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

Denny Zeitlin: Stairway to the Stars

Read "Stairway to the Stars" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
July 22, 2014

Pianist Denny Zeitlin's Stairway to the Stars recording sparkles to life on the familiar Great American Songbook jewel, “There Will Never Be Another You." This version has everything that the best piano trio efforts offer: elegance, inspired three-way interplay, a vivacious groove--thanks to drummer Matt Wilson and bassist Buster Williams--and Zeitlin's always supple touch and endless inventiveness. Zeiltin, has rolled in a creative high gear since his teaming with Sunnyside Records in 2009, beginning with In Concert with ...

Extended Analysis

Mike Pope: Cold Truth Warm Heart

by John Kelman
July 22, 2014

Cold Truth Warm Heart isn't Mike Pope's first album as a leader (it's his third), but in the 12 years since The Lay of the Land (Whaling City Sound, 2002), the bassist has, in addition to some serious life-changers, forged a relationship with two musicians of unequivocal significance. First appearing on Joe Locke's State of Soul (Sirocco, 2002), Pope has worked with the superb vibraphonist and equally fine pianist Geoffrey Keezer in the by turns incendiary and profoundly lyrical Joe ...

Album Review

Gianni Gagliardi: Nomadic Nature

Read "Nomadic Nature" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
July 22, 2014

Barcelona-born, Brooklyn-based tenor saxophonist Gianni Gagliardi has long been a wanderer. He left his homeland in his teens, relocating to the Netherlands to further his jazz knowledge at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. Later moves found him soaking up information at SUNY Purchase in New York, Le Conservatoire National Superior de Paris, Boston's Berklee School of Music, and Berklee's Valencia, Spain-based branch. Those experiences, along with international touring, make it clear that Gagliardi knows a thing or two about the nomadic ...

Album Review

J.J. Wright: Inward Looking Outward

Read "Inward Looking Outward" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
July 21, 2014

Pianist J.J. Wright has catholic tastes in more ways than one. He's the Director of Music at Sacred Heart Parish, the crypt church beneath the University of Notre Dame's Basilica of the Sacred Heart, and his musical interests range far and wide; Wright's inspired and influenced by everything from the music of J.S. Bach to the work of Thelonious Monk to the songs of Sufjan Stevens. His debut album--a piano trio session with the highly capable Ike Sturm on bass ...

Extended Analysis

Rafael Rosa: Portrait

by Ian Patterson
July 21, 2014

In jazz terms Puerto Rico has certainly punched above its weight, producing Juan Tizol--a mainstay of Duke Ellington's bands in the 1930s and 1940s, Eddie Gomez and Manolo Badrena--who came to prominence in the 1960s/1970s through their respective associations with pianist Bill Evans and Weather Report--and latterly David Sanchez. Lesser known--though perhaps that's soon to change--is guitarist Rafael Rosa, whose enticing debut reveals a composer and technician of some sophistication. Carlos Maldonado's barril--a lower pitched Afro-Puerto Rican cousin ...

Album Review

Tigran Mansurian: Quasi Parlando

Read "Quasi Parlando" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
July 21, 2014

Armenian composer Tigran Mansurian's poignant and introspective Quasi Parlando on ECM consists of four string concertos. Two penned almost three decades apart and two others that he wrote specifically for each of the soloists on the album; violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja and cellist Anja Lechner. The unifying theme of this splendid disc, and one that recurs throughout most of Mansurian's opus, is a sublime, almost effortless, narrative sense endowed with a timeless mysticism. The music is laced with both ...

Extended Analysis

Michael Feinberg's Humblebrag: Live at 800 East

by Dave Wayne
July 21, 2014

Blending modern jazz with any aspect of funk or R&B is a risky proposition for a young jazz musician. No matter how personal one's concept may be, or how artfully executed, a segment of the jazz- listening population is going to yell “sellout!" at the first electric bass slap. Though he doesn't do slap bass, Michael Feinberg is unapologetically drawn to the funky, danceable aspects of jazz. He does so without really making any obvious pop or R&B overtures. Live ...

Album Review

Jeff Cosgrove: Alternating Current

Read "Alternating Current" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
July 21, 2014

Drummer Jeff Cosgrove certainly knows how to draw attention to himself. For his third album the DC area-based drummer enlists the services of two avant jazz icons in pianist Matthew Shipp and bassist William Parker. Just what a coup this is can be gauged from the fact that Shipp's previous sideman dates have included the legendary saxophonists David S. Ware and AACM iconoclast Roscoe Mitchell. Cosgrove has studied with masters like Andrew Cyrille and Paul Motian, and has covered the ...

My Blue Note Obsession

My Pet Peeve: The Mislabeled CD – Clifford Brown Memorial Album – Blue Note 1526

by Marc Davis
July 21, 2014

And now it's time for a personal pet peeve, something far worse than a squeaky sax or a fumble-fingered pianist: The mislabeled CD. Today's example: The Clifford Brown Memorial Album. Let's start by noting that this is a terrific record--recorded in 1953, released in 1956, shortly after Brown's tragic death in a car crash at age 25. This is early Brown, the great hard bop trumpeter, on the verge of stardom. It's a 4-star record that ...

Album Review

Matana Roberts / Sam Shalabi / Nicolas Caloia: Feldspar

Read "Feldspar" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
July 21, 2014

An exceptional improvised meeting between American saxophonist Matana Roberts, known for her Coin Coin project--Chapter One: Gens de Couleur Libres and Chapter Two: Mississippi Moonchile (Constellation, 2011 and 2013)--and two left-of-center, free improvisers from the Canadian, Montreal scene--guitarist Sam Shalabi, known for his Middle-Eastern-tinged band Shalabi Effect and his orchestral works with Land of Kush, and double bassist Nicola Caloia, who leads the improvising Ratchet Orchestra. Feldspar, titled after Earth's rock formations, was recorded in studio ...