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

Kendall Moore: Focus

by Edward Blanco
December 8, 2014

Chicago native Kendall Moore is a trombonist and composer currently pursuing a Doctorate degree in Jazz Performance from the University of Miami and has been part of South Florida's vibrant jazz scene for some time. Forging a career that has enabled him to perform with such icons as Dave Brubeck, McCoy Tyner, Ahmad Jamal, Jimmy Heath and others, Moore now presents his debut album as leader with stunning Focus, a project of contemporary, straight ahead jazz offering a sensational selection ...

Film Review

Whiplash

by Tyran Grillo
December 8, 2014

Whiplash Directed by Damien Chazelle Sony Pictures Classics 2014 Whiplash is director Damien Chazelle's portrait of an aspiring jazz drummer who falls prey to an overbearing conservatory teacher. Although the film has attracted well-earned praise for its acting and editing, this review sets technical flourish aside and approaches Whiplash not as a film, per se, but as a failed musical exercise--a didactic riff, if you will, on the power of “greatness" and the suffering born ...

Live Review

Jazztopad 2014

by Henning Bolte
December 8, 2014

Jazztopad 2014 Wroclaw November 19-22, 2014 The city of Wroclaw by the Odra river in the southwest of Poland has occupied a pre-eminent position throughout its long turbulent history, and it still does. The Wroclaw way Wroclaw's Jazztopad festival is a relatively young one. This applies to the number of editions up to now, which is 11. It applies to its artistic director, Piotr Turkiewicz, and it applies to the age of ...

Bailey's Bundles

Holiday 2014: Nearly Christmas

by C. Michael Bailey
December 8, 2014

Where is your sense of humor? No, not one of these discs could practically be called “Holiday" or “Christmas" music. Para-Christmas music, maybe, but not the bona fide real deal. I just exercise my critical prerogative to call these closely related releases okay for review as holiday releases, mostly because of their Christian emphases and sacred context. No matter, they are worth an gander and a listen this season. Dunedin Consort; Ben Parry, Director In ...

Live Review

The Brian Setzer Orchestra Christmas Rocks! Extravaganza with the Record Company at the NYCB Theatre at Westbury

by Mike Perciaccante
December 7, 2014

The Brian Setzer Orchestra Christmas Rocks! Extravaganza with the Record Company NYCB Theatre at Westbury Westbury, NY November 25, 2014 Brian Setzer must really love Christmastime. The rockabilly guitarslinger has been bringing his annual Holiday Spectacular to the NYCB Theatre at Westbury for a number of years. This show as with all of his Christmas Rocks! performances with his orchestra was an extremely high-energy offering that featured not just holiday classics, but Stray Cats materials ...

Extended Analysis

U2: Songs of Innocence Deluxe Edition

by Doug Collette
December 7, 2014

Given the controversy that arose around the unilateral download of U2's Songs of Innocence, it's either brave, foolish or greedy to see the issue of the album in various physical forms in such short order. Yet the group confounds even further in the way they can, when playing and singing, leave behind the posing, pomposity and lethal careerism. Thus, the prospect of unreleased material and alternate takes of tracks from the original list can't help but pique the curiosity.

Album Review

Gavin Templeton Trio: Some Spinning, Some At Rest

Read "Some Spinning, Some At Rest" reviewed by Robert Bush

by Robert Bush
December 7, 2014

LA alto saxophonist Gavin Templeton's sophomore release as a leader, Some Spinning, Some At Rest represents the values of composition and free-improvising with equal fervor and expertise, and alongside double-bassist Richard Giddens and drummer Gene Coye, Mr. Templeton has documented one of the finest saxophone trio recordings in recent memory. Templeton's soulful, yearning vibrato opens “Exit Row," teasing a raw, primal groove from Giddens' groaning pizzicato and the fulsome architecture of Coye's sticks-on-skins. These two mesh ...

Extended Analysis

Garcia Live Volume Five: Keystone Berkeley December 31, 1975

by Doug Collette
December 7, 2014

Garcia Live Volume Five begins appropriately and propitiously enough as the band slowly, inexorably coalesces around the changes of chuck Berry's “Let It Rock," weaving an insinuating rhythm and melody mix that becomes proportionately more dramatic as the leader of the band begins to sing, seeming off-mike (or perhaps he's just not turned up?), at which point the quartet drops confidently into the pocket of the groove they've only suggested to that point. John Kahn's bass pops and pulses emphatically ...

Album Review

Ginger Baker: Why?

Read "Why?" reviewed by Phillip Woolever

by Phillip Woolever
December 7, 2014

The most pleasant surprises on Ginger Baker's first mainstream release in almost a decade are subtle. That term may not be generally applied to the 74 year-old bohemian beat master, but restraint has been an unheralded constant in Baker's wide-ranging career nonetheless. The relatively conservative approach goes against Baker's ongoing typecasting as a crazed rock drummer, an image vividly enhanced by the destructive anger and degradation portrayed in his recent autobiography Hellraiser, and the documentary Beware of Mr. ...

Album Review

George Hoar: Soul Sojourn

Read "Soul Sojourn" reviewed by Mark Sullivan

by Mark Sullivan
December 7, 2014

Bassist/pianist George Hoar has had extensive training and playing experience in jazz with Rufus Reid, Dave Samuels, Harold Mabern, Harvie S and Art Resnick. But his stylistic influences also include world music and Western concert music from the Renaissance and the Baroque, which are very much in evidence here. Hoar leads off the program on piano, with the solo Prelude to the title tune. “Soul Sojourn" itself features violinist Mark Feldman (in one of his two featured tracks), and also ...