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.

Live Review

Cassandra Wilson at Lincoln Center Out of Doors

by Ernest Barteldes
August 15, 2014

Cassandra Wilson Lincoln Center Out of Doors August 8, 2014 New York, NY Playing before an outdoor capacity audience, Cassandra Wilson performed a concert to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of Blue Night 'till Dawn (Blue Note, 1993), featuring many of the musicians who originally performed on the studio version. Wilson kicked off a soulful rendition of “You Don't Know What Love Is" with incredible subtlety, feeling every ...

Album Review

Gordon Lee with the Mel Brown Septet: Tuesday Night

Read "Tuesday Night" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
August 15, 2014

For more than sixteen years, jazz fans in and around Portland, Oregon, have had the pleasure of seeing and hearing drummer Mel Brown's hard-blowing Jazz Messengers-style septet each Tuesday Night at Jimmy Mak's nightclub. Among its mainstays is pianist Gordon Lee who has been writing and arranging for the group almost since he enlisted shortly afterward and in fact much earlier, as the then-sextet recorded an album of his music, Gordon Bleu, in the late 1980s, a brief time before ...

Album Review

Kerry Politzer: Below the Surface

Read "Below the Surface" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
August 15, 2014

Pianist Kerry Politzer's relocation to Portland, Oregon seems to have given her music a boost. Always a fine mainstream artist, whether working the trio or quartet modes on Blue in Blue (Piloo Records, 2010) or Labyrinth (Palisonic Records, 2005), now her first “Portland disc," Below the Surface, finds her in a common quintet setting--trumpet/saxophone and rhythm section--making uncommonly modern sounds. Politzer has crafted a sound that goes much more into the groove than her previous outings did. The ...

Album Review

Florencia Gonzalez: Between Loves

Read "Between Loves" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
August 15, 2014

On her second album as a leader, the sumptuous and intimate Between Loves, Montevideo born and New York based saxophonist Florencia Gonzalez elegantly merges a refreshingly innovative spontaneity and a mesmerizing Latin romanticism. The result is a thematically cohesive and multi-textured release that crackles with boppish energy as it draws on motifs from her native culture.For instance “Women Dreaming of Escape" opens as a tense and passionate tango. Gonzalez's thick, organic tenor leads the brass duo in hypnotic, ...

Album Review

InterStatic: Arise

by John Kelman
August 15, 2014

Its beginnings may have been a little closer to the jazz side of the jazz-rock equation with Anthem (PVY Records, 2011), but British expat keyboardist Roy Powell's and trio with Norwegian guitarist Jacob Young and drummer Jarle Vespestad has, since changing its moniker to InterStatic with the release of its first album on UK's RareNoiseRecords label, InterStatic (2012), ratcheted up the energy, the volume and the rock quotient. If InterStatic was the trio's first shot across the bow, then Arise ...

Gnome Notes

A Matthew Shipp Appreciation from Yuko Otomo

by Chris Rich
August 15, 2014

I'm always looking to introduce new people to The All About Jazz readership. Yuko Otomo provided an appreciation of Matthew Shipp from her perspective as a poet and visual artist. Let Ms. Otomo take it from here. Recently, I re-read Concerning the Spiritual in Art by Wassily Kandinsky. I don't remember how many times I've read this book. There are a few Bible-like books and writings (on art) that I return to whenever I have a ...

Live Review

Gent Jazz Festival 2014 - Part Two: Jazz Peripherals

by Martin Longley
August 14, 2014

Gent Jazz Festival De Bijloke Gent, Belgium July 17-19, 2014 The second weekend of this festival is traditionally devoted to musics that lurk outside of the jazz sphere, but resonating in sympathy with the core. Of course, there were a few stray acts from the mainline, just as the first weekend saw invaders such as Ibrahim Maalouf and Taxi Wars, whose stances weren't strictly jazzy. Hence the appearance of Bogus, a ...

Album Review

Rotem Sivan: For Emotional Use Only

Read "For Emotional Use Only" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
August 14, 2014

A large number of younger jazz guitarists tend to turn their albums into shock and awe campaigns, with aggression, overwhelming force, cutting tones, and electronic gadgets galore firing down on listeners. The work of guitarist Rotem Silvan is a refreshing alternative to that heavy artillery school of guitar. On his debut--Enchanted Sun (Steeplechase Lookout, 2013)--Sivan established himself as a thoughtful improviser, composer, and collaborator, drifting along and letting his guitar tones waft out into the atmosphere as ...

Album Review

Bobby Broom: My Shining Hour

Read "My Shining Hour" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
August 14, 2014

Chicago-based guitarist Bobby Broom's Shining Hour encompasses nearly an hour of “Sweet and Lovely" trio jazz, showcasing seven memorable tunes from the Great American Songbook complemented by pair of three-steps, Fats Waller's “Jitterbug Waltz" and the Patti Page evergreen, “Tennessee Waltz." Besides the songs mentioned above, Broom's working trio (bassist Dennis Carroll, drummer Makaya McCraven) wend their way through “My Ideal," “Just One of Those Things," “Sweet Georgia Brown," “Oh, Lady Be Good" and “The Heather on ...

Interview

Mircea Tiberian: The Natural Force of Music

by Adriana Carcu
August 14, 2014

Pianist Mircea Tiberian is an emblematic figure of Romanian jazz, with a prodigious musical and academic career. He plays an influential role in the jazz scene and as author of many theoretical studies and essays, fosters its development on the theoretical level as well. Along his 40 year career Tiberian has played with top ranking Romanian jazz musicians and with quite a few Western ones such as Randy Brecker, Chris Dahlgren, John Betsch, Maurice de Martin and Christian Lillinger. Educated ...