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

Jon Lundbom and Big Five Chord: Liverevil

by Dave Wayne
June 2, 2014

Blessed with one of the most talented and exciting backing bands in jazz today, guitarist Jon Lundbom returns with a mammoth 2-CD live epic. Liverevil captures the band in performance on their hometown stomping grounds, Brooklyn Fire Proof, in front of a rightfully enthusiastic crowd. Easily able to sustain interest over the course of a double album, Lundbom and Big Five Chord mix up their program of open-ended original jazz compositions with a set of traditional Wiccan prayer songs and ...

Album Review

Max Johnson Quartet: The Prisoner

Read "The Prisoner" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
June 2, 2014

Double bassist Max Johnson's new suite The Prisoner is inspired by the futuristic British cult TV series from the end of the sixties by the same name. This series was a source of inspiration for many artists, among them The Clash, Iron Maiden, and avant-garde sound artist David Shea. New York-based Johnson assembled a quartet of like-minded improvisers--tenor saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, viola player Mat Maneri, and drummer Tomas Fujiwara, all in powerful performances--for an updated sonic meditation on the themes ...

Extended Analysis

John Mayall: A Special Life

by Doug Collette
June 1, 2014

Redoubtable and self-motivated as ever Just shy of his eightieth birthday, John Mayall recorded an album with his current band late in 2013 that suggests in no uncertain terms he remains as potent a blues musician as the members of his group merely half his age. He titled A Special Life with the same knowing understatement he writes, plays and sings (and renders the cover art as well). That's not to say there's much profound in the material ...

Album Review

Jangeun Bae: JB

by Ian Patterson
June 1, 2014

Since her debut, The End and Everything After (Kang Music, 2006), Korean pianist Jangeun Bae has largely followed her personal muse, writing original compositions and reworking Korean folk tunes, with the occasional jazz standard thrown in for good measure. She's also refashioned Mozart on Mozart and Jazz (Universal Music, 2007) and recorded with saxophonist Greg Osby. JB--Bae's second release on Osby's Inner Circle Music label--sees the pianist fronting two trios, and playing standards as well as four self-penned tunes.

Album Review

Howard University Jazz Ensemble 2013: A Tribute to Donald Byrd

Read "A Tribute to Donald Byrd" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
June 1, 2014

When Fred Irby III took the reins as director of the Howard University Jazz Ensemble in 1975, one of his earliest and most pivotal decisions was to usher the ensemble into a recording studio once each year to produce an album designed to offer a musical vignette of its proficiency at that point in time. From 1976-88 the albums were vinyl; since then, they've been recorded annually on compact disc. On their latest enterprise, HUJE 2013, Irby and the ensemble ...

Extended Analysis

Grateful Dead: Dave's Picks Volume 10 Thelma, Los Angeles CA 12/12/1969

by Doug Collette
June 1, 2014

One of the great virtues (and there are many) of the Grateful Dead's archiving projects is that research regularly unearths 'lost' recordings about which little or nothing may be known but that, when brought to the light of day, fill in crucial links in this iconic group's history that further illuminate their evolution. Dave's Picks Volume 10, like the so-called 'Houseboat Tapes' that comprise Dick's Picks #35 (Grateful Dead, 2005), is just such a title, with its first ...

Album Review

Marko Djordjevic & Sveti: Something Beautiful

Read "Something Beautiful" reviewed by John Ephland

by John Ephland
June 1, 2014

Drop the “needle" down anywhere on Something Beautiful and you're likely to find ... something beautiful. There's some hidden spirit that carries this music along from track to track as drummer/composer Marko Djordjevic takes his merry band of four (when it's not a trio) through 12 hearty originals, all of them Djordjevic's. After listening to two new ones from Jimmy Cobb and Louis Hayes, “Heart Bop" hearkens back to those rough-and-ready days, in a sense setting the stage ...

Interview

On the Bus with Ronan Harris: Classical to Futurepop and Everything in Between

by Christine Connallon
June 1, 2014

The tour bus that ferries about and serves as home base for a band of internationally known musicians is surprisingly pristine and neat. The air conditioning is on full blast giving the space a delightful chill against the late spring humidity. Only a lone bottle of sriracha sauce sits on the kitchen counter, waiting for a meal to break out. Ronan Harris, the vocalist and mastermind behind the electronics and lyrics of the powerhouse duo VNV Nation rushes ...

Album Review

Kidd Jordan & Hamid Drake: A Night In November - Live in New Orleans

Read "A Night In November - Live in New Orleans" reviewed by Dave Wayne

by Dave Wayne
June 1, 2014

Hard to believe, but A Night In November--Live in New Orleans is the first drums / saxophone duet recording by legendary New Orleans free jazz saxophonist and educator Kidd Jordan. He's accompanied by a true kindred spirit, Hamid Drake. Though both have made names for themselves in the rarefied world of free improvisation, neither are shy about their roots in more traditional forms of jazz, blues, soul, and R&B. Jordan, now almost 80 years old, is a remarkable figure whose ...

Album Review

Peter Van Huffel/Michael Bates/Jeff Davis: Boom Crane

Read "Boom Crane" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
June 1, 2014

Berlin-based saxophonist, composer Peter Van Huffel is the lead voice on Boom Crane's debut outing, featuring the dynamo rhythm section of New York residents, bassist Michael Bates and drummer Jeff Davis. As one would anticipate, the saxophonist imparts his creatively focused, restless nature into the grand schema. He's a mover and shaker via his unwieldy theme- construction exercises, spiked with off-center time signatures and animated voicings, often flanked with iron-fisted chutzpah and exceptional fluency. Hence, the musicians go full steam ...