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

Steven Feifke: Peace In Time

Read "Peace In Time" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
February 10, 2015

How do you rate a jazz album? Is it about strength and depth of improvisation--"the sound of surprise," as the late, great journalist Whitney Balliet might say? Is it about structural intricacy, harmonic integrity, rhythmic feel, and melodic communication? Or is it musical ingenuity and individual personalities at play that help to make or break a record? In truth, all of those ideas can factor into the equation, and Peace In Time does well by all of those metrics.

Interview

Rudresh Mahanthappa: Dancing on the Edges of Time

by Victor L. Schermer
February 9, 2015

Saxophonist and composer Rudresh Mahanthappa is constantly making waves in the music world, expanding the technique of his instrument and integrating jazz and world music, especially that of his parents' native land, India. Brilliantly innovative, he often surprises with his improvisations and the way he transforms the music into something new and stimulating. India's great poet, Rabindranath Tagore wrote, “Let your life lightly dance on the edges of time... “ With his rhythmic propulsion and inexhaustible energy, Mahanthappa is always ...

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Album Review

Roberto Bonati and Diana Torto: Heureux Comme Avec Une Femme

Read "Heureux Comme Avec Une Femme" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
February 9, 2015

There are few musical things as exciting as a top-class vocalist fronting a full-on big band. Just a few. One of those is a top-class vocalist paired with a single, equally talented, instrumentalist. Heureux Comme Avec Une Femme provides that form of musical excitement courtesy of Italian double bassist and composer Roberto Bonati and vocalist Diana Torto.It's rare to hear a vocalist capable of the intensity that Torto can muster: rare, also, to hear the double bass played ...

Album Review

Bjorn Ingelstam: Bjorn Ingelstam

Read "Bjorn Ingelstam" reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard

by Jakob Baekgaard
February 9, 2015

Take a close look at the cover of Swedish trumpeter Björn Ingelstam's self-titled debut album and you will notice a pair of glasses in the top right corner. This a not coincidence because the man behind the record, Brian Rindom Larsen, is an optician and runs the shop Fiol Optik where the music was also recorded. Rindom Larsen is truly a connoisseur who knows what he wants and he has divided the releases on his newly started ...

Album Review

Tas Cru: You Keep the Money

Read "You Keep the Money" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
February 9, 2015

"This ain't your mama and daddy's blues, no. It ain't no Son House...“ For his fifth release of original material, guitarist Tas Cru explores every blues nook and cranny there is. An even dozen songs provides Cru with the creative fodder to display the contemporary funk of the title piece, to the minor-key blues of “A Month of Sundays" arriving at the church sounds of “A Little More Time" and the blues-balladry of “Holding on to You." ...

Album Review

Larry Coryell & The Eleventh House: Larry Coryell & The Eleventh House: January 1975 (Livelove Series Vol 1)

Read "Larry Coryell & The Eleventh House: January 1975 (Livelove Series Vol 1)" reviewed by Mark Sullivan

by Mark Sullivan
February 9, 2015

Guitarist Larry Coryell is unquestionably one of the pioneers of jazz/rock fusion, incorporating rock elements as early as the mid-1960s with the group The Free Spirits, and later with vibraphonist Gary Burton. He never attained the recognition of many who followed, but the Eleventh House was an attempt to attract the same audience as groups like John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra, Weather Report, and Chick Corea's Return to Forever. The Eleventh House that played Bremen in 1975 was the same group ...

Extended Analysis

Jimmy Greene: A Beautiful Life

by Patricia Myers
February 9, 2015

Phoenix-born jazz drummer Lewis Nash was the drummer on tenor saxophonist Jimmy Greene's newly released tribute album, A Beautiful Life (Mack Avenue Records, 2014). The CD is a remembrance celebration of Greene's 6-year-old daughter, Ana Márquez-Greene, who was among the 20 children and six educators killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, on December 14, 2012. The rhythm section has Nash on drums, Renee Rosnes on piano and Christian McBride on bass. Guest musicians are guitarists ...

Album Review

Duane Eubanks Quintet: Things Of That Particular Nature

Read "Things Of That Particular Nature" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
February 8, 2015

Things Of That Particular Nature is the record that the jazz world has been waiting for from trumpeter Duane Eubanks. My Shining Hour (TCB Records, 1999) and Second Take (TCB Records, 2001) put Eubanks on the map as a leader, positioning him as a purveyor of all manner of bop-derived music. He instantly came off as one to watch, but his voice was tied to the past on those releases, both through the material he covered and the debts that ...

Record Label Profile

Real World Records: Passion and Authenticity are Fundamental

by Nenad Georgievski
February 8, 2015

Last year Real World Records celebrated its 25th anniversary with an exclusive box set that dig deep into the label's vaults and shed light on the plethora of artists that have released for the renowned world music label. Founded in 1989, with collaboration with singer Peter Gabriel, it exposed some of the finest world music artists and became a playground for musicians who performed new music which is influenced by or is rooted in traditional musics. The label began its ...

Album Review

Daphna Sadeh: Born in Parallel

Read "Born in Parallel" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
February 8, 2015

Bassist/composer Daphna Sadeh may have left her native Israel over a decade ago but the country's colorful musical potpourri is firmly embedded in her DNA. For Sadeh, the confluence of Arabic, Eastern European and Mediterranean influences that resound throughout Israeli culture have provided the building blocks for her longstanding, UK-based ensemble The Voyagers on albums like Reconciliation (Tzadik, 2009). After a five-year break from the recording studio Sadeh returns with Born in Parallel, her most ambitious compositional work to date. ...