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

Madeleine Peyroux: Keep Me In Your Heart For A While: The Best Of Madeleine Peyroux

Read "Keep Me In Your Heart For A While: The Best Of Madeleine Peyroux" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
October 13, 2014

Vocalist and composer Madeleine Peyroux has a stylistic reach well beyond that of jazz. Her only peer in this respect is Nora Jones. True, she has a great fascination with Billie Holiday, but she has managed to assimilate this influence into her own presence and parlay it into the para-jazz realm with intelligent programming and song choice. These have been the hallmark of Peyroux's art over her six recordings. Peyroux's music is beautifully crafted and organic with ...

Album Review

Matadors: Matadorials

Read "Matadorials" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki

by Chris M. Slawecki
October 13, 2014

The acoustic jazz Matadors came together while its three members--multi-woodwind player Michael Sachs from Los Angeles, bassist Aaron Darrell from Virginia and drummer Jun Young Song from Seoul (Korea)--were simultaneously pursuing undergraduate studies through Berklee College of Music scholarships. Their progressive jazz debut marks the first release on Berklee's independent record label birnCORE, was recorded live in the Berklee Internet Radio Network live room, and was produced by George Massenburg (whose decades of experience as an engineer, mixer, remixer and ...

Album Review

Mississippi Heat: Warning Shot

Read "Warning Shot" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
October 13, 2014

My father, born in 1915 and having seen and heard such, would call Warning Shot “Roadhouse Music." More technically, this is “jump blues" employing a larger-than-average band with an unidentified horn section on a majority of the 16 selections, the longest clocking in at 5:36 and the shortest at 3:00. This is an old-fashioned recording of 45 rpm singles ready of radio play, the majority of which would play well on what remains of independently-programmed radio. Mississippi ...

Live Review

Kurt Elling's Passion World at Jazz at the Kimmel

by Victor L. Schermer
October 12, 2014

Kurt Elling: “Passion World" Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts Perelman Theater Philadelphia, PA October 5, 2014 Kurt Elling has repeatedly proved his mettle as a vocalist, accumulating so many Downbeat awards and Grammy nominations that it seems superfluous to once again critique any of his performances. One can only say, “Ditto, he's done it again." But, because he keeps developing his scope, it's always worth taking a new ...

Album Review

Mulatu Astatke: Sketches of Ethiopia

Read "Sketches of Ethiopia" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
October 12, 2014

Vibraphonist/composer Mulatu Astatke is the creator of Ethio-jazz and reputedly the first African musician to study at Berklee. Prior to that he had studied music in Wales and London. Whilst in America in the 1960s and early 1970s Astatke absorbed diverse influences and a dense rhythmic mosaic is a key component of this pulsating recording. Afro-Latin, jazz and funk vibes meet traditional Ethiopian roots music, with Astatke leading a stellar band of musicians from Ethiopia, London and Paris.

Album Review

Paragon: Cerca

by Phil Barnes
October 12, 2014

The art of conversation is surely dying. Too many people prepared to shout out the first thought that comes into their empty head, or repeat some banal corporate half-truth intended to drown out dissenting views. Self-importance, simple bad manners and selfishness rule the world with little space to reflect on or listen to what others have to say. In jazz though things can be different--take Anglo-German collaboration Paragon for example -they describe their music as ..."the sound of four people ...

Live Review

Carl Bartlett, Jr. First Set at the Kitano: Jazz At Kitano

by Mike Perciaccante
October 12, 2014

Carl Bartlett, Jr. Jazz At Kitano New York, NY September 25, 2014 Alto saxophonist Carl Bartlett, Jr.'s musical bloodlines run deep. The son of Carl Bartlett, Sr. and nephew of Charles Bartlett (who formed an R&B show and dance band “The Bartlett Contemporaries"), Carl, Jr. has the pedigree. He also has the chops. Bartlett attended the Manhattan School of Music. In his short career he has graced the stage with ...

Live Review

Los Lobos at The Flynn Center for The Performing Arts

by Doug Collette
October 12, 2014

Los Lobos The Flynn Center for the Performing Arts Burlington VT October 1, 2014 Los Lobos are celebrating four decades together by returning to their acoustic roots on tour in support of their live release of late last year, Disconnected in New York (Shout Factory, 2013). And the band certainly celebrated on their return to Burlington after a five year absence, offering an progressively loose and raucous performance that nevertheless never lost its decidedly intimate ...

Album Review

The Hollywood Tuba 12: 'Tis the Season TUBA Jolly!

Read "'Tis the Season TUBA Jolly!" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
October 12, 2014

As would be anticipated, there's a lot of huffin' and puffin'--as well as a surprisingly wide range of color and modulation--on 'Tis the Season TUBA Jolly!, a delightful holiday album by tuba maestro Jim Self and the Hollywood Tuba 12. Its name notwithstanding, there aren't a dozen tubas present on any given track but a mere half- dozen, complemented by six of their close kinsmen, the euphonium, with percussionist Brian Kilgore and drummer Bernie Dresel raising the group's total size ...

Album Review

Larry Goldings, THE TRIO: Larry Goldings-Peter Bernstein-Bill Stewart: Ramshackle Serenade

Read "Ramshackle Serenade" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki

by Chris M. Slawecki
October 12, 2014

Like just about every historically great organ trio, these three expert musicians are strongly rooted in funk and jazz: Organ player Larry Goldings and drummer Bill Stewart both spent time smoking riffs for saxophonist Maceo Parker and guitarist {{John Scofield (not at the same time), while no less an authority than Jim Hall once called Peter Bernstein the most impressive jazz guitarist he'd ever heard. These shared roots especially grow through this set's “Mr. Meagles," through which Goldings and Bernstein ...