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

Trampled Under Foot at Denver Day of Rock 2014

by Geoff Anderson
June 9, 2014

Trampled Under Foot Denver Day of Rock Denver, CO May 24, 2014 The Blues runs in the family. At least that's the case for a number of families over the years. Morganfield, Dickenson, Brooks, to name a few. The latest blues brood to hit the scene goes by the name of Schnebelen. Siblings Danielle, Nick and Kris learned to play together in their hometown of Kansas City, MO and eventually formed Trampled Under Foot.

Album Review

Duke Ellington: Duke Ellington In Grona Lund

Read "Duke Ellington In Grona Lund" reviewed by Chris Mosey

by Chris Mosey
June 9, 2014

Midsummer is a quite magical time to be in Sweden. The long, dark winter is over and now, as the sun stays resolutely above the horizon, the Lutheran natives shed their somber demeanor, dress in traditional costumes, dance around maypoles decorated with garlands of flowers, drink far too much aquavit and have such a good time they forget all about it the morning after. In 1963 Swedish jazz fans had added reason for celebration: for four weeks, ...

Album Review

Roberto Magris Trio: One Night In With Hope And More… Vol. 2

Read "One Night In With Hope And More… Vol. 2" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
June 9, 2014

Italian pianist Roberto Magris has always had an affinity for the classic jazz trio format and the bebop sound which, he documents so well on the previous One Night In With Hope and More...Vol. 1 (J-Mood Records, 2012), the first session of an originally planned two-set project. The eagerly anticipated follow up part-two, comes to light on One Night In With Hope and More...Vol. 2 containing an uncommon selection of tunes touching on compositions from Herbie Nichols, Albert Hague and ...

Book Excerpts

Bathed In Lightning: John McLaughlin, the 60s and the Emerald Beyond by Colin Harper

by Colin Harper
June 9, 2014

Exclusive extract adapted from Bathed In Lightning: John McLaughlin, the 60s and the Emerald Beyond By Colin Harper. Published (UK and US) March 26, 2014 by Jawbone Press “British jazz is awash with young talent which, given a healthy set of circumstances and a fair share of work, could produce a generation of outstanding musicians." --Bob Houston, Melody Maker, January 1967 “As a job with security and prospects, being a jazz musician is just about ...

Album Review

Roberto Magris: Ready for Reed

Read "Ready for Reed" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
June 9, 2014

Alto saxophonist Sam Reed is legend in the Philadelphia jazz scene who was leader of the 1950s band, Sam Reed and the All-Stars, worked uptown theatre for a while, performed with pop and R&B stars and served as the musical director for Teddy Pendergrass just to mention a few highlights from his long musical resume . On the boppish Ready for Reed, Italian paints of note, Roberto Magris joins forces with the sax man in a a tribute to one ...

Album Review

Rodrigo Amado: Wire Quartet

Read "Wire Quartet" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
June 9, 2014

Portuguese saxophonist Rodrigo Amado is an aggressive, improvisational dynamo who has amassed a hearty discography for Clean Feed Records and several other European record labels. His mode of delivery parallels a heavyweight boxer who jabs, dances, and executes vicious left hooks and uppercuts. Recorded in a Lisbon studio, his quartet opens the floodgates with blossoming theme building efforts. The musicians generate stormy grooves and intricately developed motifs amid their unbridled intensity. The first track “Abandon Yourself," is a ...

Live Review

Down With Jazz 2014

by Ian Patterson
June 9, 2014

Down With Jazz Meeting House Square Dublin, Ireland May 31-June 1, 2014 There's nothing quite like a Bank Holiday weekend, sunshine and music. Having moved from 2013's September slot with its unpredictable autumn weather to the last weekend in May with its unpredictable spring weather, Down With Jazz 2014 passed off dryly, which raised the spirits and surely contributed to the dancing that broke out sporadically. It was the combination of spirits--of the ...

Album Review

Walt Weiskopf: Overdrive

Read "Overdrive" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
June 8, 2014

After a string of well-received dates on the Criss Cross imprint, and a one-off for the Capri label, tenor saxophonist Walt Weiskopf arrives at Posi-Tone with this pleasing sextet date. The music on Overdrive is all original, save for the penultimately-placed cover of Michel Legrand's “What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life?," and it affirms Weiskopf's commitment to (mostly) high energy, no-nonsense jazz. With saxophone, vibraphone, guitar, piano, bass, and drums, this band can be ...

Extended Analysis

The Yes Album (Definitive Edition CD/Blu-Ray)

by John Kelman
June 8, 2014

While later albums like Fragile (Atlantic, 1971) and the epic Close to the Edge (Atlantic, 1972) would establish Yes as superstars of the progressive rock world (and, to some extent, beyond), it was The Yes Album, also released by Atlantic but nine months earlier in February of 1971, that announced Yes a group with still-untapped potential but a group that had, nevertheless, finally arrived. It was a tumultuous time for a group whose career has subsequently been defined ...

Album Review

Gato Libre: DuDu

by Dan McClenaghan
June 8, 2014

There are a lot of high energy, wild and out there sounds screaming around in Natsuki Tamura's discography--the explosively electric Hada Hada (Libra Records, 2002), the sizzling Exit (Libra Records, 2004), and any number of unfettered collaborations with his wife, pianist Satoko Fujii. But his Gato Libre discs are one of the Japanese trumpeter's more laid-back methods of expression. An acoustic quartet that explores European folk themes in a tranquil and occasionally off-center way, the five previous sets by the ...