In addition to providing daily coverage and distributing jazz events across the internet, we're also organizing a house concert effort to present jazz in homes around the ...

Album Review

Sarah Elizabeth Charles: Inner Dialogue

Read "Inner Dialogue" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
April 7, 2015

Trying to categorize or label vocalist Sarah Elizabeth Charles is a futile pursuit. Is she a hypnotic modern jazz vocalist? Is she a neo-soul experimentalist with jazz and R&B inflections oozing from her vocal cords? Is she an incredible talent, bewitching and beguiling with her every vocal gesture? Is she all of that, yet something completely different and unique? The answer to all four questions is the same: absolutely. Inner Dialogue--Charles' sophomore album, following Red (Truth Revolution ...