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

le GGRIL: Combines

Read "Combines" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
August 17, 2014

The 10-musician, Quebecois, Rimouski-based ensemble Grill, or in its full name--Grand Groupe Régional d'Improvisation Libérée, is an experimental, improvisation orchestra. The GGRIL has been active since 2007 and collaborated with innovative Canadian improvisers such as reed player Jean Derome (Le GRILL, Insubordinations, 2007), guitarist René Lussier, and percussionist Danielle P. Roger (Pinta, Niña & Maria, Ambiances Magnétiques, 2010). They have also toured and recorded with British sax master Evan Parker (Vivaces Tour de Bras, 2013). Combines, available only on phosphorescent ...

Live Review

David Gray at The Theater at Madison Square Garden

by Christine Connallon
August 16, 2014

David Gray Theater at Madison Square Garden New York City August 4, 2014 David Gray dances like there's nobody watching. Even in a packed NYC venue on a hot summer night. Anticipation filled the dark and cavernous Theater at Madison Square Garden. Nearly each and every plush seat was filled by an audience who was dressed slightly nicer than the average concert crowd. Hand holding, cocktails and muted tones added to the giddy ...

Bailey's Bundles

Mulberry Mountain Arkansas - Music Central

by C. Michael Bailey
August 16, 2014

Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?" Nathanael asked. “Come and see," said Philip. Nestled in the upper part of the Arkansas River Valley just North of Ozark in Franklin County is Mulberry Mountain. Mulberry Mountain has become the site of several notable music festivals, including Wakarusa, Thunder on the Mountain and The Yonder Mountain String Band's Harvest Music Festival. These festivals take advantage of the beautiful scenery and hospitable climes of the River Valley resting in ...

Bailey's Bundles

The Led Zeppelin Papers: Led Zeppelin, Deluxe Edition

by C. Michael Bailey
August 16, 2014

There would have been no rock music in the 1980s and beyond had Led Zeppelin not called it quits that year in the wake of drummer John Bonham's death from misadventure. Shot from a cannon in 1969 and flaming out a decade later, this rock royalty sired a legion of bastards and lesser creatures in the form every popular band from the “Me" decade. LZ's import is much farther reaching than simply Motley Crue, Poison, and Tesla. They offered a ...

Album Review

Kenny Lavender: Conscious Journey Part 1 & 2

Read "Conscious Journey Part 1 & 2" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
August 16, 2014

Texas-born, New York-based trumpeter Kenny Lavender is as versatile as can be. He's put his horn to good use on Broadway, playing lead trumpet on Bullets Over Broadway and working in the pit orchestras of other hit shows like The Drowsy Chaperone and West Side Story; he's backed up old pros like Frankie Valli, The Temptations, and Johnny Mathis; and he's screamed and roared in the trumpet section of jazz groups like The Birdland Big Band and The Chico O'Farrill ...

Album Review

Epirus Quartet: Transatlantic

Read "Transatlantic" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
August 16, 2014

Epirus Quartet is based in Austin, Texas, but takes its name from a region of Greece--hence, perhaps, the decision to name its debut album Transatlantic. The recording is released as a limited edition, high-quality, vinyl album (it's also available as a download)--the format lends itself superbly to the quartet's brand of danceable, organ-led music. With jazz at its core, the quartet's music features strong elements of funk and soul, with more than a few hints of Afrobeat and ...

Album Review

Various Artists: Light My Fire: A Classic Rock Salute to The Doors

Read "Light My Fire: A Classic Rock Salute to The Doors" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
August 16, 2014

Southern California-based Purple Pyramid Records and producer, instrumentalist Billy Sherwood raised the bar with this tribute to The Doors by convening a star-studded cast, featuring classic rockers performing with progressive rock luminaries. And the jazz contingent is onboard, evidenced by jazz guitar great Larry Coryell appearing with Focus keyboardist Thijs Van Leer on “Love Me Two Times." When I first broke the seal on this recording and perused the personnel listing I was delighted yet partly suspicious, fearing ...

Album Review

Franz Koglmann: Join!

by Eyal Hareuveni
August 16, 2014

Austrian, Vienna-based composer Franz Koglmann always used music as a means to present his ideas, often provocative perspectives, on cultural phenomena at large. He alienated the American jazz community with A White Line (hatART, 1990), where he sketched an alternative history of jazz based on white innovative musicians. Later he reconstructed the compositional ideas of Johan Strauss to modern jazz vocabulary on An Affair with Strauss (Between the Lines, 2000) and upstaged the poems of T.S. Elliot on Fear Death ...

Live Review

Newport Jazz Festival 2014, Day 3

by Timothy J. O'Keefe
August 15, 2014

Newport Jazz FestivalFort Adams State Park Newport, RI Sunday, August 3, 2014 Smack--loud and robust, the horns blasted at the audience with a sound so voluminous it seemed impossible only four horns could have created it. And yet, four horns had. “Were you here yesterday?" Boston jazz radio host Eric Jackson had asked the audience during the band introductions --no doubt an obvious reference to prior day's the ...

Album Review

Eyot: Similarity

Read "Similarity" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
August 15, 2014

Atmosphere. That oft-indefinable feel that music can have, the creation of a mood or a sensation that inveigles itself into a listener's mind and captures the imagination. It's not melody, harmony or rhythm but it needs all three. Eyot--a four-piece from Serbia--has a great line in atmosphere, ably demonstrated on the band's third album, Similarity. Album opener “How Shall The Dust Storm Start" perfectly encapsulates Eyot's atmospheric approach--the rhythm crafted by bassist Marko Stojiljkovic and drummer Milos Vojvodic ...