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

Michael Mantler: The Jazz Composer’s Orchestra Update

Read "The Jazz Composer’s Orchestra Update" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
November 13, 2014

Trumpeter Michael Mantler has been a fixture on the US music scene for so long that it's easy to forget the global nature of his career. Born in Vienna, Austria, he came to the US in the early 1960s working with Cecil Taylor and co-founding the Jazz Composers' Orchestra Association (JCOA). The resulting JCOA self-titled album (JCOA/ECM, 1968) is historic in its scope of content and musicianship including Mantler's then-wife, pianist Carla Bley, and some of the finest work in ...

Album Review

Brian Lynch and Emmet Cohen: Questioned Answer

Read "Questioned Answer" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
November 12, 2014

Four highly regarded musicians from three different age groups come together for a two-leader session resulting in one terrific album. That's Questioned Answer by the numbers, but there's a lot more to the story than basic numerics. The partnership between veteran trumpeter Brian Lynch and rising star pianist Emmet Cohen was born out of serendipity and mutual appreciation. Lynch first heard Cohen when they were both working the 2011 Jazz Cruise--the former as a featured soloist and ...

Book Review

Jazz Child: A Portrait of Sheila Jordan

by Ian Patterson
November 12, 2014

Jazz Child: A Portrait of Sheila Jordan Ellen Johnson 234 pages ISBN: 978-0-8108-8836-4 Rowman & Littlefield 2014 That Ellen Johnson's revealing portrait of Sheila Jordan is the first full biography of the eighty five-year old Pennsylvanian-born singer reaffirms the notion that the dominant jazz narrative has always lionized certain artists to the exclusion of others. As the progenitor of the bass and vocal duo Jordan was an innovative figure from ...

Album Review

Mike Dillon: Band of Outsiders

Read "Band of Outsiders" reviewed by Dave Wayne

by Dave Wayne
November 12, 2014

There are so many different ways to rebel in life, and Mike Dillon has done them all. Or so it seems, if the music on Band of Outsiders is any indication. Dillon is that rare musician who can take tropes from any number of disparate musical worlds-metal and Brazilian samba school for example-mash them together and create something truly fresh and new. He's a first rate drummer and an equally fine mallet percussionist. Here, he's mostly rocking the electric vibes ...

Album Review

Kali. Z. Fasteau: Piano Rapture

Read "Piano Rapture" reviewed by John Ephland

by John Ephland
November 12, 2014

What makes Piano Rapture so engaging has to do with a combination of moods, movements and magic. Pianist Kali Z. Fasteau takes you on a musical journey into both past and present, with sounds that can be lyrical and rambunctious, quiet and rowdy. Featuring some exquisite wailing and sailing from tenor saxophonist Kidd Jordan, with healthy doses also coming from two other reed players--Lee Mixashawn Rozie on soprano and tenor along with a little flute here and there and some ...

One LP

Sheila Jordan: Charlie Parker, Now's The Time

by William Ellis
November 12, 2014

Sheila Jordan: At home, New York City, 11th February 2014 “This is the first jazz recording I ever heard, it's not even bebop! It's a rebopper! Charlie Parker's Reboppers. “There's a whole story behind this record. Charlie Parker alto, Miles Davis, trumpet, Curley Russell, bass and who's on piano? Hen Gates: that was Dizzy [Gillespie]—he couldn't give his real name—and Max Roach on drums. So on the other side is “Billie's Bounce"—same personnel.

Album Review

Blood, Sweat, Drum + Bass with Palle Mikkelborg & David Liebman: In the Spirit of...

Read "In the Spirit of..." reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard

by Jakob Baekgaard
November 12, 2014

It is not long ago that a lush six-CD box set called A Good Time Was Had By All (Storyville, 2014) was released to celebrate the 50th birthday of The Danish Radio Big Band. The Danish Radio Big Band is indeed an institution in Danish jazz and so much so that it sometimes overshadows two of the other excellent big bands in the country: Aarhus Jazz Orchestra and Blood Sweat Drum + Bass Big Band. The latter has its own ...

Interview

Sheila Jordan: Now's The Time

by Ian Patterson
November 12, 2014

Sheila Jordan, one of the last great jazz vocalists from the bebop era turns eighty six on 18 November. Happy Birthday Sheila! There's much to celebrate. The Pennsylvanian-born singer's remarkable life story has just been published--the first complete biography to cover Jordan's life and career in detail. Written by Ellen Johnson over seven years, Jazz Child: A Portrait of Sheila Jordan (Rowman & Littlefield, 2014) relates Jordan's life from her upbringing in real poverty and her first steps as a ...

Album Review

Morten Schantz: Unicorn

Read "Unicorn" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
November 11, 2014

Danish pianist/composer Morten Schantz is probably best known as one fifth of JazzKamikaze, the globe-trotting band he formed in 2005 with Marius Neset, Kristor Brødsgaard, Daniel Heløy Davidsen and Anton Eger. That may be about to change, as the solo album Unicorn marks a significant wind change in Schantz's trajectory. Inspired writing and scintillating collective playing are the cornerstones, with Schantz' quartet augmented by Morroccon traditional musicians and choir. It's an intoxicating concoction that marks a high point in the ...

Book Review

Uncompromising Expression: 75 Years of the Finest in Jazz

by C. Andrew Hovan
November 11, 2014

Uncompromising Expression:75 Years of the Finest in Jazz Richard Havers 400 pages ISBN: # 978-1-4521-4144-2 Chronicle Books 2014 It's probably still a bit of an understatement to suggest that Blue Note Records has become one of the most iconic labels associated with recorded jazz. Now in its 75th year, the label has undergone radical changes over the course of its history, not the least of which has been the recent appointment of Don ...