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

Busnoys: Weaving The Spell

Read "Weaving The Spell" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
July 5, 2014

Sometimes the world is easy to understand. Mostly, it's a puzzle. Take magic, for example--how does that work? Ask Busnoys, a vibes/bass guitar/drums trio from Bristol in England's West Country. The band seems to have at least some insight into the workings of magic. Its third album, Weaving The Spell, is full of relaxed, spacious, charms that draw the listener into the band's unique and lovely sound world. Much of the music on Weaving The Spell--composed by bandleader ...

Film Review

Jimi Hendrix: Hear My Train A Comin’

by Doug Collette
July 5, 2014

Jimi Hendrix Hear My Train A Comin' Sony-Legacy 2013 As an entry into the PBS American Masters series, it's little surprise Hear My Train A Comin' doesn't take a particularly novel approach to its subject. Still, the film progresses assuredly and vividly from one significant point to another as it covers the life and career of the one of the epochal figures of Sixties rock, Jimi Hendrix. Interviews with those who knew ...

Live Review

Don Felder, Styx & Foreigner at the Nikon at Jones Beach Theater

by Mike Perciaccante
July 5, 2014

Don Felder, Styx and Foreigner Nikon at Jones Beach Theater Soundtrack of Summer Tour Wantagh, NY June 28, 2014 On a pleasant early summer Saturday evening, the Nikon at Jones Beach Theater was transformed into a time machine as Styx and Foreigner double-headlined (on this tour the two bands have been alternating the closing slot with Don Felder opening at each venue) the Soundtrack of Summer Tour. Opening act, Felder, the ...

Album Review

Noel Langley: Edentide

Read "Edentide" reviewed by Roger Farbey

by Roger Farbey
July 5, 2014

A deep and lugubrious ship's foghorn of brass wailing evolves into a fanfare rendition of a theme repeated throughout this debut (and long overdue) recording by trumpet maestro Noel Langley. In “For the Uncommon Man" Langley weaves a hypnotic solo surrounded by a variety of musical embellishments including delicate harp interwoven with resonant vibraphone. “The Turning House" is an improvisation featuring Langley and Ruth Wall playing a droning bray harp which manages to sound distinctly like a sitar ...

Live Review

Pittsburgh JazzLive International Festival 2014

by C. Andrew Hovan
July 4, 2014

Pittsburgh JazzLive International Festival 2014 Cultural District Pittsburgh, PA June 20-22, 2014 With its modest beginnings back in 2011, the Pittsburgh JazzLive International Festival had nothing but an uphill battle in terms of sustaining a free jazz festival. It took a billion dollar endowment to keep North America's largest free jazz festival in Detroit running in the black. Odds were not with Pittsburgh, but the powers that be and festival director Janis Burley Wilson ...

Album Review

Yvonnick Prene: Wonderful World

Read "Wonderful World" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
July 4, 2014

Before arriving in New York in 2007, Paris-born harmonica player Yvonnick Prené had already gained schooling of the practical kind, touring and recording with pianists Laurent Cugny and Yaron Herman, and trumpeter Alex Tassel. Prené hit the ground running in the States, winning several scholarships that enabled him to study with saxophonist Lee Konitz, bassist John Patitucci and guitarist Peter Bernstein. His stylistically diverse debut, Jour de Fete (Steeplechase Records, 2013) mixed up classic tunes with original compositions and announced ...

Album Review

Sophie Alour: Shaker

by Dan Bilawsky
July 4, 2014

French saxophonist Sophie Alour has gone organ-ic for her fifth album. Shaker finds her fronting an organ trio, delivering music that's alternately funky, rocking, and (occasionally) soothing. Alour put together a program of tunes that focuses on groove, melody, and the beauty that exists when those two elements work together. She often looks to create uncluttered, catchy, upbeat music, but that's not the whole story. Exuberance certainly oozes from the band when it lets the funk flag ...

Catching Up With

Bernard Purdie: Letting The Drums Speak

by Ben Scholz
July 4, 2014

Known primarily for his half-century long career as a studio musician, Bernard “Pretty" Purdie is an icon in the recording industry. With a catalog of 3,000+ recordings including landmark albums such as Steely Dan's Aja Aretha Franklin's Young, Gifted and Black, BB King's Completely Well, and James Brown's It's a Man's Man's Man's World, Bernard Purdie is quite possibly the most influential studio drummer in history. Recently, Bernard paid a visit to Chicago to perform with veteran guitarist George Freeman. ...

Album Review

T.K. Blue: A Warm Embrace

Read "A Warm Embrace" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
July 4, 2014

Saxophonist and flutist T.K Blue's tenth album A Warm Embrace is an enchanting and elegant work with richly textured harmonies and captivating melodies. Even though not all of the tracks are strictly speaking ballads there is a sublime sense of poetry that runs throughout the record and is its prevailing and cohesive motif.The solemn “Requiem for a Loved I" dedicated to several deceased musicians is intensely, yet quietly, lyrical and somber. It opens with a pensive and melancholic ...

Album Review

Chris Speed: Really OK

Read "Really OK" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
July 4, 2014

Saxophonist, clarinetist, Chris Speed has been in the thick of things the past several decades. He's been a co-conspirator in trendsetting ensembles led by alto saxophonists, composers Tim Berne, John Zorn, and leading-edge outfits Claudia Quintet and Pachora amid a host of other noteworthy projects. Speed's prominence in the newer realm of jazz and jazz improvisation cannot be minimized. On Really OK he reenergizes his craft with a roots driven modern jazz trio presentation, featuring a mix of originals, a ...