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

Matthew Shipp: To Duke

by Mark Corroto
February 15, 2015

Unlocking the language of an avant-garde musician like Matthew Shipp can be a tough task for those new to creative music, and also for those new to the pianist's approach. He has developed a method of music making that draws from classical music, free jazz, and the energies of electronic music. With a discography pushing into the hundreds, where to start and what to listen to is always the question. A musical detective might start with his early recordings with ...

Album Review

Frank Lowe: Out Loud

by John Sharpe
February 15, 2015

In the spring of 1974, the storied ESP label had just released the leadership debut of thirty-year old reedman Frank Lowe, and now he was considering his next move. Val Wilmer in her groundbreaking As Serious As Your Life (Quartet Books, 1977) observes about Lowe: “Everywhere you go in New York you'll run into him, working here, sitting in there, rehearsing uptown, downtown, all around." At this period Lowe was one of the most exciting saxophone players on the scene, ...

Album Review

Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra: Suite Messiah / Steppin' Out

Read "Suite Messiah / Steppin' Out" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
February 14, 2015

Suite Messiah, recorded in 2012 and 2014, is the third and most recent album produced by the excellent Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra from central Canada, while Steppin' Out was recorded in 2007 to mark the orchestra's tenth anniversary. Whereas Suite Messiah is altogether seasonal, Steppin' Out salutes the Great American Songbook by renovating a dozen of its more memorable compositions. With that in mind, and as the recent holiday season is fast receding into the rear-view mirror, it seems proper to ...

Extended Analysis

Mano a Mano: Mano a Mano

by Phil Barnes
February 14, 2015

It's all there in the cover photo--shot in black and white André and Bruno Santos gaze impassively back at the listener clutching their magnificent semi acoustic electric guitars (surely the classic jazz guitar look?), the modernity of their relaxed personal style contrasting with the sixties brutalist concrete geometric pattern behind them. Look closer and you notice that the Santos brothers are a near mirror image of each other--Bruno Santos, dark shirt pale trousers, holds his guitar right handed, while the ...

Album Review

John O'Gallagher: The Honeycomb

Read "The Honeycomb" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
February 14, 2015

Bring up the trio format, one with an alto saxophone, bass and drums, and Ornette Coleman, alto man extraordinaire, might come to mind, especially those fantastic Blue Note Records sets, The Ornette Coleman Trio at the Golden Circle Stockholm, Volume One and Two (1965). In fact, alto saxophonist John O'Gallagher, on The Honeycomb, has a lyricism not unlike Coleman's, a similar sharp, keening tone. Add to this a geometrical compositional structuring to the tunes, and a predominance from Gallagher's horn ...

Album Review

Sound Underground: Sound Underground

Read "Sound Underground" reviewed by John Eyles

by John Eyles
February 14, 2015

Formed in the autumn of 2013, Sound Underground is a trio of young roommates who at the time were studying at the Frost School of Music in Miami, Florida: guitarist Jonah Udall, trumpet and flugelhorn player Alec Aldred and alto saxophonist David Leon. They say they formed Sound Underground as a natural extension of their shared passion to create music together. Refreshingly, they did not feel the need to follow convention and add a bass-and-drums rhythm section to their instruments; ...

Rediscovery

No-Man: Together We're Stranger

by John Kelman
February 14, 2015

No-Man Together We're Stranger (remastered/expanded)Kscope2014 (2003) With Steven Wilson on the cusp of releasing Hand. Cannot. Erase. (Kscope, 2015), and Tim Bowness' Abandoned Dancehall Dreams (Inside Out, 2014) one of 2014's best releases, now's as good a time as any to revisit the pair's music together as No-Man--specifically, Together We're Stranger (Snapper, 2003), reissued last year on Kscope in a remastered and expanded edition that sounds even better on the Tetra listening instruments that were ...

Album Review

Bob Dylan: Shadows in the Night

Read "Shadows in the Night" reviewed by Matt Marshall

by Matt Marshall
February 14, 2015

After spending the past 50-plus years mining the traditional music of what Greil Marcus has termed “old, weird America," and expanding it into the contemporary worlds of folk, rock, country, gospel and other singular hybrids thereof, on Shadows in the Night Bob Dylan gives us his take on the Great American Songbook. Thankfully, Dylan doesn't jettison the weirdness for the trip, choosing (unlike so many other rock and pop stars) to interpret these standards in his own idiom; choosing, that ...

Album Review

Keri Johnsrud: This Side Of Morning

Read "This Side Of Morning" reviewed by Ben Scholz

by Ben Scholz
February 14, 2015

For her sophomore effort This Side Of Morning, vocalist Keri Johnsrud presents a collection of original material co-written with pianist Kevin Bales. Featuring a powerhouse band of Chicago musicians including guitarist Neal Alger, bassist Larry Kohut, drummer Jon Deitemyer, and vibraphonist Stephen Lynerd, Keri explores a range of emotions in what amounts to a book of poetry set to music. Much of the album evokes a sense of hope in times of loss. Keri describes difficult situations with ...

Jazz Near Me

Twin Cities

by Andrea Canter
February 13, 2015

Welcome to the first in a series of Jazz Near You articles where we raise the awareness of advocacy and catalyst organizations whose efforts are making a positive impact on their local jazz communities. This article was co-written by Don Berryman The Jazz Police website launched in spring 2004, initially intending to promote the idea of “jazz and travel" throughout the U.S. and beyond. We are not journalists, musicians or marketing experts by training--we came to ...