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.

Catching Up With

Marty and Brent: The Napoleon Duo Affair

by Nicholas F. Mondello
November 30, 2014

Pianist Marty Napoleon, now a spry 93, is a walking history of 20th Century jazz. He's been a Louis Armstrong All-Star and has performed worldwide with all the greats of jazz. Recently, Marty's grandson, Brent Napoleon has brought to the jazz world a series of Marty Napoleon recordings collected as Try This!. The effort is anticipated to be the first of a series of projects about this legendary performer and his musical family. All About Jazz: Marty ...

Album Review

Mike McKoy: Ludwig Manhattan’s Germaican Blues

Read "Ludwig Manhattan’s Germaican Blues" reviewed by Marta Ramon

by Marta Ramon
November 30, 2014

This is not a conventional jazz album because this is not just a jazz album. Ludwig Manhattan's Germaican Blues melds together the blues feeling with literature and a strong social philosophical idea: “Could you bloom, wherever you'd been planted?" Apparently, this audio-book experiment has been inspired by Mary Flannery O'Connor's writing The Life You Save May Be Your Own (Harcourt, 1955), a motivating premise that has guided his author to start a personal intimate trip to find himself through music. ...

Album Review

Sebastian Gramss: Thinking of…

Read "Thinking of…" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
November 30, 2014

The late Italian double bass master Stefano Scodanibbio, who died untimely in 2012 after a battle with the ALS disease, was a unique artist. A musician who expanded significantly the vocabulary of the double bass, exploring its almost infinite timbral range, and inventor of many extended and experimental techniques. He was also a unique composer and interpreter of of 20th century ground-breaking compositions by such composers as John Cage, Giacinto Scelsi and Iannis Xenakis and a role model for forward-thinking ...

Live Review

Buddy Guy with Matt Andersen at The Space at Westbury

by Mike Perciaccante
November 29, 2014

Buddy Guy with Matt Andersen The Space at Westbury Westbury, NY November 18, 2014Buddy Guy is a national treasure. The blues titan is one of the last remaining links to the Chess Brothers, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, John Lee Hooker, Guitar Slim, Little Walter and Willie Dixon. Whether it is the Chicago blues (of his adopted hometown) or the down home blues of the Delta (where he grew up in Louisiana), Guy ...

Album Review

Mike Downes: In the Current

Read "In the Current" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
November 29, 2014

In the Current, the fifth recording as leader by Canadian bassist Mike Downes--who doubles as composer / arranger--is the second (in a row) with an aqueous theme and the first performed by his “little big band," the Parallel Streams Ensemble. Downes' album Ripple Effect, recorded with his trio and special guest guitarist Ted Quinlan, earned a 2014 Juno Award as Canada's Best Traditional Jazz Album of the Year. The centerpiece of Downes' latest enterprise is the In ...

Album Review

Brenda Hopkins Miranda: Aeropiano

Read "Aeropiano" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
November 29, 2014

The aphorism that art imitates life is appropriate in describing pianist Brenda Hopkins Miranda. A consummate traveler and beneficiary of a bilingual and bicultural environment, her sense of purpose is to genuinely exploit the piano as a personal extension to convey melodious concepts with deft imagery and drama. Aeropiano is a passage through myriad influences and experiences leading to destinations both real and imagined, where the key is to listen. The title track is introduced by bomba drums ...

Album Review

Daryl McKenzie Jazz Orchestra: Return Journey

Read "Return Journey" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
November 29, 2014

Return Journey, the fourth recording --and first in four years --by Daryl McKenzie's splendid Jazz Orchestra from Melbourne, Australia, was inspired in part by McKenzie's visit to the States in 2012 wherein he renewed ties with many of his onetime musical mates and colleagues and briefly returned “home" to the University of North Texas in Denton. One thing that sets the album apart from most other big-band enterprises is the fact that it is comprised entirely of bonzer original compositions ...

Bailey's Bundles

Holiday 2014: Three Messiahs

by C. Michael Bailey
November 29, 2014

As surely as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, each October and November brings new editions to the Georg Frederic Handel Messiah catalog. This year is no exception with two fine period performances and one period performance from 2012 that was somehow previously missed and reissued in an abbreviated form. There is more information about Handel's masterpiece found in the previous articles: George Frederic Handel and His Messiah: The Perfect Holiday Collection and Christmas I ...

Bailey's Bundles

Holiday 2014: A Cantus Christmas

by C. Michael Bailey
November 29, 2014

Elbowing their way into the male chorus arena from none other than the land of the Norwegian Bachelor Farmers—Minnesota—the nine-voice Cantus squarely challenges San Francisco's Chanticleer for the prize of best traditional Christmas choral release. A frequent performer and favorite of A Prairie Home Companion, Cantus has carved out their rightful place among choral groups. Considered here are the group's two finest Christmas offerings. Cantus All is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914 ...

Album Review

Various Artists: It's Christmas On Mack Avenue

Read "It's Christmas On Mack Avenue" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
November 29, 2014

The Detroit-based Mack Avenue imprint has built quite an artist roster over the past fifteen years, so why not boast about it and toast the holidays in the process? It's Christmas On Mack Avenue does just that, turning a spotlight on label mainstays, fairly new signings, heavy hitters, and rapidly ascending stars. It also makes it clear that Christmas is far more interesting on Mack Avenue than it is on Any Street, U.S.A. The album opens on ...