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.

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Album Review

Gary Porter: Stone Chucker

Read "Stone Chucker" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
January 9, 2015

Back in 2012 Porter, a sextet from the county of Essex, just north of London, produced the highly enjoyable Can't Keep Still (Cornerblock Records). Two years later, band leader Gary Porter has released his follow-up, Stone Chucker. Boosting the line-up to a Spinal Tap sized 11, including guests, Porter has also upped the enjoyment quotient. His old-school mix of blues, R&B, jazz and soul bursts joyfully out of the speakers. Drummer Phil Mount and keyboardist Dave Melling also ...

Album Review

Jon Davis: Moving Right Along

Read "Moving Right Along" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
January 9, 2015

Every jazz generation has its own Tommy Flanagan, an unheralded player that finally steps into the spotlight and everyone wonders how he has been hiding in plain sight all these years. With Moving Right Along, a follow up to One Up Front (Posi-Tone, 2013) pianist Jon Davis takes center stage with an assured sense of swing and a sumptuous way with a jazz vocabulary.As a sideman, he has held the piano chair in bands led by jazz fusion ...

Album Review

Seth Meicht and the Big Sound Ensemble: Live in Philadelphia

Read "Live in Philadelphia" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
January 9, 2015

Philly tenor saxophonist Seth Meicht has created a crack little big band which combines nifty arrangements and adventurous expression in his Big Sound Ensemble. Meicht has largely passed under the critical radar since Illumine (CIMP, 2006), surfacing only for the occasional high profile gig in NYC, including the 2009 Vision Festival. This recording in front of a hometown crowd, inexplicably dated 2008 on the sleeve although actually captured on 19 September 2009, assembles a stellar cast for a generous program ...

Album Review

Tyshawn Sorey: Alloy

by Glenn Astarita
January 9, 2015

Drummer Tyshawn Sorey has evolved into one of the more sought after drummers in the jazz and improvisational strata on a global basis. His ever expanding resume is difficult to keep up with. And he possesses immense chops as a polyrhythmic powerhouse, but focuses his empathetic support on a variety of levels, including diverse compositional frameworks, free-flowing improv and whatever the heat of the moment may require. Currently, Sorey is in the doctoral program at Columbia University ...

Year in Review

Mark F. Turner's Best of 2014

by Mark F. Turner
January 9, 2015

Typically, when music is labeled it gets thrown into a box that limits its artistic scope. But the four letter word “jazz" in today's environment obliterates typical categorization as found in these diverse releases. Ambrose Akinmusire The imagined savior is far easier to paint (Blue Note) In his early thirties trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire is developing his own voice as one of today's brightest and most imaginative young leaders with a ...

Live Review

Chris Botti at Blue Note Jazz Club

by Tyran Grillo
January 9, 2015

Chris Botti Blue Note Jazz Club 10th Annual Holiday Residency New York, NY January 2, 2015 Chris Botti has held his own as a contemporary music darling since making splashes as both a studio and live musician in the mid-1990s. Gracefully sidestepping knee-jerk criticism and bolstered by widespread praise, he has forged a smooth, individual path across a variety of genres, earning an equally diverse fan base along the way. Whether or not one ...

Rediscovery

Terje Rypdal: If Mountains Could Sing

by John Kelman
January 9, 2015

Terje RypdalIf Mountains Could Sing ECM Records1995 Today's Rediscovery is If Mountains Could Sing, an album that stands out in Terje Rypdal's career for its marriage of his two seemingly (but clearly not necessarily) divergent paths: one, the rock-edged improvising guitarist; the other, the classical composer of contemporary music first inspired when he heard the music of microtonal groundbreaker György Ligeti in Stanley Kubrick's similarly innovative 1978 film, 2001: A Space Odyssey. It ...

Album Review

Tomoko Omura: Roots

by Dan Bilawsky
January 8, 2015

Japanese violinist Tomoko Omura may be ten years into a stay in the United States, but Roots clearly demonstrates that she hasn't forgotten or forsaken her homeland. Omura left Japan and relocated to the United States in 2004, eager and ready to study at Boston's Berklee College of Music. Shortly after graduating in 2007, she released her debut--Visions (Self Produced, 2008)--which focused on original compositions. She moved once more in 2010, adopting the thriving jazz borough of ...

Album Review

Rogier Telderman Trio: Contours

Read "Contours" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
January 8, 2015

The debut recording from Holland's Rogier Telderman Trio, Contours features nine of the pianist's original compositions. In partnership with Guus Bakker on bass and Tuur Moens on drums, Telderman has crafted an album notable for its varied musical and emotional range as well as for its excellent musicianship.Telderman's writing is melodic and lyrical but with an added edge when the mood of the piece requires it. He's jazz-influenced certainly, but classical, ambient and rock influences also find their ...

Multiple Reviews

Where Is Home: Janel & Anthony and Palo Colorado Dream: Anthony Pirog

by Glenn Astarita
January 8, 2015

Modern era guitar heroes such as Nels Cline, Pat Metheny and Bill Frisell are expressive stylists, possessing distinct ways of conveying a narrative amid branded and well-defined stylizations. No need to compare, but from a fundamental standpoint, these gents and other elite craftsmen bear the goods that often transcend the norm or anticipated methods of spinning a tune or two. However, members of the elite are students of more than one genre. They absorb the merits of Americana, classical, jazz, ...