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

Antoine Fafard: Ad Perpetuum

Read "Ad Perpetuum" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
January 25, 2015

Canadian bassist Antoine Fafard possesses awe-inspiring chops and can seemingly do anything he darn well pleases. Following suit with his previous solo outing Occultus Tramitis (Unicorn, 2013) he aligns his significant wares with highly revered artists, providing the level of support required, not only to pull off the tricky time signatures, but to also add various marks of distinction to these strong compositional frameworks. On his previous outing, drumming heroes Terry Bozzio, Simon Phillips and other marquee names joined the ...

Album Review

Brian Pareschi: And the BP Express

Read "And the BP Express" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
January 24, 2015

For his debut recording as leader, New York-based trumpeter / composer / arranger Brian Pareschi has assembled an octet, named it the BP Express and charged it with breathing life into seven of his original compositions and dazzling arrangements of Frank Loesser's “I Believe in You" and the Johnny Green standard “I Cover the Waterfront." The music is eloquent and engaging, and the octet carries out its assigned task with dexterity and assurance. Besides playing tasteful trumpet, ...

Book Review

Rock Covers

by Nenad Georgievski
January 24, 2015

Rock Covers Jon Kirby, Robbie Busch 552 pages ISBN: 978-3836545259 Taschen 2014 Most common opinion is that fine art is something that can be found adorning the walls of galleries, studios or museums. But one of the most unusual places where interesting, engaging and groundbreaking art can be found is on various album covers. Many visual artists, throughout the years and regardless of genre, have created visual artworks for various ...

Album Review

New Jazz Orchestra: Le Déjeuner Sur L’herbe

Read "Le Déjeuner Sur L’herbe" reviewed by Duncan Heining

by Duncan Heining
January 24, 2015

I remember reading about this record in Melody Maker when it came out. These were all the people I admired in one band! Yet I never ever saw a copy until one day twenty years later in a record shop in Ipswich, I pulled this gem from the racks. £2.50! I couldn't believe the price or the condition. Twenty years of searching and the music didn't disappoint.In fact, New Jazz Orchestra director, Neil Ardley, did issue the album ...

Album Review

Exhaustion / Kris Wanders: Exhaustion / Kris Wanders

Read "Exhaustion / Kris Wanders" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
January 24, 2015

The marriage of punk rock to free jazz is a natural fit. Both art forms are DIY; punk a rejection of corporate rock-n-roll of the 1970s and free jazz, the stasis of jazz, some fifty years post-birth. Today, we find Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore playing with The Thing, Borbetomagus, The Ex and Ken Vandermark, John Zorn's Painkiller, and Zu with Mats Gustafsson, to name just a few collaborations. This single-sided LP, released in a limited edition of 150 ...

Album Review

Schnauser: Protein for Everyone

Read "Protein for Everyone" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
January 24, 2015

Here's a persuasively inventive British progressive band that recycles protein into music, or so it seems. In fact, vocalist Holly McIntosh is also one of the greatest emulsifier (see Personnel listing) performers I've ever heard. Okay, besides the unconventional album motif, this band successfully transmigrate classic styles into its modish repertoire. With nods to early Soft Machine, Gentle Giant and even The Byrds, thanks to Alan Strawbridge's charmingly archaic twangy guitar licks on “Buon Natale," the band bridges the gap ...

Take Five With...

Take Five with Eddie Reyes

by AAJ Staff
January 23, 2015

Meet Eddie Reyes: Eddie Reyes has evolved a unique and personal style on the guitar. Although for much of his playing career he has focused on electric jazz guitar, he now turns mostly to the acoustic. He has evolved his style from, first, a fascination with Brazilian Jazz to his present passion, Flamenco. In the process he developed a way to fuse the authentic rhythms and style of playing inherent in Flamenco with his contemporary jazz language and sensibility. ...

Album Review

Eyebrow: Garden City

Read "Garden City" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
January 23, 2015

Mention the idea of the “garden city" to the good people of Britain and the likeliest (polite) response will be “Welwyn" or perhaps “Letchworth." Bristol, home to Eyebrow, isn't such a settlement but Garden City is the name the duo has given to its fourth album release. Pete Judge and Paul Wigens formed Eyebrow in 2009. The pair have extensive experience in jazz, punk and folk music--Judge is a member of Bristol jazzers Get The Blessing and has ...

Album Review

Anna Webber: Simple

by Dave Wayne
January 23, 2015

If things aren't just right, listening to complicated music can be like doing your taxes. There has to be chemistry, there has to be a narrative, and--even though you don't know what's coming next--the music's got to be on. The players have to be free to speak in a new language; often one divorced from the world of spang-a-lang and rhythm changes. This is the case on Anna Webber's new recording, Simple. Don't let the title fool you! Ms. Webber, ...

Album Review

Horace Silver Quintet: June 1977 (livelove Series Vol 2)

Read "June 1977 (livelove Series Vol 2)" reviewed by Mark Sullivan

by Mark Sullivan
January 23, 2015

When the Horace Silver Quintet took the stage in Bremen in June, 1977, Silver was nearing the end of his long association with Blue Note Records. Much of the band's book was drawn from recent albums: the title tune from In Pursuit of the 27th Man (Blue Note, 1973), and two each from Silver 'N Brass (Blue Note, 1975) and Silver 'N Voices (Blue Note, 1976). Producer Peter Schulze's liner notes tell the story of how the show also became ...