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

The New Basement Tapes: Lost on the River

by Doug Collette
March 15, 2015

Suspect as its concept appears, at least at first, The New Basement Tapes: Lost on the River is another entry in the remarkable creative canon of Bob Dylan. And though the man himself does not perform here, he was nevertheless (in)directly involved: he had to give permission for the usage of a clutch of his lyrics from 1967 uncovered during exhumation of material for his 'Bootleg Series' of archive titles. And if the presence of T-Bone Burnett gives ...

Album Review

Daniel Bennett Group: The Mystery at Clown Castle

Read "The Mystery at Clown Castle" reviewed by Mark Sullivan

by Mark Sullivan
March 15, 2015

The Daniel Bennett Group's music is seductive. Bennett's jazz/rock tunes are bright, attractive, and relentlessly catchy: but odd meters, minimalism, hard rock guitar, and outside jazz are all lurking just below the surface. He even manages to make spoken word go down just as easily as vocals, no doubt greatly aided by the skills of guest poet Britt Melewski. The Mystery at Clown Castle (Manhattan Daylight Media, 2015) the group's sixth full-length album, also features guest pianist Jason ...

Bailey's Bundles

Classical Boxes: Harnoncort’s Strauss & Bostridges’ Schubert

by C. Michael Bailey
March 15, 2015

With the traditional music industry in shambles, the larger labels are repackaging their deep catalogs as never before, releasing well-conceived box sets that are modestly priced for the amount of music offered. Here are two from Warner Classics that make me want to yell, “Yeehaw!" (In the southern classical music vernacular, that is.) Nikolaus Harnoncourt Johann Strauss II Warner Classics 2014 When considering Austrian period-performance conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt, ...

Album Review

Yvonnick Prene and Pasquale Grasso: Merci Toots

Read "Merci Toots" reviewed by Chris Mosey

by Chris Mosey
March 15, 2015

It is often said--rather nastily--that nobody can name five famous Belgians. Jazz fans can certainly name one: harmonicist Toots Thielemans. Thielemans, who in 2014 announced his retirement at the age of 92, decamped from his homeland after the war to play with just about everyone in the US, including Charlie Parker and--primarily--George Shearing. He managed in the process to get the harmonica accepted as a serious--or reasonably serious--musical instrument. Which is why Yvonnick Prene ...

Album Review

Irek Wojtczak & The Fonda-Stevens Group: Wojtczak NY Connection

Read "Wojtczak NY Connection" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
March 15, 2015

Jazz from the edge of Eastern Europe. Wojtczak NY Connection is very much and East meets West jazz endeavor. Irek Wojtczak is a Polish saxophonist, conservatory trained and stage proven. For the Wojtczak NY Connection, Wojtczak joins the New York City-based Fonda/Stevens Group (bassist Joe Fonda and pianist Michael Stevens) for an internationally-flavored eutectoid. The results are a driving brand of jazz seasoned with Polish folk music, hard bop, and adult contemporary styling. Drummer Harvey Sorgen is ...

Interview

Anton Fig: Behind the Band Stand, Part 1

by Ben Scholz
March 14, 2015

Part 1 | Part 2 It's around 3 o'clock in early January, that melancholy time of year where the day perpetually feels like 7 pm. We're standing on West 53rd Street between Broadway and 8th Avenue around the corner from the entrance to The Ed Sullivan Theater. A light haze of snow is falling around the huddled masses waiting in line. Five or six paparazzo are standing behind a gate, cameras in hand. We knock on the door ...

Top Ten List

Denny Tedesco's Top Ten Wrecking Crew Songs

by Alan Bryson
March 14, 2015

In his All About Jazz interview, documentary filmmaker Denny Tedesco mentioned he had acquired the rights to over one hundred songs to use in his documentary film The Wrecking Crew. The film deals with the history of the studio and session musicians in '60s Los Angeles. After the interview we asked him to do the near impossible and come up with a Top Ten list for us. Denny obliged... 1. Nancy Sinatra: “These Boots Are ...

Book Review

Glyn Johns: Sound Man - A Life Recording Hits

by Doug Collette
March 14, 2015

Sound Man Glyn Johns 336 Pages ISBN: 0399163875 Blue Rider Press 2015 The only thing wrong with famed producer/engineer Glyn Johns' Sound Man is that there's not enough of it. The famed producer/engineer maintains such a breezy tone throughout his memoirs (perhaps as overcompensation for a very dogmatic reputation), so the fifty year span he covers seems like but a fortnight and it almost reads like he's just scratching the surface.

Album Review

Ken Silverman: Parallel Man

Read "Parallel Man" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
March 14, 2015

At first glance guitarist Ken Silverman's Parallel Man appears to be an album having an identity crisis. It seems lacking a unifying theme and the sense of adventure that marked its predecessors. A careful listen, however, reveals another explorative dimension, one that tries to find the core commonality among seemingly disparate genres. From the western swing of “Little Ditty" to the soulful blues of “Odyssey In Blue" to a Sergei Prokofiev composition these performances are all enveloped with an intimate ...

Album Review

Svend Asmussen: Embraceable

Read "Embraceable" reviewed by Chris Mosey

by Chris Mosey
March 14, 2015

In 1987 when he was a young man of 70, Svend Asmussen played a gig in a small club in Paris. This year, on the eve of his 100th birthday, the Danish violinist rediscovered a tape made of the evening for a Parisian radio station. He says: “I assumed it would be just another radio show which I wouldn't care to hear again. But when it was transferred to CD, it was a revelation. “It was a ...