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

Jonathan Badger: Verse

by Glenn Astarita
January 11, 2015

Baltimore, MD, native Jonathan Badger is a guitarist and technologist who aurally paints a sequence of montages with hornists, vocalists, and strings performers, including Shodekeh who is listed as utilizing a human beat box. It's a diverse electro-acoustic brew via an off the wall melding of avant-garde expressionism, ambient electronica and progressive rock amid slight inferences to Frank Zappa's unorthodox time signatures and a host of polytonal attributes, partly devised by Badger's keys and computer processes. Badger's line ...

Album Review

Chingari: Bombay Makossa

Read "Bombay Makossa" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
January 10, 2015

Released just days before the death of pioneering mandolin maestro U. Srinivas, Bombay Makossa assumes an added poignancy as one of his last recorded ventures in a career that began as a child prodigy in the late 1970s. Though nearly all the tracks were penned by Ranjit Barot Chingari was intended as a trio of equals. Accordingly, there's a fine compositional balance in the arrangements and tight trio interplay throughout. Chingari means spark in Hindi and collective sparks certainly fly ...

What is Jazz?

Sir Hildred Humphries. It's all about the music.

by Matt Lavelle
January 10, 2015

Ahh Hump. My man. Hildred was my first mentor. Unlike most of the young guys today, at 44 I have spent extensive time learning from authentic masters of the Art. In 1986 legendary music educator Bert Hughes spent the summer helping me to get my chops back after 3 years of not playing so that I could be part of a big band tour to Russia. He also introduced me to Hildred Humphries. Hildred was so much more than a ...

Album Review

Anthony Braxton: Trio and Duet

Read "Trio and Duet" reviewed by Troy Collins

by Troy Collins
January 10, 2015

Vanguard composer and multi-instrumentalist Anthony Braxton has long inspired debate among conservative critics as to whether or not his urbane contributions should be considered part of the jazz canon; oblique strategies notwithstanding, Braxton's abstruse efforts rarely swing in a conventional sense, forever fuelling the argument. Nonetheless, Arista Records signed Braxton to a six year contract late in 1974--an unprecedented move on the major label's behalf that brought widespread attention to the maverick conceptualist's heterogeneous artistry. Trio and Duet ...

Album Review

Roy McGrath Quartet: Martha

by James Nadal
January 10, 2015

In music as well as life, to succeed one must often take chances, jazz is undoubtedly filled with risk takers which were essential in determining this music. The saxophone for Roy McGrath has taken him on a remarkable journey since leaving his home in Puerto Rico to seek his musical passion. It wound through many years studying and gigging in Boston, and New Orleans, ending up in Chicago with further education and performing opportunities. Leading an inspiring quartet, he ventured ...

Album Review

Ultima Armonia: Someone Killed the Swan -- Laments on South-Eastern Europe

Read "Someone Killed the Swan -- Laments on South-Eastern Europe" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
January 10, 2015

Multi-woodwind specialist Boris Kovac and pianist Stevan Kovac Tickmayer have fostered a musical partnership spanning three decades and lead this European quartet though a progression of laments on South-Eastern Europe amid Balkan, classical, jazz and improvisational settings. This is not an easy to classify album, as the musicians gracefully merge avant-garde treatments with indigenous Euro folk-isms, and even during energized jaunts toward the red-zone, they use plush melodic overtures as the blueprint for compositional form. The program greatly ...

Rediscovery

Rachel Unthank & The Winterset: The Bairns

by John Kelman
January 10, 2015

Rachel Unthank & The WintersetThe BairnsRabble Rousser2007 Before they became simply The Unthanks they were Rachel Unthank & The Winterset. Today's Rediscovery is the first album I ever heard by this extraordinary British chamber folk group...but it would not be the last. The group's second album after its 2005 Rabble Rouser debut, Cruel Sister, 2007's The Bairns, was still early days for a group that, based around sisters Rachel and Becky Unthank, blended Northumbrian folk ...

Shrinktunes

Into the Shoulds - Sondheim and Freud

by Dr. Judith Schlesinger
January 10, 2015

Inspired by the stage version of “Into the Woods," this article provides an unusual psychological spin on the 2014 film. Whether or not we agree with him, Freud was a genius. His cosmology is so compelling that it continues to pervade Western culture; nearly a century after he first developed it, his symbolic imagery still adds layers of meaning to literature, drama, and the visual arts. It also enriches musicals, like “Into the Woods."

Film Review

The Best of the Tribeca Film Festival 2014

by Christine Connallon
January 10, 2015

Celebrating its 13th year of bringing the best and brightest to movie goers, the Tribeca Film Festival 2014 previewed over 6,000 submissions to showcase gems in both feature and short length categories. With a total attendance of over 400,000 attending nearly 400 screenings and panels at a staggering rate of 95% attendance and representing work from 40 countries, the possibilities were endless. Founded by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff in 2001 following the attacks on the World ...

The Big Question

What were your favorite jazz albums in 2014?

by Michael Ricci
January 9, 2015

We continue to publish our staff's best of lists (here) and we've published additional lists over the last few weeks including top read interviews, top read reviews, top downloaded MP3s, and Ken Franckling's Year in Jazz. We're curious to know which jazz releases you liked best in 2014. Please share your favorite(s) in the comments section below. Thanks! ...