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

Ian Sims And Divergent Paths: Conundrum

Read "Conundrum" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
February 11, 2015

The title of saxophonist Ian Sims' debut recording is a bit of a misnomer, for his music isn't trying, confusing, or difficult to unravel. This is certainly modern jazz, but it's not modern jazz of the confounding and disorienting variety. For his first album, the Baltimore-based tenor man put together a quintet of sure-footed modernists dubbed Divergent Paths. The band includes Paul Bollenback, perhaps the most under-appreciated guitarist operating today; drummer EJ Strickland, who slices and dices ...

Album Review

Errol Rackipov Group: Pictures from a Train Window

Read "Pictures from a Train Window" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
February 11, 2015

It used to be that the name of guitar alchemist Hristo Vitchev on a recording meant a breezy, ethereal affair crammed full of complex melodies dancing over creative, if often implied, harmonies. Not so on percussionist Errol Rackipov's Pictures from a Train Window. While Vitchev's presence is great, Rackipov composed the majority of the pieces and the stylistic stamp is undoubtedly his. Rackipov's vibraphone is central in the recording, though he does afford his bandmates wide open spaces in which ...

Album Review

Hypercolor: Hypercolor

Read "Hypercolor" reviewed by Dave Wayne

by Dave Wayne
February 11, 2015

The past few months have seen a stream of truly--and in some cases mind-bogglingly--wonderful guitar-centric power trio albums. Yet, the eponymous debut of the Brooklyn-based avant-jazz-rock band Hypercolor stands out, but not for the reasons you'd think. Sure, the trio consists of musical brainiacs James Ilgenfritz and Lukas Ligeti; genre omnivores whose own work and collaborations draw as heavily from the worlds of free improvisation, contemporary classical, various ethnic musics, and art-rock as they do from jazz. How guitarist Eyal ...

Album Review

Afro Garage: Eighteen Ways to Miss Egypt

Read "Eighteen Ways to Miss Egypt" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
February 11, 2015

This European trio has only released three CDs in 23-years of existence, while framing its inspiration on a love for cinema. Hence, the album is an amalgamation of two spontaneously crafted film scores, recorded in 2005 “Thèbes à l'ombre de la tombe" and in 2011 “Thousand and One Cairo." It's a program formed on dainty surprises via free-jazz inspired Afro-Beat collages, transformed into the improvisational spectrum with minimalist etudes, often touched with bassist Jacques Siron's background chanting or murmuring. Essentially, ...

Catching Up With

Duane Eubanks: Artistry of a Boundless Nature

by Nicholas F. Mondello
February 10, 2015

Duane Eubanks may be the youngest of the incredibly musically-blessed Eubanks siblings, however this outstanding Philly-born trumpeter and composer also carries the bedrock jazz tradition of the City of Brotherly Love with “Rocky"-like vigor. With his latest quintet offering Things of That Particular Nature--one long overdue due to his constant in-demand status as a sideman contributor with Mulgrew Miller, brothers Robin Eubanks and Kevin Eubanks, Dave Holland's Big Band and many others--Eubanks returns to the leader's spotlight, grabs horn and ...

Album Review

SpokFrevo Orquestra: Ninho de Vespa

Read "Ninho de Vespa" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
February 10, 2015

To begin, a couple of small but important details: first, saxophonist Spok (given name: Inaldo Cavalcante de Albuquerque) is the leader of this remarkable seventeen-piece “orquestra." Second, Frevo isn't Spok's co-leader but a form of Brazilian swing / dance music whose wellspring is the area in and around Recife, Pernambuco. Is it jazz? Most definitely, as it satisfies all the criteria: rhythmic and harmonic finesse, improvisation on almost every number, and, even more important, an unreserved desire to lay into ...

Rediscovery

Hermeto Pascoal: Slaves Mass

by John Kelman
February 10, 2015

Hermeto Pascoal Slaves MassWarner Bros.1977 It's not hard to see why the creator of today's Rediscovery, Hermeto Pascoal, was such a significant figure to everyone from Miles Davis and Gil Evans to Herbie Hancock and, of course, Flora Purim and Airto Moreira, who co-produced Slaves Mass. Had the Brazilian multi-instrumentalist only released this one album, he'd have already been assured a mention in jazz history. Slaves Mass would ultimately become a career-defining record, but Pascoal ...

Album Review

Chad McCullough & Bram Weijters: Abstract Quantities

Read "Abstract Quantities" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
February 10, 2015

Trumpeter Chad McCullough debuted as a leader in 2009 with the superb Dark Wood, Dark, Water (Origin Records). He's stayed busy ever since, recording with The Kora Band--inspired by the sounds of Africa--Tunnel Six, and the two horn, chordless The Spin Quartet, along with two previous modern jazz sets on Origin Records on which he teamed as a co-leader with Belgian pianist Bram Weijters, Imaginary Sketches (2011) and Urban Nightingale (2012). At hand now is the pair's third offering, Abstract ...

Album Review

Grencsó Open Collective: Flat / Sikvidek

Read "Flat / Sikvidek" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
February 10, 2015

Multi-reedman Istvan Grencso is not well-known in the US, but is a major, cutting-edge jazz artist in his native Hungary. Thus, Flat / Sikvidek duly stresses his elevated artistry and significant compositional acumen. Nonetheless, the quartet's synergy cannot be undermined, as it incorporates budding jazz stylizations of various flavors into a panorama that abides by construction / deconstruction paradigms in rather harmonious fashion. The musicians often toy with, and reformulate a wide array of cadences, while launching into ...

My Blue Note Obsession

Jimmy Smith: Midnight Special – Blue Note 4078

by Marc Davis
February 10, 2015

The history of jazz is filled with great pairs: Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn--Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker--Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond--Wayne Shorter and Joe Zawinul. Add one more pair to the list: Jimmy Smith and Stanley Turrentine. Smith was the ground-breaking organist, steeped in the blues, who introduced the Hammond B-3 as a legitimate hard bop alternative to the piano. Turrentine was the legendary tenor saxman, steeped in the blues, who became synonymous with 1960s ...