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

Théo Ceccaldi / Roberto Negro / Valentin Ceccaldi / Adrien Chennebault: La Scala

Read "La Scala" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
August 30, 2014

La Scala (the ladder or stairway in Italian} was a theatrical production that bore this atypical chamber ensemble featuring French pianist Roberto Negro, brothers Théo Ceccaldi on violin and viola with Valentin Ceccaldi on cello and percussionist Adrien Chennebaut. The idea, like the play's title, was to find a musical equivalent to the concept of ascension. The music--composed and improvised---symbolizing a pathway through a spiral staircase, a paper stairway, a stepladder, an ever unpredictable rope ladder, used by this sure-footed, ...

Album Review

Elisa Arciniegas Pinilla: Improvisible

Read "Improvisible" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
August 30, 2014

Colombian, Strasbourg-based viola player and vocal artist Elisa Arciniegas Pinilla studied classical music and viola at the Conservatorio de Música de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogota and jazz and improvised music at the Conservatoire de Strasbourg in France. She also specialized in performance and free improvisation at the Hochschule für Musik in Basel, Switzerland (one of her teachers there was Fred Frith. This wide spectrum of approaches enable Pinilla to create a musical universe that transcends borders, genres ...

Album Review

Marius Neset/Trondheim Jazz Orchestra: Lion

by Ian Patterson
August 30, 2014

Lion is a good name for Marius Neset's first recording with the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra, for like a great cat, the Norwegian orchestra purrs and prowls, roars and pounces. Regardless of tempo--whether cruising or charging--there's majesty in the collective voice. Commissioned for the Molde Jazz Festival in 2012, the momentum from that performance took Neset and this twelve-piece orchestra into the recording studio with spectacular results. In fourteen years, the TJO has become something of a Norwegian national ...

Album Review

Tori Freestone Trio: Tori Freestone - In the Chop House

Read "Tori Freestone - In the Chop House" reviewed by Phil Barnes

by Phil Barnes
August 29, 2014

Tori Freestone is a name that will be familiar to those with an interest in the British Jazz of the last few years. A multi- instrumentalist she contributed flute and sax to Ivo Neame's excellent Yatra from 2012 but you may equally have come across her work with the likes of Rory Simmons or Neil Yates. This trio collection on emerging London indie label, Whirlwind, sees Freestone making the leap to band leader on record for the first time showcasing ...

Album Review

Satoko Fujii Orchestra New York: Shiki

by John Sharpe
August 29, 2014

Even among established groupings Japanese composer and pianist Satoko Fujii continues to search for new means of expression. For the ninth disc from her New York Orchestra, Fujii departs from accustomed practice, particularly in the 36-minute plus title track which dominates proceedings. Truly orchestral in its scope, Fujii wields her composer's wand in a way which largely avoids some of the expected intricacy, in favour of more opaque connections, organically developed soundscapes and ragged choruses, from which the compositional signposts ...

Album Review

Matthieu Marthouret Bounce Trio: Small Streams...Big Rivers

Read "Small Streams...Big Rivers" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
August 29, 2014

Grenoble-born keyboardist Matthieu Marthouret started playing the Hammond organ as a way of covering for bass players' absence from rehearsals. It became one of his favorite instruments, leading to the formation of the Matthieu Marthouret Organ Quartet in 2007 and then to the establishment of the Bounce Trio. Small Streams...Big Rivers is the first album from that outfit, an organ/tenor/drums triumvirate. On Small Streams...Big Rivers the Bounce Trio performs original tunes by Marthouret and saxophonist Toine Thys alongside ...

Interview

Nat Adderley: A Player's Player

by Joan Gannij
August 29, 2014

This interview was originally conducted in 1997. I met Nat Adderley in San Diego, California in 1986 when I was working as a disc jockey at a jazz radio station and doing the PR for La Jolla Playhouse. We did an interview about a new production of a musical being revived at the progressive La Jolla Playhouse and premiered on Broadway later that year. “Shout Up a Morning," based on the folk hero John Henry, began as a ...

Multiple Reviews

Mark Guiliana: Beat Poet Of A Different Sort

by Dan Bilawsky
August 29, 2014

Drummer Mark Guiliana's work has nothing to do with benzedrine, berets, William S. Burroughs and the like; he's a beat poet of a different sort, shrewdly dissecting and interpreting the language of rhythm in real-time. Guiliana is one of the few drummers who can successfully and creatively straddle and blur the electro-acoustic dividing line, and he's been a key ingredient in the musical recipes concocted by artists as different as bassist Avishai Cohen, vocalist Gretchen Parlato, singer/rapper Matisyahu, and pianist/keyboardist ...

Album Review

Tierney Sutton: Paris Sessions

Read "Paris Sessions" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
August 28, 2014

Think you know every aspect of Tierney Sutton's artistic persona? Think again. Hearing the Paris Sessions is to hear Sutton anew. Sure, it's that same one-of-a-kind voice, but there's no Tierney Sutton Band here, incredibly novel arrangements aren't a priority on this one, and there's no grand umbrella theme to contend with. This is simply a captivating listen-by-candlelight album that strikes to the heart of Tierney Sutton. Paris Sessions is easily the most informal item in Sutton's ...

Extended Analysis

Ira B. Liss: It's About Time

by Jack Bowers
August 28, 2014

So are there any first-rate big bands worth hearing in California outside of the Los Angeles area? So happy you asked. As a matter of fact, San Diego is solidly entrenched in that position thanks to the superb Ira B. Liss Big Band Jazz Machine which, coincidentally, has recorded a spectacular new album, It's About Time. Even though the Jazz Machine is now thirty-five years old, its various working parts remain untarnished, ensuring that no mishaps or glitches arise to ...