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

Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique: Live at Cadogan Hall: Beethoven – Symphonies 2 & 8

Read "Live at Cadogan Hall: Beethoven – Symphonies 2 & 8" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
November 2, 2014

The 2012 release of Live at Carnegie Hall: Beethoven Symphonies 7 & 5 (Soli Deo Gloria) was a tease. John Eliot Gardiner and his Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique appeared set to reprise his 1990s survey of the Beethoven symphonies. These performances were scintillating, every bit as fine as Carlos Kleiber's 1975 5th & 7th with the Vienna Philharmonic. This possible cycle was exciting because Gardiner had recently complete his famous Bach Cantata Pilgrimage and was ripe of a similar endeavor. ...

Album Review

George Taylor: Rain or Shine

Read "Rain or Shine" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
November 2, 2014

Observation One. George Taylor looks like the cross between a small-town pharmacist and a junior account. Observation Two. Taylor is touted as a blues musician who toured the Mississippi River Delta in search of that singular blues inspiration. It is funny that his resulting recording Rain or Shine should sound as if born of Jimmie Rodgers if he had been born and raised in the Delta Leland rather than the interior Meridian. I suspect that Taylor's experience recording the disc ...

Album Review

Chelsey Green and The Green Project: Green Room

Read "Green Room" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
November 2, 2014

Violinist and violist Chelsey Green's first full-length album as a leader Green Room is an ambitious but rather uneven project. Green whose playing style is a successful mélange of concert hall virtuosity, jazzy spontaneity and vibrant pop sensibilities, composed most of the music on the disc. And although the tunes have catchy melodies and memorable passages the heavy reliance on overproduced electrified backdrops often drowns out her lithe melodicism and takes away from the pure, simple beauty of her performance. ...

Live Review

Jimmy Eat World at The Space at Westbury

by Mike Perciaccante
November 2, 2014

Jimmy Eat World The Space at Westbury Westbury, NY October 20, 2014 The members of Jimmy Eat Word drink Gatorade and Poland Spring. At least on stage. The band's crew placed numerous bottles of both near each members station. It was good thing, too, because as the show unfolded, the band members (especially lead singer Jim Adkins who played and sang with such intensity that he was soaked in sweat from head ...

Album Review

Allman Brothers Band: Lockn’ Festival, Arlington, VA - September 7, 2014

Read "Lockn’ Festival, Arlington, VA - September 7, 2014" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
November 1, 2014

For the better part of the new millennium, the Allman Brothers Band has made available a majority of their live shows, first using Instant Live and then through Munckmusic. There are hundreds of shows available, so why select Allman Brothers Band--Lockn' Festival--Arlington, VA, September 7, 2014? The answer is manifold. First, guitarists Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks announced earlier this year that they would be leaving the band to focus on their own bands and solo careers. ...

Live Review

Dianne Reeves At The Belfast Festival 2014

by Ian Patterson
November 1, 2014

Dianne Reeves Belfast Festival Belfast, N. Ireland October 26, 2014 Dianne Reeves' first visit to Belfast coincided with her first album in five years. For some artists, say Bill Frisell, Pat Metheny or John Zorn, a gap of half a decade between releases would be spoken of in reverential terms as their “silent period," but for other artists, like Reeves, no such sense of mystery surrounds an artistic drought. After several decades recording and ...

Album Review

Ezra Weiss Sextet: Before You Know It [Live In Portland]

Read "Before You Know It [Live In Portland]" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
November 1, 2014

Portland State University professor Ezra Weiss is a prominent pianist and composer in his own right who has several recordings to his credit and is a three-time winner of the prestigious ASCAP Young Composer Award. A traditionalist who prefers the straight ahead and modern jazz styles, Weiss delivers another gem on Before You Know It [Live In Portland], his seventh album as leader with one important distinction: the session was recorded at the Ivories Jazz Lounge in Portland, Oregon, for ...

Jazz Near Me

Paul Jost: Breaking Through

by Gloria Krolak
November 1, 2014

One of the most endearing moments of jazz vocalist Paul Jost's new solo CD, Breaking Through, in an album of many such moments, is perhaps his chuckle and the “Oh, George," he lets out after a fresh rendition of “Singing in the Rain." Endearing because Jost connects with the listener by the sigh meant for and about his dear late friend, pianist and arranger, George Mesterhazy. Two small words communicate such a wealth of awe, gratitude, longing and bittersweet happiness. ...

Album Review

Luke Malewicz: Green Ruins

Read "Green Ruins" reviewed by Ben Scholz

by Ben Scholz
November 1, 2014

Within the creative music world at large, trombone-led projects tend to occupy a niche within a niche. By far the least common among the three typical “jazz" horn types, 'bone players are forced to contend with a mid to low range instrument that does not tune easily and is usually cast in a supporting role within the band. It comes as no surprise that the list of well known projects by jazz trombone soloists/leaders is short, at least in comparison ...

Album Review

Mountain Sprout: Long Time Comin’

Read "Long Time Comin’" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
November 1, 2014

Eureka Springs, Arkansas is an idyllic place located in Carroll County in the northwest corner of the state, sitting in the edge of the Ozark Mountains proper. It is an amazing island of hippie love and egalitarian acceptance stuck, like a sore toe in the middle of an evangelical and white supremacist desert where poisonous snakes are still handled in worship of the tooth fairy. That said, the area has its share of free spirits, the acoustic quintet Mountain Sprout, ...