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

Roger Turner & Otomo Yoshihide: The Last Train

Read "The Last Train" reviewed by John Eyles

by John Eyles
February 13, 2015

Recorded at Tokyo's Hara Museum in February 2013, this duo brings together London's Roger Turner on percussion with Japan's own Otomo Yoshihide on guitar and amplifier, an improv meeting of two masters with very different but equally impressive histories. Across four tracks ranging in length from four to sixteen-and-a-half minutes--forty minutes altogether--they give an object lesson in the art of duo improvisation, a format in which both players are constantly exposed with no easy place to hide, although that clearly ...

Album Review

Stew Cutler Guitarist/ Composer: So Many Streams

Read "So Many Streams" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
February 13, 2015

New York City guitarist and composer Stew Cutler began his professional career at 19-years old with ZZ Hill. The easy, downhome groove of Hill's blues stuck with the young Cutler and after time away, he carried them back to New York City, refined and polished. Cutler's musical facility was equally refined and polished. On his present recording, So Many Streams could be a functional metaphor for all of the rich tributaries informing his music. Over 10 songs, ...

Album Review

Adam Birnbaum: Three of a Mind

Read "Three of a Mind" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
February 13, 2015

Pianist/composer Adam Birnbaum has performed in the company of diverse leaders such as traditionalist trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, the edgier saxophonist Greg Osby and the eclectic composer/conductor Darcy James Argue and his Secret Society. On one hand Birnbaum is a change agent having utilized three different rhythm sections in as many outings as a trio leader. He also demonstrates a strong conviction for retaining a musical style rooted in fundamentals. On Three of a Mind he is joined by veteran drummer ...

Album Review

PC Energetic: Illusion

Read "Illusion" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
February 13, 2015

Young German guitar-slinger Philip Czarnecki's influences derive from the rock and jazz idioms, duly exercised on his quite laudable debut album. He communicates a comprehensive scope and vivid imaginative powers via a mature outlook while working within hard-hitting jazz fusion, funk and slamming rock grooves. His fluent jazz articulations and shifting thematic overtures pose a sense of excitement. The guitarist often switches gears and steps on the effects pedal amid climactic motifs, fast-paced burnouts, and knotty time signatures. Czarnecki must ...

Album Review

Irek Wojtczak & The Fonda-Stevens Group: Folk Five

Read "Folk Five" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
February 13, 2015

The substantial music community in Eastern Europe has a particular affinity for incorporating elements of regional and ethnic music into modern jazz. Gypsy jazz, klezmer and various strains of ethno-fusion have often been combined so that regional influences and free jazz serve as a shared platform, at times addressing political and social causes. For Polish saxophonist and composer Irek Wojtczak, the motivation in combining these contrasting genres is in the dynamic it provides for conveying cultural context in a fresh ...

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Interview

Paul Jost: The First Thing is Heart

by Chris M. Slawecki
February 12, 2015

Even for a musician who has been playing and singing since age six, Paul Jost has just come through one exceptional year. First, he released his debut with The Jost Project, Can't Find My Way Home (2013, Dot.Time Records), featuring the leader on vocals, harmonica and guitar, with drummer Charlie Patierno, double bassist Kevin MacConnell and Tony Miceli on vibes. On Can't Find My Way Home, Jost remakes and remodels several classics from 1960s/'70s pop and rock FM ...

Album Review

Marshall Gilkes & The WDR Big Band: Köln

by Dan Bilawsky
February 12, 2015

In jazz journalism, it's de rigueur for writers to trace the evolution of an artist when covering their work. But encountering the likes of Marshall Gilkes makes that difficult: The Juilliard-trained trombonist seemed to arrive on the New York scene as a fully-formed entity, projecting a warm and full-bodied tone quality and possessing astounding lip flexibility. No surprise then that he became a pivotal figure on the scene, working with everybody from composer-arranger-bandleader Maria Schneider to Colombian harp phenom Edmar ...

Album Review

Jeff Sipe Trio: Jeff Sipe Trio featuring Mike Seal and Taylor Lee

Read "Jeff Sipe Trio featuring Mike Seal and Taylor Lee" reviewed by Mark Sullivan

by Mark Sullivan
February 12, 2015

Drummer Jeff Sipe was a member of Colonel Bruce Hampton's Aquarium Rescue Unit and has played with many other musicians. But probably his most visible association was the power trio with Jonas Hellborg and Shawn Lane, followed by a more recent trio with guitarist Alex Machacek. So he is clearly very comfortable in an improvising rock/jazz guitar trio. He says of the format: “The trio format is still exciting to me," Sipe explains. “It's very transparent. There is nobody there ...

Album Review

Art Pepper: Neon Art, Volume 1

Read "Neon Art, Volume 1" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
February 12, 2015

This is not a new release. It is a sensible one. In 2012, Omnivore Records released Art Pepper: Neon Art, Volume 1 in colored vinyl, taking advantage of the current baby boomer infatuation with the inferior medium of our childhood. In the case of Pepper, the medium is not the message. This is music that demands to be heard however, and the time comes that it be released to a larger audience than those hip dinosaurs trying to live 50 ...

Album Review

ZZ Quartet: Beyond the Lines

Read "Beyond the Lines" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
February 12, 2015

Three Europeans and celebrated American drummer Adam Nussbaum stir up some chutzpah via the guitar-accordion based format. In recent times the accordion's role in jazz-centric vernaculars has been expanding. And while this quartet doesn't invent a newfound genre, its spunky and articulate disposition, containing all original compositions engender a sophisticated outlook. With alternating tempos and several speedy unison choruses by guitarist Ratko Zjaca and accordionist Simone Zanchini, the band veers into changeable dimensions, largely executed within a sprightly modus operandi ...