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

Vance Thompson's Five Plus Six: Such Sweet Thunder

Read "Such Sweet Thunder" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
December 18, 2014

For the mathematically challenged, Vance Thompson's Five Plus Six equals eleven. In other words, it's Thompson's working quintet, the Marble City Five, amplified by half a dozen horns. On its debut recording, the Knoxville, TN-based ensemble performs music by Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, Thelonious Monk and--brace yourself--country singer Dolly Parton. In fact, Parton's “Little Sparrow," the album's longest-playing track at 10:21, lends itself surprisingly well to the jazz idiom, thanks in part to Thompson's engaging chart, as does the Appalachian ...

Album Review

Rob Mazurek and Black Cube SP: Return the Tides: Ascension Suite and Holy Ghost

Read "Return the Tides: Ascension Suite and Holy Ghost" reviewed by Troy Collins

by Troy Collins
December 18, 2014

Return the Tides is a heart-felt tribute to Rob Mazurek's mother, Kathleen Mazurek, who died on May 4, 2013, just days after receiving a diagnosis of late stage cancer. Her sudden and unexpected passing motivated Mazurek to honor her generous spirit through music that would, in his words, “clear a path for my mother into the unknown to ensure her safe journey to the next." Although currently based in Chicago, Mazurek returned to Brazil, where he lived from ...

Extended Analysis

Arthur Barron, David Liebman, Abel Pabon: The Miami Jazz Project

by Victor L. Schermer
December 18, 2014

Always on the lookout for outstanding players to join him, NEA Jazz Master saxophonist, flautist, and composer David Liebman finds in the The Miami Jazz Project a simpatico group of musicians to echo and recapitulate his interest in the post- Coltrane concatenation of fusion and world music where his career first took off in the 1970s. Liebman is the obvious inspiration for this album, which is spearheaded by one of his long-time saxophone colleagues, Arthur Baron, and features a rhythm ...

Album Review

InterStatic: Arise

by Glenn Astarita
December 18, 2014

UK-reared keyboardist Roy Powell (Mumpbeak, Naked Truth)has called Norway home for several years while serving as a prime motivator for this futuristic UK-based, record label via sideman duties, and co-leading groups such as Interstatic. The band pushes the envelope yet again on this psycho, acid-rock slant on the jazz organ trio format. Nonetheless, the trio ups the ante a bit on its third album, featuring ECM Records recording artist Jacob Young and notable session drummer Jarle Vespestad. A little genre-busting ...

The Vinyl Post

Bill Evans: The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings, 1961

by C. Andrew Hovan
December 18, 2014

Those of us who are diehard jazz collectors often loathe answering questions from neophytes as to a good starting place for building a jazz collection. Nonetheless, a short go-to list would probably include the iconic live sessions of Bill Evans and his trio captured on tape by Riverside Records back in June of 1961. For sheer improvisational genius and telepathic group interplay, these recordings can't be beat. Furthermore, the sonic magic that teleports you to your own personal table at ...

Album Review

Chad Eby Quartet: The Sweet Shel Suite

Read "The Sweet Shel Suite" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
December 18, 2014

Reading poet Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree once again as an adult, it is improbable that one would take away the same message as you did reading the book as a child. The boy in the story grows up playing in the branches of the tree and eating its fruit, eventually cutting the trunk for wood. In the end, the giving tree has nothing left to give, except for a stump to sit on. Is the book about unselfish friendship, ...

Year in Review

Troy Collins' Best Releases of 2014

by Troy Collins
December 17, 2014

Considering the quantity of recordings released in a year's time, attempting to compile an end of the year list mentioning every first-rate session would be difficult at best. The ten titles included below are among the most exceptional new jazz albums I've heard in 2014. Kyle Bruckmann's Wrack ...Awaits Silent Tristero's Empire (Singlespeed Music) Oboist Kyle Bruckmann based this pan-stylistic “musical phantasmagoria" on Thomas Pynchon's early novels, juxtaposing genres with a mercurial glee ...

Album Review

Harvey Wainapel: Amigos Brasileiros Vol 2

Read "Amigos Brasileiros Vol 2" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki

by Chris M. Slawecki
December 17, 2014

The beautiful, gentle musical spirit of the late Thiago de Mello--a most influential composer, instrumentalist, arranger and producer from the Amazon (and leader of the Brazilian large ensemble Amazon)--floats like a friendly ghost throughout Amigos Brasileiros Vol. 2. Harvey Wainapel boasts serious jazz chops, on clarinet and saxophone; and serious jazz credentials, including work with saxophonists Joe Henderson and Joe Lovano, vibes master Gary Burton and pianists McCoy Tyner, Ray Charles and Kenny Barron (whom Wainapel honored with ...

Album Review

konstruKt and Joe McPhee: Babylon: The First Meeting of Istanbul

Read "Babylon: The First Meeting of Istanbul" reviewed by Dave Wayne

by Dave Wayne
December 17, 2014

Taken at face value, konstruKt's catchphrase, “Free Jazz from Turkey," seems a tad pedestrian. But, if one considers Turkey's place in the world-literally the crossing point between Asia and Europe-its crazy-quilt ethnic diversity, and its continued religious and political unrest, it's a fitting metaphor. Oddly, most of the band's recorded output features invited guest artists from the US and Europe. In addition to multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee, featured here, konstruKt has collaborated with Evan Parker, Marshall Allen, Peter Brotzmann and Eugene ...

Album Review

Tomás Doncker Band: Big Apple Blues

Read "Big Apple Blues" reviewed by Paul Naser

by Paul Naser
December 17, 2014

Close on the heels of his first full-length album, a tribute to Howlin' Wolf, guitarist Tomàs Doncker released his second collaboration with Pulitzer prize winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa, Big Apple Blues (True Groove 2014), on October 21. Their first collaboration, The Mercy Suite (Future Roots Music 2009), featured the likes of Meshell N'degeocello among others. Their latest effort features original music by Doncker and his band as well as an interesting blend of lighthearted bluesy tunes alongside more thought-provoking cuts ...