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

Alexander McCabe / Paul Odeh: This Is Not A Pipe

Read "This Is Not A Pipe" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
October 8, 2014

Are we having fun yet? Saxophonist Alexander McCabe and pianist Paul Odeh are, on a rollicking duo outing, This Is Not A Pipe. The frequent collaborators delve into a loose-jointed, roll and tumble examination of some jazz standards and McCabe originals. The word “seamless" is an often used--some would say over-used--as a description of a recorded offering. This Is Not A Pipe is not that. It is about as Un-seamless as can be. It sounds as if two ...

Live Review

Hyde Park Jazz Festival 2014

by Mark Corroto
October 8, 2014

Hyde Park Jazz Festival Chicago, IL September 28-29, 2014The good folks at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival have a problem. Now in it's eight edition, the two day affair has attracted throngs of intelligent jazz listeners and too many 'must see' jazz acts. This year's festival held September 28-29 featured 40 performances divided between two Midway Plaisance outside stages and ten visually stunning buildings on the University of Chicago campus. Planning which bands to catch ...

Album Review

Simon Toldam Trio: Kig Op 14

Read "Kig Op 14" reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard

by Jakob Baekgaard
October 8, 2014

Music is a sensory art. Hands touching the keyboard, bass strings that are plucked and the rustling of cymbals. Sounds form patterns and familiar sounds become clichés and then the trouble starts. The immediacy of the first movement, that first touch is lost. In a sense, every musician battles this process that dulls the listener's senses and transforms new and exciting sounds into the echoes of yesterday. The trick is to change perspective to see and hear ...

Live Review

Live From Old York: Cate Le Bon, Hans Theessink, Chris Wood, Wizz Jones & Çiğdem Aslan

by Martin Longley
October 8, 2014

Cate Le Bon The Duchess September 17, 2014 Early arrivals received a bonus set from Cate Le Bon, as her selfsame quartet played under the moniker of H. Hawkline. This involved guitarist and keyboardist Huw taking the lead vocals, sticking to strings, with Le Bon playing lead parts on her own guitar. She was a distant figure, head down for the work at hand, hugging her amplifier and letting Hawkline stand in the ...

Album Review

Rodrigo Amado's Motion Trio + Peter Evans: The Freedom Principle

Read "The Freedom Principle" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
October 8, 2014

Saxophonist Rodrigo Amado requires a proper foil to his music making. Not so much a player who is his converse, but more like a complementary player. One who completes or enhances his sound. In trumpeter Peter Evans, he has found his homogeneous antithesis. Heard on two recent recordings, the LP-only release Live In Lisbon> (No Business, 2014) and this studio date, The Freedom Principle, Amado's sound has never sounded better.Such has been the prescription for most of Evans' ...

Bailey's Bundles

Donna Deussen: High Wire and On the Street Where You Live

by C. Michael Bailey
October 8, 2014

More telling than her Berklee College of Music magna cum laude degree is singer Donna Deussen's private instruction under Tierney Sutton. Sutton is second only to Cassandra Wilson when considering the seismic styleistic shifts in jazz vocals over the past 20 years. Deussen integrates her instruction intelligently, avoiding imitation. Her lessons learned are made her own. Duessen has released two recordings, about ten years apart. Side-by-side, They offer a staccato look at the singer's evolution. In a ...

Live Review

New Riders of the Purple Sage at The Rusty Nail

by Doug Collette
October 8, 2014

New Riders of the Purple Sate The Rusty Nail Stowe, Vermont September 18, 2014 In the seventh year of the modern revival, the New Riders of the Purple Sage returned to Vermont--where they've been before titular leader David Nelson knowingly observed--to play at Stowe's revitalized Rusty Nail. The current quintet, all of whom have their respective cache in the legacy of the band and its community, played a potent two sets, the first of which ...

Album Review

Gerry Gibbs Thrasher Dream Trio: We're Back

Read "We're Back" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
October 7, 2014

We're Back --a brief title that offers a tantalizing preview: an encore by drummer Gerry Gibbs and his all-star Thrasher Dream Trio (Ron Carter, bass; Kenny Barron, piano). This second time around, however, there are special guests--vibraphonist Warren Wolf, organist Larry Goldings, saxophonist Steve Wilson--and a menu that consists almost entirely of classic R&B and soul tunes from the 1960s and '70s. If you've been wondering how, say, Stevie Wonder's pop music would adapt to a contemporary ...

Live Review

Henry Threadgill: Very Very Threadgill 2014

by Kurt Gottschalk
October 7, 2014

Henry Threadgill Harlem Stage Gate House Very Very Threadgill New York, NY September 27-28, 2014 Henry Threadgill isn't one to repeat himself. In nearly 40 years of recording, he's only repeated a few compositions. So why would a retrospective of his work by a mere recapitulation? Very Very Threadgill--held Sept. 27 and 28 at the Harlem Stage Gatehouse in upper Manhattan--was a tribute comprised of realizations, not reunions. Pieces from the past were ...

Live Review

Shock and Awe: Azar Lawrence Drops "The Seeker" On Dizzy's

by Chuck Koton
October 7, 2014

Azar Lawrence Quintet Dizzy's Club Coca Cola New York, NY June 26-29, 2014 There ain't no denyin' that jazz is best heard “live." Ideally, the band is playing in a club equipped with quality sound and lighting systems, staffed by experienced people who are respectful of the music (especially bartenders who try to avoid running the drink mixers during bass and piano solos) and managed by someone who not only sees to it that ...