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.

Year in Review

Jakob Baekgaard's Best Releases of 2014

by Jakob Baekgaard
December 22, 2014

2014 proved to be another fruitful year for jazz. The artists on this list represent many different musical directions, but that is the wonder of jazz. It is so many things and the world would indeed be poorer if the idiom was restricted to one particular sound. These artists all have a fresh approach to the music, but, at the same time, they respect tradition. Argentinian pianists Francisco Lo Vuolo and Paula Shocron know the language of the standards and ...

Rediscovery

Don Byron: Tuskegee Experiments

by John Kelman
December 22, 2014

For this column I step away from my avoidance of personalization because its roots and intent are, indeed, very, very personal. The germination of this column began as the result of two coinciding events. First, after months of relative inactivity due to a health matter that, while thankfully non-life threatening and treatable, could take several more months to get me back to my usual breakneck speed and has slowed my writing to a crawl, I began to feel ...

Album Review

Alex García’s AfroMantra: This Side of Mestizaje

Read "This Side of Mestizaje" reviewed by Roger Farbey

by Roger Farbey
December 22, 2014

From the word go, this tight band shows its mettle with upbeat lyricism as evidenced in the opener “Believe." A Chick Corea Return to Forever era influence is apparent with “11:11 Spirit," Fender Rhodes to the fore. The title track clearly displays what a drum-led group sounds like, Alex Garcia's intelligent and incisive percussion beating a path for the others to follow. The irresistible theme of “Azul Infinito" burns into the memory banks just as ...

Film Review

Vijay Iyer/Prashant Bhargava: Radhe Radhe, Rites of Holi

by Ian Patterson
December 22, 2014

Vijay Iyer/Prashant Bhargava Radhe Radhe: Rites of Holi ECM 2014 Radhe Radhe: Rites of Holi is a sumptuous visual and sonic collaboration between Vijay Iyer and film maker Prashant Bhargava. It was commissioned by Emil Kang, Executive Director of the Carolina Performing Arts as part of a wider series of works to celebrate the centenary of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring (1913), which in its day, with its avant-garde orchestration, ballet and ...

Album Review

Per Zanussi 5: Live in Coimbra

Read "Live in Coimbra" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
December 22, 2014

Here, Norwegian master bassist Per Zanussi is the leader and director of operations. Recorded live at a Portuguese jazz festival, the three-man reed section weaves mega contrasts and disparate tonalities into the mix with subtle or pronounced variances, contrapuntal phrasings, and sweltering, rough-hewn ostinatos. They embrace Middle Eastern modalities, free bop, funk and other genres via tempestuous solo spots, tuneful choruses and powerful exchanges, equating to a kaleidoscopic exhibition. On the final track “All Wrath," the band dishes ...

Album Review

Jean-Luc Petit: Matière des Souffles

Read "Matière des Souffles" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
December 22, 2014

French reed player Jean-Luc Petit mastered his art through extensive, mostly free improvised, solo work with actor and poet Daniel Crumb (including the staging of Charles Bukowski poems) and various duets with double bassist Benjamin Duboc, percussionist Didier Lasserre and sax players Daunik Lazro and Sylvain Guérineau among many other forward-thinking local improvisers. Petit's five solo improvisations may be considered as reed abstractions of Duboc's masterful improvisations on double bass. The latter three pieces were recorded ...

Album Review

Marco Sanguinetti: 8

by Karl Ackermann
December 22, 2014

Argentine pianist and composer Marco Sanguinetti had established a solid and unique style with his solo effort Improvisiones (MDR, 2005). His penchant for emphasizing percussive effects and recurring variations of phrases are elements that he has consistently employed in his recordings. With El otro (Acqua, 2011) he placed a stronger prominence on lyricism while maintaining a high-density attack. Taking his skills to a new level is what 8 is about and Sanguinetti raises the bar adding stratums of texture, multiple ...

Album Review

Olivia Trummer: Fly Now

Read "Fly Now" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
December 21, 2014

Singer or pianist? Actually, both hats fit Stuttgart-born Olivia Trummer pretty snugly, as evidenced by her splendid opening slot for Charles Lloyd in Dublin's National Concert Hall in November--alongside bassist David Redmond and drummer Kevin Brady--and her subsequent sell-out show at the EFG London Jazz Festival. Trummer possess a soulful voice of pristine quality and displays a feathery, understated lyricism on the keys; both assets are finely tuned and beautifully balanced on this, her fifth recording as leader.

Album Review

Engines Orchestra + Phil Meadows Group: Lifecycles

Read "Lifecycles" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
December 21, 2014

Jazz musicians live in straightened financial times, or so they would have us believe. So how does Phil Meadows, a young composer and saxophonist from the UK, manage to pull together the wads of cash required to write and record a set of ambitious compositions for jazz group and orchestra in a project that involves 26 musicians? Neither bank robbery or international cyber fraud were necessary, thanks to the support of Help Musicians UK, Arts Council England and the Whittingham ...

Live Review

Music Unlimited Festival 2014

by Eyal Hareuveni
December 21, 2014

Music Unlimited Festival Wels, Austria November 7-9, 2014 Nothing about the appearance of the town Wels, in western Austria, suggests that this sleepy old commune located in the middle of a vast agricultural area is a Mecca for adventurous music aficionados. Every year, hundreds of people habitually gather from all over Europe to visit Wels' annual Unlimited music festival. This cosmopolitan tribe of like- minded people don't care much about conventional definitions of ...