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.

Book Review

A Half-Million Dollars: Biographies of Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis

by C. Michael Bailey
December 14, 2014

It was December 4, 1956. The famous black and white, now sepia photograph snapped that winter afternoon shows four young men, silhouetted against acoustic tile, making joyful noise. Three of the four were standing around the one at the piano, the one who would be king. When this photograph was taken, two of the men were 21-and the other two, 24-years old. Two were Baptists and two the chosen, Assembly of God, with both traditions shot deep in their individual ...

Book Review

On Highway 61: Music, Race and the Evolution of Cultural Freedom

by Doug Collette
December 14, 2014

On Highway 61: Music, Race and the Evolution of Cultural Freedom Dennis McNally 384 Pages ISBN: # 1619024497 Counterpoint 2014 Don't be intimidated by the subtitle of Dennis McNally's book. On Highway 61 is the antithesis of the dry drone of academia. On the contrary, while this is not exactly a breezy read, the author maintains a firmly conversational tone and a healthy detachment from his subject(s), utilizing the delivery of a writer ...

Live Review

Nicole Pesce Quartet at the Musical Instrument Museum

by Patricia Myers
December 14, 2014

Nicole Pesce QuartetMusical Instrument Museum Phoenix, Arizona November 16, 2014 The astounding ingenuity and amazing repertoire of pianist Nicole Pesce dazzled yet another audience at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix when she performed in solo, duo and quartet settings as part of the museum's “I Am AZ Music" series. Phoenix-born Pesce has been performing professionally for nearly 30 years, since the age of seven after classical training by her father, Nicholas Pesce ...

Album Review

Various Artists: Peru Bravo: Funk, Soul & Psych from Peru's Radical Decade

Read "Peru Bravo: Funk, Soul & Psych from Peru's Radical Decade" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki

by Chris M. Slawecki
December 14, 2014

The fifteen tracks on Peru Bravo: Funk, Soul & Psych from Peru's Radical Decade reflect the refractive impact of the global social upheaval of the 1960s and early '70s--including and especially the wild and wooly rock and psychedelic music of the era--on the popular music of Peru, with each track remastered and restored from original tape reels licensed from the original Peruvian labels. (This is the second such compilation of Peru's music from Tiger's Milk Records, following Peru Maravilloso: Vintage ...

Album Review

Angeli Drake: Deghe

by Bruce Lindsay
December 13, 2014

Sardinian guitarist Paolo Angeli and American percussionist Hamid Drake first performed together in the early 21st century, releasing debut album Uotha (Nubop) in 2005. The duo's second release, Deghe, was recorded live at the 2013 Festival Isole che Parlano in Sardinia. The players each have a long-established reputation in improvisation and free jazz--previous collaborations include Drake's work with Ken Vandermark and Angeli's with Fred Frith. Together on this beautifully-recorded album the two men interact with energy and imagination.

Album Review

George Michael: Symphonica

Read "Symphonica" reviewed by Tyran Grillo

by Tyran Grillo
December 13, 2014

The tireless controversy surrounding George Michael has been tempered by a consistent and intense fandom, which has sustained his creative drive through even the darkest hours. As with many great popular artists, Michael Jackson not least of all, it seems fame has also been a curse. Yet through it all, he has sustained an uncompromising integrity, possessed as he is of one of the most golden voices to ever hit #1. It was precisely this integrity that led to a ...

Album Review

Tohpati: Tribal Dance

Read "Tribal Dance" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
December 13, 2014

Nascent Indonesian guitarist, Tohpati strikes again with his third album and second trio date, greatly benefitting from the all- universe rhythm section of drummer Chad Wackerman and bassist Jimmy Haslip. Here, the artist coexists in that sacred space of high-octane power trios, assembled by progressive rock and jazz fusion guitar warlords, Joe Satriani, Greg Howe, Allan Holdsworth and other prominent ambassadors of this ilk. Tohpati's super clean licks and spicy Indo-Fusion treatments offset his crunchy chord voicings and ...

Extended Analysis

David Sylvian: There's a Light That Enters Houses With No Other House in Sight

by Phil Barnes
December 13, 2014

David Sylvian's extended flight from pop stardom in the middle years of the 1980s was an enthralling counterpoint to that decade's facile obsession with surface and relapse into materialism. While mainstream pop retreated from the innovations and musical openness of post-punk into the empty banalities of bean counting corporate rock, Sylvian among a few others appeared to plot a different idiosyncratic path routed in improvised music and jazz. Central to this were his often inspired choices of collaborators ...

Multiple Reviews

Rolling Stones From the Vault: L.A. Forum Live in 1975 & Hampton Coliseum Live in 1981

by Doug Collette
December 13, 2014

Given that their history spans more than five decades and multiple generations, it only stands to reason the Rolling Stones would have a veritable wealth of material in their archives on par with the vintage likes of Charlie Is My Darling (Abkco, 2012) and what's perhaps the next high-water mark of their career after that mid-Sixties apogee, the Exile on Main Street (Rolling Stones, 1972) era Ladies and Gentlemen the Rolling Stones (Eagle Vision, 2010). There may be more scintillating ...

Extended Analysis

Rory Gallagher: Irish Tour '74 Deluxe Edition

by Doug Collette
December 13, 2014

Of all the entries in the Rory Gallagher discography-and it's lengthy despite his premature passing in 1995 at the age of forty-seven-none deserve the expanded treatment more than Irish Tour '74, which is not doubt why it was originally documented on film as it happened by Tony Palmer. Not only did the title set the standard for the many subsequent live releases of Gallagher's career, the abbreviated tour reaffirmed the man's loyalty to his native country, a theme he would ...