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.

Interview

Glenn Zottola: A Jazz Life - On the Road and In Demand

by Nicholas F. Mondello
March 20, 2015

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 World-renown trumpeter, saxophonist, musical director, producer and entrepreneur. These are but a mere handful of words that describe the vast talent in Glenn Zottola's bag of musical marvels. There are others: child prodigy, creative genius, “musical natural" and aural savant also percolate rapidly to mind. Now in his sixth decade of playing professionally as a rare and masterful “Triple Threat"--he plays and has recorded on trumpet, alto and tenor saxophones--Zottola's ...

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Building a Jazz Library

Why Everybody Digs Bill Evans

by Mark Sabbatini
March 20, 2015

Arguably the greatest jazz pianist of the 1960s and '70s, Bill Evans is generally acknowledged as the most influential pianist since Bud Powell and a primary influence on players such as Keith Jarrett and Chick Corea. Evans co-wrote Kind Of Blue with Miles Davis and some consider the pianist's Sunday At The Village Vanguard the best piano trio album ever. Evans is also credited with advancing harmonic and voicing structures, and pioneering modern trio format elements such as giving sidemen ...

Album Review

Dave Bass: NYC Sessions

Read "NYC Sessions" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
March 20, 2015

Life has a funny way of bringing us back to what we love. Need proof? Just look at Dave Bass. After starting on a musical path in Cincinnati, heading to Berklee for a spell, studying with George Russell and Madame Margaret Chaloff, touring with vocalist Brenda Lee, and setting up shop in the Bay Area, where he had an opportunity to perform with stars-to-be like Bobby McFerrin, Bass walked away from music. After fracturing his wrist and hearing that he ...

Album Review

Peter Oxley and Nicolas Meier: Chasing Tales

Read "Chasing Tales" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
March 20, 2015

Pete Oxley and Nicolas Meier are guitarists. This is an accurate statement, but it goes only so far in describing the two musicians' virtuosity across a range of guitars and guitar-related instruments. Chasing Tales demonstrates their talents far more clearly than any written attempt to do so--between them, Meier and Oxley play around a dozen instruments and compose all but one of the tunes. This is Oxley and Meier's second album as a duo but both men have ...

Album Review

Matthew Shipp: I've Been To Many Places

Read "I've Been To Many Places" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
March 20, 2015

In 2013 pianist Matthew Shipp, tongue firmly-in-cheek, issued Greatest Hits, which sampled his Thirsty Ear catalogue. With I've Been To Many Places, his 9th solo album, he takes a different approach to revisiting his back pages, by reprising standards and favorites from previous releases albeit this time in an unaccompanied rendition. These sit alongside a selection of newly minted originals. As is often the case with his studio sessions, conciseness is the watchword as Shipp distils an idea down to ...

Album Review

The Evergreen Classic Jazz Band: Early Tunes: 1915-1932

Read "Early Tunes: 1915-1932" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
March 20, 2015

The first incarnation of jazz that is, rightly or wrongly, referred to as Trad Jazz or Dixieland, is not merely confined to historical releases or to the Preservation Hall in New Orleans. There are still many proponents of the style spread out across the US and abroad. One such ensemble is the Seattle based The Evergreen Classic Jazz Band, one of the oldest in the Pacific Northwest having formed 30 years ago. On Early Tunes: 1915-1932, originally recorded ...

Album Review

Yaniv Taubenhouse Trio: Here from There

Read "Here from There" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
March 20, 2015

Young New York-based and Israeli-born pianist Yaniv Taubenhouse, who pursued an advanced musical education at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music after having previously studied under acclaimed Israeli and European instructors, is essentially a classically-trained pianist. Since moving to Fayetteville, Arkansas in 2010 to study at the University of Arkansas, jazz has been his professional pursuit and the classic piano trio, his preferred format. The Yaniv Taubenhouse Trio delivers their debut album with an audacious date on Here ...

Rediscovery

Jack DeJohnette's Directions: New Rags

by John Kelman
March 20, 2015

Jack DeJohnette's DirectionsNew RagsECM Records1977 Today's Rediscovery is an album that, despite never being released officially on CD, is a relatively regular play chez Kelman, getting spun at least a couple times every year. New Rags (ECM, 1977), the third and, sadly, final recording by drummer Jack DeJohnette's Directions group, pares down the quintet of its second album and ECM debut, Untitled, to a quartet. Cosmic Chicken's bassist, Peter Warren, was replaced by Mike Richmond ...

Live Review

Jeff Sipe Trio at Independent Public Alehouse

by Mark Sullivan
March 20, 2015

Jeff Sipe Trio Featuring Mike Seal And Taylor Lee Independent Public Alehouse Greenville, SC March 5, 2015 The Jeff Sipe Trio began their set with a surprising cover version of Weather Report's “Black Market." Not a tune that could be easily rearranged for a guitar/bass/drums trio, but they made it sound like it was written for them. Starting with a selection any fusion fan would know is a great way to draw an audience ...

Interview