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

Partisans: Partisans - Swamp

Read "Partisans - Swamp" reviewed by Phil Barnes

by Phil Barnes
August 6, 2014

Partisans, seen by many as the godfathers of the flourishing UK prog jazz scene, plough their own idiosyncratic path on this their fifth album, and first to appear on London label of the moment Whirlwind. The title conjures up fears of a blues rock abomination but thankfully the gentlemen have refrained from donning bandanas or placing cigarettes in the band of a wide brimmed hat to instead produce an eclectic treat. The dominant colour of the musical palette ...

Live Review

Umbria Jazz Festival 2014

by Thomas Conrad
August 5, 2014

Umbria Jazz Festival 2014 Perugia, Italy July 11-20, 2014 There are many jazz festivals held in beautiful places. There are many festivals that run for 10 or more days and consistently offer first-rate programs. There are even a few that claim a history as long as 41 years. But there is nothing quite like the Umbria Jazz Festival in Perugia, Italy. What sets Umbria apart is the atmosphere, the interaction with a particular ...

Album Review

Chicago Jazz Philharmonic: Sketches of Spain Revisited

Read "Sketches of Spain Revisited" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
August 5, 2014

One by one, the trio of classic big-band collaborations by Miles Davis and Gil Evans is being rediscovered and reinvented by contemporary jazz ensembles: Miles Ahead, Porgy & Bess and last but not least, the tasteful and picturesque Sketches of Spain, reappraised here by trumpeter Orbert Davis (no relation to Miles) and the splendid Chicago Jazz Philharmonic. Besides composing, adapting and orchestrating the music, Orbert Davis sits in for his celebrated namesake on solo trumpet. What makes ...

Extended Analysis

Tony Kadleck Big Band: Around the Horn

by Jack Bowers
August 5, 2014

Tony Kadleck, who has done almost everything one can do on a trumpet, adds the designation big-band leader to his resume with Around the Horn, an impressive debut CD for which he has written all the charts and enlisted a group of the New York area's A-list musicians to interpret them. If leadership is best imparted by example, Kadleck shouldn't have a care in the world, as his discography includes more than eighty albums from pop to blues to jazz ...

Album Review

Riverloam Trio: Inem Gortn

Read "Inem Gortn" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
August 5, 2014

After an impressive eponymous live debut, the Anglo Polish Riverloam Trio, comprising reedman Mikolaj Trzaska, bassist Olie Brice and drummer Mark Sanders, enter the studio for their follow up outing. In many ways they deliver more of the same: fiery free improvisation in post-Ayler mode. As a threesome they are perfectly matched both temperamentally and musically. If anything their colloquy convinces as even more egalitarian this time out, with Brice stepping into the limelight increasingly frequently, in what is essentially ...

Album Review

Jerrold Dubyk Quintet: Invitations

Read "Invitations" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
August 5, 2014

Jerrold Dubyk helpfully defines the title of his third album, Invitations, as “an often formal request to be present or participate." Pedantic jazz fans (and there are many) might wish to point out that the definition refers to the singular, while the title is plural. The less pedantic might simply wish to shake their heads, reflect that there are far more important things to worry about and get on with enjoying the music--for there is much music to enjoy.

Extended Analysis

Stein Urheim: Stein Urheim

by John Kelman
August 5, 2014

Things are looking up for Bergen-based Stein Urheim, a musician who, on the basis of Stein Urheim--his second release on Hubro after the vinyl/download-only Kosmolodi (2012) and third as a leader following his 2009 debut, Three Sets of Music--seems interested in just about anything with strings...and a few without. Beyond his own career, which includes work with Gabriel Fliflet´s Åresong and a guest appearance on The Last Hurrah!'s 2011 Rune Grammofon debut, Spiritual Non- Believers, his Stein and Mari collaboration ...

Album Review

Circadian Rhythm Kings: Circadian Rhythm Kings/Three Thirty Four

Read "Circadian Rhythm Kings/Three Thirty Four" reviewed by Fiona Ord-Shrimpton

by Fiona Ord-Shrimpton
August 5, 2014

A regularly used time reference in this editor's house is 3:15. It's used to denote anything unheard, misheard or not wanted to be listened to--"Can you fetch the milk?" “Quarter past three." “Turn that music down!" “3:15." “Are you going crazy?" “3:15..." so Circadian Rhythm King's album Three Thirty Four is that more or less crazy? It's more! It's “Ya Ya Crazy Music" that's what it is. Full body warm-up music, firing on all cylinders, fake or shake ...

Album Review

Mamadou Diabate: Griot Classique

Read "Griot Classique" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
August 4, 2014

The kora--a West African harp with twenty-one strings and a gourd resonator--is more than an instrument when placed in the hands of a master like Mamadou Diabate; it's a means for storytelling, a tool for expression, a uniting musical force, and a historical repository. Over the course of his previous albums, Diabate has managed to broaden the scope of the kora's language and associations while remaining true to its traditions. He incorporated the blues and Bambara music ...

Interview

Lenny Pickett: Equal Opportunity Explorer

by R.J. DeLuke
August 4, 2014

Lenny Pickett is one of those tenor saxophonists who people have heard over and over and, if they're not paying attention, they don't realize it. If they are listening, they will probably pick up on his wailing altissimo phrases and his ballsy, funky sound. He's one of those players, like David Sanborn, who has played on a gazillion albums of people from the pop, soul and rock world. Like Sanborn, he has maintained a sound that is all ...