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.

Extended Analysis

Adam Holzman: The Deform Variations

by John Kelman
April 2, 2015

He's been Steven Wilson's keyboardist of choice (and rightfully so) since the British progressive rocker first hit the road in 2011, after years fronting Porcupine Tree, in support of the Kscope artist's first two albums as a solo artist--2009's Insurgentes and 2011's Grace for Drowning. But while Adam Holzman continues to work with Wilson to this day--appearing on two subsequent studio albums, 2013's The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories and the recently released Hand. Cannot. Erase. (2015), ...

Album Review

Roberto Magris Trio & Herb Geller: An Evening with Herb Geller & the Roberto Magris Trio: Live in Europe 2009

Read "An Evening with Herb Geller & the Roberto Magris Trio: Live in Europe 2009" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
April 2, 2015

Italian pianist Roberto Magris pays tribute to one of the most unheralded and exceptional alto saxophonist of our time on An Evening With Herb Geller & The Roberto Magris Trio: Live In Europe 2009, documenting the last recording before his passing in late 2013. A traditional old-style American saxophonist prominent as a West coast jazz master, Geller left the United States fifty-years ago after the death of his first wife and had been living in Hamburg, Germany making a living ...

Album Review

Ferdinando Argenti: Look For The Silver Lining

Read "Look For The Silver Lining" reviewed by Roger Farbey

by Roger Farbey
April 2, 2015

Ferdinando Argenti, who originally hails from Pisa in Italy but now resides a few miles outside of Boston, is a musician of diverse talent, not just in his piano playing and singing, but also in his compositional skills. The opener Chick Corea's “Friends" is an homage to its composer, replete with sprightly, florid lines played at an engagingly moderate pace. Meanwhile his own “Pitero" sees Argenti employing a melodica, a relatively rare instrument in jazz and which provides a harmonica-like ...

Album Review

Irene Schweizer / Jurg Wickihalder: Spring

by John Sharpe
April 2, 2015

On his only previous session in duet with piano -A Feeling For Someone (Intakt, 2008) -Swiss reedman Jurg Wickihalder's indebtedness to that master of the straight horn Steve Lacy was still evident. But on Spring, in the company of the iconoclastic pianist Irene Schweizer, Wickihalder sounds entirely his own man. Both principals boast serious avant-garde credentials, Schweizer as one of the first European pianists to assimilate the lessons of Cecil Taylor, and Wickihalder more recently as a member of the ...

Album Review

Morten Kargaard Septet: Origin

by Budd Kopman
April 2, 2015

The Danish jazz scene is very alive and eclectic as shown by Origin, composer and guitarist Morten Kargaard's beautiful album that defies all attempts at attaching a label. The question, “What is jazz?" is not answered within the album's musical universe and for that matter, neither is the even wider notion of “creative improvised music." Kargaard composed and arranged all of the music for septet with a very interesting instrumentation besides his acoustic guitar: oboe, English ...

Interview

J.J. Johnson: An Eminent Life in Music

by Victor L. Schermer
April 1, 2015

This interview with trombonist J.J. Johnson along with Joshua Berrett and Louis G. Bourgois III, authors of his biography, The Musical World of J.J. Johnson (Scarecrow Press) was first published at All About Jazz in November 1999. All About Jazz: Congratulations to Josh and Louis on your new book--and to J.J. for now having a scholarly reference devoted to your outstanding contributions to music. Just for the fun of it, which three recordings and/or scores would you take ...

Roads Less Travelled

Club Jazzda: Seoul's Hidden Gem

by Hrayr Attarian
April 1, 2015

One of the hidden gems of the Seoul music scene in South Korea is the Club Jazzda. Located in the youthful Mapo neighborhood, the intimate basement venue has live music every night of the week showcasing young, up-and-coming local talent. Trumpeter Ye Jung Kim owns this intimate listening room, and sometimes joins the musicians onstage for an impromptu jam session. His clear, burnished tone rose high over guitarist Kyu Ha Kim's earthy groove on a few delightfully deconstructed ...

Album Review

Ron Thomas Trio: Impatience

Read "Impatience" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
April 1, 2015

A brief glance at pianist Ron Thomas' website is enlightening, to say the least. He chronicles his life there, providing a detailed biography, a rundown of commercially available compositions, a list of his colleagues, mp3 files, a discography, essays, videos, photos, teaching information, and a list of influences, with names both familiar (Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock) and relatively unknown (Ron Dewar, Dennis Sandole) to many jazz fans and musicians. But to really get to know Thomas, you need only spend ...

Album Review

Marcos Eduardo Villalta: Sir Kep's Mummy Tummy

Read "Sir Kep's Mummy Tummy" reviewed by Stephen Hornby

by Stephen Hornby
April 1, 2015

We live in a world in which anyone who has a laptop has access to an almost infinite array of sonic possibilities and can draw inspiration from any corner of the earth or pocket in time. This kind of freedom can be creatively paralysing for some while others may respond by narrowing their gaze. Marcos Eduardo Villalta's music however, reveals to us an artist who has the rare capacity to utilise all that is at his disposal in a creative ...

Album Review

Gianni Lenoci / Kent Carter / Bill Elgart: Plaything

Read "Plaything" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
April 1, 2015

Italian pianist Gianni Lenoci forms one apex of a trio with almost unlimited collective nous on Plaything. There are main two reasons for that: Kent Carter on bass and Bill Elgart on drums, both veterans of the 1964 October Revolution in Jazz, who have since carved niches for themselves in Europe. Carter 's early exposure arrived as part of a trio with pianist Paul Bley, though he may still be best known for his tenure in the groups of saxophonist ...