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

Vlatko: Subjective Experience In A Commercial Free Zone

Read "Subjective Experience In A Commercial Free Zone" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
January 15, 2015

West Coast purveyor of novel jazz concepts, trombonist and shrewd improviser, Michael Vlatkovich skirts the perimeters of expressionistic jazz rock and most all things jazz related, featuring electric guitarist Tom McNalley's impressive, quirky off-kilter voicings and stinging expeditions. It's a production that's framed on the outside schema, as the leader's compositions present a brooding and flourishing set of circumstances, built upon layers, abstractions, and the requisite improvisational encounters. The lengthy album title duly implies that Vlatkovich is blending ...

Rediscovery

Steve Khan: Eyewitness

by John Kelman
January 15, 2015

Steve KhanEyewitnessAntilles1981 Today's Rediscovery represented a significant turning point for an artist who'd already made a name for himself in the '70s as part of the scene that included The Brecker Brothers, David Sanborn and Mike Mainieri. Guitarist Steve Khan, along with playing with many of the artists in that axis, had released his own trilogy of fine recordings on Columbia Records between 1977 and 1979--albums that all reflected that scene's more funkified ...

Album Review

John Lely: The Harmonics of Real Strings

Read "The Harmonics of Real Strings" reviewed by John Eyles

by John Eyles
January 15, 2015

The Harmonics of Real Strings is amazing, in the original sense of the word--it is packed full of moments that cause genuine amazement. Yet the simplicity of its conception and execution are both breathtakingly audacious, to the extent that describing it risks making it sound mundane. Nonetheless, here goes. The album consists of four realisations of the title composition by John Lely, played unaccompanied on cello by Anton Lukoszevieze, the founder and leader of the group Apartment House. Each realisation ...

Extended Analysis

Miles Davis: Olympia – Mar 20, 1960

by C. Michael Bailey
January 14, 2015

A Totally Subjective History of Jazz, 1945--1968 I am going to over-simplify the history of small-ensemble jazz between the heyday of bebop and the vestibule of fusion using a single catalyst--Miles Davis. Davis was instrumental in or the genesis of five major movements (not including fusion) in jazz where the hinges of these movements can be assigned (however arbitrarily) to specific recordings: Bebop--Davis records “Billie's Bounce" with Charlie Parker for Savoy November 26, 1945. This ...

Album Review

Rich Pellegrin Quintet: Episodes IV-VI

Read "Episodes IV-VI" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
January 14, 2015

Pianist Rich Pellegrin offered up his first installment of Three Part Odyssey (OA2 Records) in 2011. It's a musical journey inspired by travels through Europe and North Africa. Employing a superb quintet, three “Episodes" blossomed from a first rate collective approach. Pellegrin and his group follow this up with Episodes IV-VI, featuring a slightly more reflective mode, added to the same originality, top level musicianship and crafty, compelling compositions. The music--all by from Pellegrin's pen--eschews, for the most ...

Album Review

Andrew Drury: Content Provider

Read "Content Provider" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
January 14, 2015

New York-based jazz and avant-garde drummer, Andrew Drury largely performs with the crème de la crème of likeminded artistes, and has assembled one heck of a band for his latest solo venture. Drury is firmly embedded in the global improvising scene and has performed with a who's who of current jazz and improv pioneers. In-between duties as an A-list drummer in the US and abroad, he puts his composer hat on, and is someone you can often count on to ...

Album Review

Baka Beyond: After the Tempest

Read "After the Tempest" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
January 14, 2015

Back in 1992, before the term “world music" was prevalently used, British guitarist Martin Cradick and his wife, vocalist Su Hart, went on an expedition into the Cameroon jungle to learn about the music of the Baka Forest People. This led to an interesting cultural collaboration, and an enduring relationship lasting into the present. In the same year, motivated and inspired by their exploration, Cradick and Hart went on to form the band Baka Beyond, and recorded the successful “Spirit ...

Rediscovery

Lost Tribe: Lost Tribe

by John Kelman
January 14, 2015

Lost TribeLost TribeWindham Hill Jazz1993 Today's Rediscovery ultimately jumpstarted the careers of five young musicians who have since gone on to varying degrees of greater fame and exposure. While not necessarily household names, few who follow the contemporary jazz scene will be unaware of saxophonist David Binney, guitarists Adam Rogers and David Gilmore, bassist Fima Ephron and drummer Ben Perowsky. Together, as Lost Tribe, the quintet released a stunning debut on Windham Hill Jazz that ...

My Blue Note Obsession

Hank Mobley and his All Stars – Blue Note 1544

by Marc Davis
January 14, 2015

I think I've hit a wall. I love hard bop. I love Blue Note. But all of a sudden, the thrill is gone. This week, I'm listening to Hank Mobley and his All Stars, a 1957 album that could never be accused of false advertising. This truly is an all-star hard bop band: Hank Mobley on tenor, Milt Jackson on vibes, Horace Silver on piano, Art Blakey on drums and Doug Watkins on bass. This is, ...

Album Review

Sean Mac Erlaine: A Slender Song

Read "A Slender Song" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
January 14, 2015

Multi-woodwind instrumentalist and electronics musician/composer Sean Mac Erlaine works in musical areas where seemingly disparate worlds merge: tradition and modernity; acoustic and electronic; improvised and structured sounds. These are the threads that run throughout his work. Slender Songs is a continuation of concepts that Mac Erlaine explored on Long After The Music is Gone (Ergodos Records, 2012), a haunting solo meditation inspired by the Irish landscape and its light. The ten selections here--culled from live performances between 2010 and 2013--range ...