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.

Take Five With...

Take Five with Leslie Odom Jr.

by AAJ Staff
September 9, 2014

Meet Leslie Odom Jr.: Television, film, and Broadway star, Leslie Odom, Jr. Most recently terrified fans of the CBS drama Person of Interest as Peter Collier, the leader of a home grown terrorist cell. Other Television and Film work includes notable turns on House of Lies, Supernatural, Grey's Anatomy, Law & Order: SVU, SMASH, and the Tuskegee Airmen WWII action flick Red Tails for George Lucas. This winter Leslie will star alongside his friend Lin Manuel-Miranda in ...

Album Review

Laura Dreyer: Vida. Arte. Amor.

Read "Vida. Arte. Amor." reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
September 9, 2014

Life, art, and love are all intertwined in the latest work from multi-instrumentalist Laura Dreyer--a fourteen song collection that finds her plying her trade in Brazilian-based settings and contemporary scenes. For this album, Dreyer went the wholly authentic route, traveling to Brazil to record in Rio De Janiero. The music that was born in that sunny locale--a fusion of Brazilian musical languages, funk, rock, smooth jazz, and more--speaks to Dreyer's diverse interests; it also speaks to her ...

Live Review

American Jazz Festiv’Halles at Sunside-Sunset

by Patricia Myers
September 8, 2014

American Jazz Festiv'Halles at Sunside-Sunset Sunside-Sunset Jazz Club Paris, France July-August 2014 The 23rd annual American Jazz Festiv'Halles at Sunside-Sunset in Paris had another long and strong lineup of concerts during two summer months of 2014. Sunside opened in 1983 on the Right Bank's narrow pedestrian street, rue des Lombards, expanding in 2001 by converting its underground restaurant Sunset into a second jazz venue, with jazz nightly in both venues since then. American-French ...

Album Review

Lissy Walker: Wonderland

Read "Wonderland" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
September 7, 2014

Alice had many adventures in Wonderland: they could be fun, they could be touching, but they were seldom musical. Lissy Walker's second album, Wonderland, also provides lots of adventures--some fun, some touching, all musical.A quick glance at the song titles--"Something Wonderful," “Where Or When," “Isn't It Romantic?"--put this album fairly and squarely into American Songbook territory. A quick glance at the instrumentation--lap steel guitar, 12-string guitar, mandolin--suggests that the territory is a bit further out west. But there's ...

Live Review

Jeff Bridges & the Abiders At the Paramount

by Mike Perciaccante
September 7, 2014

Jeff Bridges & the Abiders The Paramount Huntington, NY August 29, 2014 Most people know Jeff Bridges because of his films, from his Ocsar-winning turn as down-and-out country music singer-songwriter Otis “Bad" Blake in Crazy Heart to his roles in The Fisher King, The Fabulous Baker Boys, Tron, True Grit and as “The Dude" in The Big Lebowski. On Friday, August 29th at the Paramount in Huntington, NY, the actor explained that as a young ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With Mike Brannon

by AAJ Staff
September 7, 2014

Meet Mike Brannon: Having been born in Atlanta and then lived in North Carolina growing up, those Southern roots were likely to blame when I started playing blues/rock guitar. But I soon discovered Wes Montgomery, Hank Garland, Joe Pass, Tal Farlow and finally Pat Martino. After attending Jackie King's Guitar Conservatory of the Southwest, where i got to play with traditionalists like Herb Ellis, I went to Berklee for Guitar performance/composition and then studied with Charlie Banacos for five ...

Album Review

Peppino D'Agostino: Penumbra

Read "Penumbra" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
September 7, 2014

Award-winning fingerstyle guitarist and co-founder of The Pacific Guitar Ensemble, Italy reared Peppino D'Agostino has been an internationally esteemed musician since his arrival to America 25-years ago. He's among the elite guitarists in this spectrum while spreading his wares across musical boundaries, steeped in many musical fronts. Agostino works within an operational mode evidenced by modern day greats such as Bert Jansch, Leo Kottke and Michael Hedges, yet like his famous peers, he embroiders a personal sound and style as ...

Live Review

The 2014 Retro Futura Tour at the Pennysaver Amphitheatre at Bald Hill

by Mike Perciaccante
September 7, 2014

Katrina (ex-Katrina & The Waves), China Crisis, Midge Ure, Howard Jones & Tom Bailey from the Thompson Twins Pennysaver Amphitheatre at Bald Hill The 2014 Retro Futura Tour Farmingville, NY 11738 August 23, 2014 On a pleasant Saturday evening in late August, The Retro Futura Tour, featuring five of the '80s biggest modern rock acts, touched down in Farmingville, NY. The small outdoor Long Island amphitheater sits on the location of the ...

Album Review

Siné Qua Non: Simple Pleasures

Read "Simple Pleasures" reviewed by Geannine Reid

by Geannine Reid
September 7, 2014

In most cases the sum is greater than the parts, the Washington, D.C. based quintet called Siné Qua Non is a fine musical example of musical synergy. Led by bassist Michael Bowie, Siné Qua Non draws from many styles to create their group sound. Bowie's vision for the group is in building musical community from the strengths and unique backgrounds of each player. On this point, Bowie notes, “That's what started this whole thing for me. This group, and my ...

Album Review

Dr. John: Ske-Dat-De-Dat The Spirit of Satch

Read "Ske-Dat-De-Dat The Spirit of Satch" reviewed by Ernest Barteldes

by Ernest Barteldes
September 7, 2014

New Orleans piano man Dr. John needs little introduction--his work as a groundbreaking genre-bending musician crosses multiple musical borders. Multiple collaborations with various artists throughout a long career have given him a well-deserved reputation that earned him a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame--even though he is a New Orleans boogie man at heart. His amazing tribute to the music of fellow Louisiana son Louis Armstrong features musicians from various backgrounds. The disc begins with ...