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.

New York Beat

Spok Frevo Orquestra at Jazz at Lincoln Center

by Nick Catalano
October 30, 2014

Frevo--a feverish, exuberant dance music from the state of Pernambuco in northeastern Brazil--made its Big Apple debut last night (October 25th, 2014) at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Appel Theater. Virtually unknown in the U.S., it was originated by a composer known as Zuzinha as a street martial arts/ dance music and organized around carnival in cities like Recife in 1907, taking its name from the Portuguese verb “ferver"--to boil. It was presented by the Spok Frevo Orquestra--a group constructed along ...

Album Review

Alexander McCabe / Paul Odeh: This Is Not A Pipe

Read "This Is Not A Pipe" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
October 30, 2014

The title is, presumably, a nod to “Ceci, C'est Ne Pas Une Pipe," the phrase which Rene Magritte wrote on his famous painting La Trahison Des Images. The painting wasn't, of course, a pipe, just a painting of a pipe. This Is Not A Pipe isn't a pipe either--it isn't even a painting of a pipe. So what is it? Alto saxophonist Alexander McCabe and pianist Paul Odeh have the answer--it's a recording of eight tunes, three standards and five ...

Album Review

Makiko Hirabayashi: Surely

by Budd Kopman
October 30, 2014

Surely, the pianist Makiko Hirabayashi Trio's third album, is both utterly captivating and immediately enjoyable. It is also, however, rather disquieting to anyone who listens more deeply because this music flatly refuses to be pinned down. Here, the whole is much more than the sum of the parts, but the parts remain in paradoxical relation to each other. For sure, the question, “What is Jazz?" will not be answered by Surely. Hirabayashi's, and by extension, the Trio's, art ...

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Take Five With...

Take Five With Dr. Jack Cooper

by AAJ Staff
October 30, 2014

Meet Dr. Jack Cooper: Jack Cooper, has a wide range of experience as a performer, composer, and educator. His most recent CD recording of his compositions/arrangements, Mists: The Music of Charles Ives for Jazz Orchestra (Planet Arts Records, 2014) was released in August to critical acclaim in the Chicago Tribune and All About Jazz. His compositions and arrangements have been performed and/or recorded by the Dallas Wind Symphony, the Westchester Jazz Orchestra, the Woody Herman Orchestra, the ...

Live Review

Lulo Reinhardt Latin Swing Project At The Belfast Festival 2014

by Ian Patterson
October 30, 2014

Lulo Reinhardt Latin Swing Project Belfast Festival / Elmwood Hall Belfast October 24, 2014 What's in a name? Quite a lot if it happens to be Reinhardt. That surname still excites press and public alike more than sixty years after the death of guitarist Django Reinhardt. It also generates a high degree of expectation. The Belfast audience was primed for a show of breathtaking gypsy-jazz virtuosity from guitarist Lulo Reinhardt, great-nephew of Django. Doubtless ...

Album Review

Dylan Ryan / Sand: Circa

by Troy Collins
October 29, 2014

Sand is the latest project from forward-thinking drummer Dylan Ryan, leader and principal composer of Herculaneum, a progressive ensemble that skillfully negotiates the tenuous divide between avant-garde jazz and instrumental post-rock. This smaller lineup (featuring guitarist Timothy Young and bassist Devin Hoff) evinces a similar aesthetic, exploring the harmonic, melodic and rhythmic intricacies of creative improvised music at volume levels more akin to rock than traditional jazz.Compared to Sky Bleached (Cuneiform, 2013), the eclectic first meeting of these ...

Live Review

The 2014 Mulberry Mountain Harvest Music Festival

by C. Michael Bailey
October 29, 2014

The Mulberry Mountain Harvest Music Festival Ozark, Arkansas October 16-18, 2014 The Arkansas River Valley lies between the Ozark Mountains to the north and the Ouachita Mountains to the south. It generally parallels the Arkansas River (and US Interstate 40) for most of its length. The Valley reaches up to forty miles wide and sports geological features typical of both the Ozarks and the Ouachitas, features that include dissected plateaus like those of the Ozarks ...

Album Review

Emilio Solla Y La Inestable De Brooklyn: Second Half

Read "Second Half" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
October 29, 2014

What do you get when you blend a bit of Tango, Jazz, Latin and some chamber music? The answer? Pianist Emilio Solla y La Inestable de Brooklyn nine-piece orchestra delivering their Second Half album of World fusion music that is quite enticing. The album is the culmination of several years performing this particular ensemble in some of the best venues throughout New York City. For some time now, Solla has been an in-demand composer and arranging of music for large ...

Album Review

Sundae + Mr. Goessl: Cheek to Cheek

Read "Cheek to Cheek" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
October 29, 2014

Sundae is singer Kate Voss and Mr. Goessl is guitarist Jason Goessl. Both parties hail from Seattle, WA, where Mr. Goessl has his thumb in numerous musical pies, including Trimtab, The Pornados and the present Sundae + Mr. Goessl, just to name a few. Cheek to Cheek is touted as “a 1930s pop album," which it is, putting the Great American Songbook into perspective with the time it was assembled. Goessl, who can apparently play multiple styles ...

Album Review

Skyggespill: Morphing Between Spaces and Phases

Read "Morphing Between Spaces and Phases" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
October 29, 2014

Skyggespill (shadow play in Norwegian) is the moniker of Norwegian keyboards player, electronics and sound designer Kjetil Husebø for his first (and only) electronics recordings project. Husebø references local Norwegian and international sonic explorers like Biosphere (aka Geir Jenssen), Deathprod (aka Helge Sten, known from the acclaimed Supersilent outfit, who mastered this project), Christian Fennesz or Chris Watson and even modern composer György Ligeti as inspiring his own invented sounds. The four pieces of this project ...