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

Atomic: Lucidity

Read "Lucidity" reviewed by Troy Collins

by Troy Collins
March 28, 2015

Living up to their name in performance and on record, the all-star Norwegian quintet Atomic challenges preconceived notions regarding the stereotypically introspective nature of Nordic jazz. Inspired by the unbridled spirit of 1960s American “Fire Music" and the post-war school of European free improvisation, Atomic eclipses the meditative lyricism of influential local legends like Jan Garbarek and Terje Rypdal, exemplifying the broad stylistic diversity of contemporary Scandinavian jazz.Formed in 2000, the original lineup brought together trumpeter Magnus Broo ...

Album Review

Errol Rackipov Group: Pictures from a Train Window

Read "Pictures from a Train Window" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
March 28, 2015

Composer and educator Errol Rackipov--who currently teaches at several South Florida Universities including Florida International University, Florida Memorial and Broward College--is a master of the vibraphone and marimba where as the leader on Pictures from a Train Window, ably displays his talents in providing a distinct modern/fusion sound where jazz is but one element in a palette of classical chamber and European folk rhythms. As the vibraphonist himself explains, this album is the culmination of a “journey started ...

Album Review

Jenny Soonjin Kim: Kozeluch Complete Keyboard Sonatas, Volume 1

Read "Kozeluch Complete Keyboard Sonatas, Volume 1" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
March 28, 2015

Let's not hear it for Bach, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Those perennial blowhards get all of the attention. Rather, let's hear it for their lesser-known contemporaries. These are composers who, today, get little light standing in the shadows of the aforementioned classical giants. It is the beauty of digital music and the Naxos brand of musical marketing that we have recorded performances of these less storied composers. Because, let's face it. One can only become so familiar with a given ...

Album Review

Michael Eaton: Individuation

Read "Individuation" reviewed by Ben Scholz

by Ben Scholz
March 28, 2015

On his debut album as a leader, saxophonist Michael Eaton presents a collection of original material featuring a rotating group of New York City based musicians including Jon Crowley on Trumpet, David Liebman on Saxophone, Brad Whiteley on piano, bassists Daniel Ori and Scott Colberg, and Shareef Taher on drums. Exhibiting his artistic and personal development while ambitiously bridging the worlds of lyrical themes, Eaton intricately combines rhythmic minimalistic vamps, free-bop, Cageian prepared piano, and multi-layered open terrains. ...

Book Excerpts

Bebop, Swing, and Bella Musica: Jazz and the Italian American Experience

by Bill Dal Cerro
March 27, 2015

The following is an excerpt from the “Lennie Tristano: The Passionate Intellectual" chapter of Bebop, Swing, and Bella Musica: Jazz and the Italian American Experience by Bill Dal Cerro and David Anthony Witter (Bella Musica Publishing, 2015). World War II and the atomic bomb changed not only the political landscape, but art, architecture and music as well. In architecture, “Googie" or “Ray-Gun Gothic" combined many of the traditional elements introduced by Frank Lloyd Wright almost forty years ...

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Building a Jazz Library

Bill Evans: Sublime Sideman

by Nathan Holaway
March 27, 2015

We already know what a tremendous voice Bill Evans has had in jazz history, and most of the major jazz pianists that he has influenced. Most jazz aficionados know most of the tunes Evans has composed and most of the tunes that were in his ever-changing repertoire. But, a subject that hardly gets enough attention concerning Evans are his superlative skills as a consummate sideman. What we're discussing are two totally separate categories. It takes a certain kind of mentality ...

Live Review

Live From Birmingham: Alabama 3, Craobh Rua, Fanfare Ciocărlia & Wrangler

by Martin Longley
March 27, 2015

Alabama 3 The Robin March 18, 2015 Herald the hedonism! An Alabama 3 gig typically presents a rolling rock'n'roll party vibration, but adopts electronic practices, as well as being saturated in rootsy juices. Delta blues, dub, country, soul, gospel, hip hop and house are all pulped up in this anarchic collective's bloody sack of styles, and slung full-face into the assembled audience, who also appear to be drawn from a bewildering variety of ...

Album Review

Michael Eaton: Individuation

Read "Individuation" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
March 27, 2015

Individuation, as a concept, can be seen as a parallel to the process of making music. In speaking one's own voice through an instrument and/or through composition, individuals manage to direct their imagination and unconscious into something tangible. Saxophonist Michael Eaton knows a thing or two about this, as demonstrated on his aptly-titled debut. On Individuation, Eaton delivers a program of distinctive originals. Cycling thoughts, sharp twists in direction, scissoring lines, fervent expressions, fenced-in passages, open pastures, ...

Album Review

Daniel Herskedal: Slow Eastbound Train

Read "Slow Eastbound Train" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
March 27, 2015

Sometimes, album titles tell all: sometimes they tell little or nothing. Slow Eastbound Train sits somewhere in between. Train? No obvious examples. Eastbound? Hmm. Slow? That pretty much describes the pace of much of the music on this album, by Norwegian musician and composer Daniel Herskedal. But none of these three words come close to describing the grace, inventiveness and beauty of this lovely recording. Herskedal plays tuba and bass trumpet, both with a fluidity and melodic strength ...

Album Review

John David Simon: Phantasm

Read "Phantasm" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
March 27, 2015

Veteran saxophonist John David Simon delivers his third album as leader swinging through a repertoire of ten straight ahead mainstream material on the very classy Phantasm, featuring a blend of sparkling original statements and fresh new arrangements of several standards from such icons as the great John Coltrane, Horace Silver and Pat Martino among others. The South Philadelphia native who currently resides in New York City, performs as a free-lance musician and is also employed as an educator. As a ...