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

Jean-Michel Pilc: What Is This Thing Called?

Read "What Is This Thing Called?" reviewed by Budd Kopman

by Budd Kopman
March 18, 2015

Pianist Jean-Michel Pilc has produced an extraordinary musical document with the release of What Is This Thing Called?. Superficially, the CD is a set of improvisations on Cole Porter's tune “What Is This Thing Called Love?," and it can be listened to in that manner. However, it is really an invitation into Pilc's sound world, his musical mind and his emotional being, and as such, it is very intimate. Accepting the invitation makes for a thrilling and intense ...

Take Five With...

Take Five with Michel Nirenberg

by AAJ Staff
March 17, 2015

Meet Michel Nirenberg: Michel Nirenberg is a Brazilian saxophonist and composer who has performed and recorded in North and South America with some of the leading names in Latin jazz. His first CD as a leader entitled Retrato/Portrait will be released in spring of 2015. It features leading Rogerio Souza, Dani Cortaza and Alex Brown along with Leonardo, Alejandro and Bruno Lucini. Born in Rio de Janeiro, Nirenberg is also an accomplished classical artist. He was a ...

Live Review

Aleatoric and Imperial Quartet in Helsinki

by Anthony Shaw
March 17, 2015

Aleatoric and Imperial Quartet Kanneltalo Helsinki, Finland March 12, 2015 For anyone who has come to jazz, as I, via the cross-national recombinations that pop up regularly throughout the European continent this combined gathering of Finnish, French and Belgian musicians on the same bill in Helsinki was nothing less than a glorious rout. Thanks to the mix of benefactors, involving both foreign embassies and the Finnish Jazz Federation, the bill featured two very different groups ...

Album Review

Miles Davis: Kind of Blue

Read "Kind of Blue" reviewed by Nenad Georgievski

by Nenad Georgievski
March 17, 2015

In any kind of art form, music including, there are pathfinders who probe new territory and establish new trails, and this breed of people is indeed of a rare kind than the many who follow behind and eventually benefit from their trailblazing. One such pathfinder in the 20th century music was the great Miles Davis.Throughout his entire career, Miles was propelled in strange new musical ways which in turn galvanized not only jazz, but contemporary music as well. Unlike some ...

Album Review

David Ake: Lake Effect

Read "Lake Effect" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
March 17, 2015

Pianist David Ake strikes a pensive pose on the back cover of Lake Effect, foreshadowing a good amount of the music that follows. With his previous album, Ake reveled in the opportunity to keep listener's guessing from song to song and moment to moment. It was a musical gambit that paid off handsomely, making Bridges (Posi-Tone, 2013) one of the stand-out releases of 2013. Here, Ake takes a step forward by taking a step back. Gone is the striking uncertainty ...

Album Review

Dave Stryker: Messin' with Mister T

Read "Messin' with Mister T" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
March 17, 2015

On Messin' with Mister T, guitarist Dave Stryker could have enlisted only his organ trio to salute friend, mentor and musical hero Stanley Turrentine; instead, he chose to step back and let other voices do most of the talking. The encomiums are thus provided by ten of the world's most accomplished tenor saxophonists, making this one of the most unique and impressive testimonials ever recorded. Turrentine would no doubt have been pleased to see such heavyweights as Houston Person, Jimmy ...

Album Review

Chris Lightcap's Bigmouth: Epicenter

Read "Epicenter" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
March 17, 2015

The group is packed with some of the top stars of modern jazz, but it's with the collective and cohesive ensemble sound that bassist/composer Chris Lightcap's Bigmouth stands out. Hard-driving, electric, edgy, with a chip sitting firmly on its collective shoulders, Epicenter, Lightcap's ode to New York City, commissioned by Chamber Music America New Jazz Works, sizzles with the brashness and agitated energy of the big city. Central to the sound is keyboardist Craig Taborn's distinctive work on ...

Album Review

Angela Davis Quartet + Strings: Lady Luck

Read "Lady Luck" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
March 17, 2015

Saxophonist and one-time All About Jazz contributor Angela Davis' sophomore effort, Lady Luck shows a young artist evolving naturally and not afraid to take stylistic chances. On her debut recording, The Art of the Melody (Self Produced, 2013), Davis demonstrated an intelligent precociousness that paid off well in both her original compositions and those she covers. Inspired was her inclusion of Tom Waits' “Martha" and Boz Scaggs' “We're All Alone." Just as inspired, on the present Lady ...

Live Review

The Young Sounds of Arizona at Phoenix Center for the Arts

by Patricia Myers
March 17, 2015

The Young Sounds of Arizona at Phoenix Center for the Arts Spring Concert Phoenix, Arizona March 5, 2015 The two youth jazz bands of Young Sounds of Arizona performed a satisfying concert of cohesive section work and talented soloists before a near-capacity audience that came to hear teenage musicians who attend Phoenix-area high schools. Young Sounds director Vince Wedge introduced the 5'Oclock Band, a septet that opened the concert with a sparkling rendition ...

What is Jazz?

A Sublime Question: What Does Jazz Want?

by Douglas Groothuis
March 16, 2015

Does does jazz want something from us? Strange as this may seem, the answer is yes! As is true in every other area of life, something is desired of those with whom the art form interacts. It wants our engagement. It wants to elicit a response. It may ask much of us. Consider a few examples before we reach jazz. Students need to know the great traditions of humanity, but these great traditions need to be known. Wise ...