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

Tony Malaby Tamarindo: Somos Agua

Read "Somos Agua" reviewed by Robert Bush

by Robert Bush
August 18, 2014

Saxophonist Tony Malaby's Tamarindo, featuring the unerring bassist William Parker and explosive drummer Nasheet Waits explore the possibilities of the saxophone trio on Somos Agua with frequently staggering results--sort of like a very free version of the Sonny Rollins unit with Wilbur Ware and Elvin Jones that recorded A Night at the Village Vanguard some 57 years ago. Waits crackles and pops like gunfire in a high-rise alley as Malaby riffs in a stream-of-consciousness style reminiscent ...

Album Review

John McLaughlin & The 4th Dimension: The Boston Record

Read "The Boston Record" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
August 18, 2014

The Boston crowd's roars on this live set from John McLaughlin and the 4th Dimension's 2013 tour say as much about the dazzling interplay of the band as it does about McLaughlin's enduring appeal. For sure, McLaughlin remains one of jazz-fusion's major draws but the acclaim has little to do with nostalgia and everything to do with the excitement that his performances--in whatever guise--generate. This incarnation of the 4th Dimension seems to have inspired McLaughlin to his fieriest electric playing ...

Album Review

Mike Marshall & Choro Famoso: Segunda Vez

Read "Segunda Vez" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
August 17, 2014

Segunda Vez comes a decade after this group's eponymous debut--a forty minute album featuring quintet and septet performances. Here, mandolinist Mike Marshall expands the length and breadth of the work while contracting the size of the group; all seventeen tracks on this seventy-plus minute program feature the same quartet--Marshall on mandolin, Andy Connell on clarinet and soprano saxophone, Colin Walker on 7-string guitar, and Brian Rice on pandeiro and other percussion. On the surface, Segundo Vez is ...

Live Review

WBAB Rock 'n' Brews Fest at the NYCB Theatre at Westbury

by Mike Perciaccante
August 17, 2014

Edgar Winter, Vanilla Fudge, Peter Rivera formerly of Rare Earth & Savoy Brown's Kim Simmonds NYCB Theatre at Westbury WBAB Rock 'n' Brews Fest Westbury, NY August 1, 2014 Blues-rock guitar virtuoso Johnny Winter passed away in St. Gallen, Switzerland on July 16, 2014 at the age of 70. The music world lost the man who, in 2003, was ranked by Rolling Stone as the 63rd greatest guitarist of all time. The guitarist was ...

Album Review

Oz Noy: Twisted Blues Volume 2

Read "Twisted Blues Volume 2" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
August 17, 2014

Two and a half years on from Twisted Blues Volume 1, guitar ace Oz Noy returns with another incendiary serving of jazz-inflected blues. In the intervening period Noy has hardly been idle, releasing a couple of instructional DVDs and touring regularly but his return to the recording studio with his blues bag is certainly welcome. As on Twisted Blues Vol 1, Noy surrounds himself with numerous collaborators--seventeen in total--and no two songs feature the same line-up. Though recorded two years ...

Live Review

Boz Scaggs at the NYCB Theatre at Westbury

by Mike Perciaccante
August 17, 2014

Boz Scaggs NYCB Theatre at Westbury Westbury, NY August 3, 2014 Boz Scaggs first came to prominence as a member of the original and bluesier version of the Steve Miller Band. He secured a recording contract with Atlantic Records in 1968, exited the Steve Miller Band, and in 1969, he released an eponymously titled album. During the past forty-five years, he has recorded as a solo artist and as a member of the New York ...

Album Review

Rob Mazurek Exploding Star Orchestra: Matter Anti-Matter

Read "Matter Anti-Matter" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
August 17, 2014

When he was under contract with Arista in the 1970s, reedman Anthony Braxton discovered that he was able to slip under the rug the release of some of his less commercially viable works, such as the mammoth For Four Orchestras (1978), by alternating them with more traditional quartet material. While electro-acoustic composer and cornetist Rob Mazurek won't be pulling the wool over anyone's eyes at the Paris-based Rogue Art imprint, he has achieved a similar outcome by coupling two opposite ...

Live Review

Mustered Courage At Hill Country Barbecue

by Mike Perciaccante
August 17, 2014

Mustered Courage Hill Country Barbecue New York, NY July 28, 2014 Mustered Courage is a Melbourne, Australia-based quartet that plays a decidedly American-influenced brand of music. Its sound is a countrified modern mix of bluegrass, folk, rockabilly, honky-tonk, pop, western swing, rootsy rock, gospel and blues. In short, Americana. But not just any brand of Americana. Mustered Courage's brand is unique in the fact that its music appeals to the most staunch and conservative traditionalist ...

Album Review

Jenny Hval & Susanna: Meshes of Voice

Read "Meshes of Voice" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
August 17, 2014

After winning the Spellemannpris (Norwegian Grammy) for her first release on the fledgling Susanna Sonata label, the career-defining collaboration with Ensemble neoN, The Forester (2013), singer Susanna resists the urge to repeat herself by moving on to even more experimental territory with Meshes of Voice, this time together with fellow Norwegian vocalist Jenny Hval--a collaboration that, in retrospect, seems absolutely inevitable. Prior to launching her Susanna Sonata label, Susanna was a (largely) Rune Grammofon recording artist, releasing albums ...

Live Review

Theory of a Deadman at Webster Hall

by Christine Connallon
August 17, 2014

Theory of a Deadman Marlin Room at Webster Hall New York City July 30, 2014 Even before Tyler Connolly, front man for the Canadian rock band Theory of a Deadman, told the crowd that the band “still loves what they do," that fact was quite evident to those who packed the intimate Marlin Room at Webster Hall on this hot and steamy summer night. Dark clothing was the uniform for both the band ...