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

Chris Greene Quartet: Music Appreciation

Read "Music Appreciation" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
June 3, 2014

Saxophonist Chris Greene has a unique approach to jazz that, although well within the mainstream, is elegantly innovative. He colors his creative ideas and motifs with bluesy hues, endows them with an urbane sense of swing and enriches them with solid, improvisational rigor. His complex pieces flow with a deceptive simplicity yet make for a rewarding and stimulating listening experience. His two disc Music Appreciation demonstrates all these attributes and more as Greene leads his working quartet through ...

Album Review

Javier Vercher - Ferenc Nemeth: Imaginary Realm

Read "Imaginary Realm" reviewed by Geannine Reid

by Geannine Reid
June 3, 2014

Imagination is the ability to form a picture in your mind of something that you have not seen, heard or experienced; the ability to think of new things. Saxophonist Javier Vercher and Drummer Ferenc Nemeth´s project Imaginary Realm can be summed up by this dictum, creating a realm between the two of them that is creative and full of new things. Saxophonist Javier Vercher was born in Madrid, but was raised in Valencia where he graduated from the ...

Album Review

Ayelet Lerman / Wade Matthews / Carmel Raz: Growing Carrots in a Concrete Floor

Read "Growing Carrots in a Concrete Floor" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
June 3, 2014

Operating for four years, the em>Wire Tapping series of experimental improvised meetings at the Barbur Gallery in Jerusalem has hosted many ad-hoc initial meetings between left-of-center musicians. The Series organized collaborations in the past with American drummer Gerry Hemingway, German double bass player Alexander Frangenheim and New York-based and Israeli ex-pat guitarist Eyal Maoz. In March 2012 the series curator, viola player Ayelet Lerman hosted a meeting with American, Madrid-based electronics innovator Wade Matthews and American- ...

Interview

Danilo Perez: Bridging Cultures and Dimensions of Jazz

by Victor L. Schermer
June 3, 2014

Whether with his own ensembles or as a sideman, Danilo Perez has long been an iconic jazz pianist, but above and beyond his success as a performer and recording artist, he has become a manifestation and symbol of cross-cultural dialogue. His music brings together mainstream and Latin influences in a unique way. He always brings something new into the mix, whether early on with Dizzy Gillespie, Jon Hendricks or Wynton Marsalis, his award-winning CD, Panamonk (Implulse, 1996), and more recently ...

Album Review

Christina Dahl: Life's Carousel

Read "Life's Carousel" reviewed by Chris Mosey

by Chris Mosey
June 2, 2014

Christina Dahl, wife of Carsten Dahl, Denmark's No. 1 jazz pianist, is that rare phenomenon: a woman saxophonist. She is a very forceful player, guilty perhaps, on occasion, of over- compensating for her femininity. Still, the saxophone has always tended to encourage extremes of expression, from the raucous, macho honking of rhythm 'n' blues men such as Earl Bostic and Jackie Brenston, through those Jazz At The Philharmonic “battles" between the giants of yesteryear, all the way ...

Mr. P.C.'s Guide to Jazz Etiquette and Bandstand Decorum

June 2014

by Mr. P.C.
June 2, 2014

Dear Mr. P.C.: I knew a singer once who couldn't read a note of music. But when she got lost she'd go over to the pianist and start pointing at his music as if he was lost and she was helping him. She even did it on TV once so everyone watching thought it was his fault. My question is for him, I'm wondering what he was supposed to do. --Singer's Tyranny Oppresses Pianist

Live Review

Live From Solihull, England: Jeff Barnhart, Jim Fryer & Martin Bennett

by Martin Longley
June 2, 2014

The Fryer-Barnhart International All-Stars Solihull Arts Complex May 19, 2014 Over the last 15 years, this has become a regular UK touring jaunt for the visiting Americans Jeff Barnhart (piano) and Jim Fryer (trombone), both of whom also sing their ample share of rousing songs. They latch onto a local Midlands group of seasoned players, then trot out to the festivals, also peppering their schedule with one-off dates. The English contingent are fronted ...

Album Review

Max Johnson: The Prisoner

Read "The Prisoner" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
June 2, 2014

NYC-based bassist Max Johnson already boasts an impressively strong discography, after just two entries: Quartet (Not Two, 2013) and Elevated Vegetation (FMR, 2012). With a new crew on board for The Prisoner, he tackles that hoary chestnut the concept album. Except of course that in the medium of jazz, this doesn't mean a string of banal lyrics squeezed into a narrative straitjacket, rather in this case a series of musical constructs inspired by the 1960s British TV series of the ...

Extended Analysis

Tim Garland: Songs To The North Sky

by Ian Patterson
June 2, 2014

So much of multi-reedist Tim Garland's recorded output takes nature as its inspiration. The eternal symphony of the sea, the theatre of sky, light and air and the vistas that have accompanied Garland's twenty plus years on the road are ever-present in his works; Songs to the North Sky is no exception. The first of two discs features Garland's Lighthouse project in tight quartet settings, while the second disc comprises “Songs to the North Sky"-- an epic orchestral suite that ...

Album Review

Angles 9: Injuries

Read "Injuries" reviewed by John Ephland

by John Ephland
June 2, 2014

What's to love about this CD is the musicality that's thrown into the maelstrom of styles and attitudes. You've got a hint of early, experimental jazz from the mid-60s with the opening number, “European Boogie" (think Bobby Hutcherson with Eric Dolphy or Archie Shepp, the vibes being paramount); that's until they all start into a kind of Tower of Power incantation. From there, it's a lot of well-mannered, outlandish rummaging, the nonet of Angles 9, led by saxophonist Martin Kuchen, ...