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.

Book Review

Straight Life – The Story of Art Pepper by Art and Laurie Pepper

by C. Michael Bailey
May 29, 2014

Straight Life--The Story of Art Pepper Art and Laurie Pepper 506 Pages ISBN# 0306805588 Da Capo Press 1996 Writer's Note: Straight Life--The Story of Art Pepper is 35-years old and is a well-established piece of jazz reportage not requiring further comment, which has never stopped me. I have written this piece for a two-fold reason: one, to provide All About Jazz some commentary original to the magazine, and to anticipate Laurie Pepper's long ...

Album Review

Elektrojazz: Cars

by Jakob Baekgaard
May 29, 2014

It was Paddy McAloon from the British pop band Prefab Sprout who famously made fun of the fascination with cars and girls on the hit “Cars and Girls," but, indeed, there is a grain of truth behind the joke. Many pop songs are in fact love songs about girls, but what about the cars? A singer-songwriter like Bruce Springsteen has eulogized life on the road in many of his songs, but it is a rare experience to hear a tribute ...

Album Review

Dusan Jevtovic: Am I Walking Wrong?

Read "Am I Walking Wrong?" reviewed by Dave Wayne

by Dave Wayne
May 29, 2014

As guitar-based fusion albums go, Am I Walking Wrong? is an auspicious and mature debut recording by the Barcelona-based, Serbian- born Dusan Jevtovic. What's immediately apparent is that Jevtovic places soloing on equal footing with composing, while sound, ambiance, motivic development, and the very way in which an improvisation fits into a composition takes precedence over prodigious displays of guitar chops. Of course, there's plenty of the latter to be had on Am I Walking Wrong?. But it all fits ...

Live Review

Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville 2014

by Mike Chamberlain
May 28, 2014

Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville Victoriaville, Quebec, Canada May 15-19, 2014 Victoriaville, Quebec is a town of some 40,000 two hours east of Montreal, a regional center known for the sober pursuits of dairy and wood production. For the past three decades (beginning in 1983), the town has also hosted one of the world's most renowned festivals of adventurous music, the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, or Victo, as it is popularly ...

Album Review

Arturo O'Farrill & The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra: The Offense Of The Drum

Read "The Offense Of The Drum" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
May 28, 2014

The Offense Of The Drum may be the least cohesive record in Arturo O'Farrill's discography, but that's largely by design. Here, O'Farrill firmly adheres to his stated “artistic vision"--"to bend what the world knows as Afro Latin jazz over the acoustic horizon"--better than anywhere else in his discography. Guests galore and a belief in Afro Latin camaraderie help him realize that goal, resulting in the most intriguing and expansive offering that he's ever released. In some ways ...

Album Review

Sax Appeal: Funkerdeen

Read "Funkerdeen" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
May 28, 2014

Three decades since it was established, by leader and alto player Derek Nash, the UK's Sax Appeal still retains the fire and enthusiasm of youth--and a five saxophone front line that's more than capable of translating that energy into a big, bold, crowd-pleasing sound. Funkerdeen is the band's sixth album. As the title suggests, funk is to the fore, but there's also more than a hint of Latin, smooth '80s soul-jazz and a little bit of New Orleans.

Film Review

Im Pavillon

by Eyal Hareuveni
May 28, 2014

Phil Minton / dieb13 Im Pavillon PanRec 2013 The mini DVD feature the complete duo concert of British vocal artist Phil Minton and Austrian turntables master dieb 13 (aka Dieter Kovačič}, filmed at the Music Unlimited Festival 23, Wels in Austria in November 2009. PanRec, a video label that focuses on jazz and improvised music, already dedicated a whole documentary film to the festival, Unlimited 23 (2011). Minton has been a frequent performer ...

Album Review

Steve Lehman: Mise en Abîme

Read "Mise en Abîme" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
May 28, 2014

Composer/saxophonist Steve Lehman's credentials are as unique as his music. A Fulbright scholar with a PhD in composition, his on the job training has been at the hands of a diverse group of teachers including saxophone legends Jackie McLean and Anthony Braxton. A New York native, Lehman garnered widespread praise with the groundbreaking Travail, Transformation and Flow (Pi Recordings, 2009) and he returns with the same octet on Mise en Abîme. Lehman continues to apply a scientific approach to his ...

Album Review

Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard: Sikorsky

Read "Sikorsky" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
May 28, 2014

Sikorsky is an ambitious and highly original orchestral piece for 18 musicians--8 clarinets, 4 drum kits, 4 double basses, trumpet and the alto sax of its composer and arranger, Danish, Copenhagen-based Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard. As on his previous release Vesper (2012), Løkkegaard is fascinated with the sound of clarinets and the sound of a closely-voiced clarinet ensemble plays a major role on his fifth release. The title of the 30-minute composition is associated with the sound ...

The Mort Report

My Final Report

by Mort Weiss
May 28, 2014

I stood there at graveside in the cold morning mist, collar of my dark blue, (but not too warm coat) turned up-in an effort to--ahh hell, I don't know--I saw it in a film noir flick once--let's just say--that it looked appropriate for the occasion--"the occasion"? The laying to rest of my mother-my mother of soul-of laughs-of tears (the very same that I'm drowning in as I write this bit of text about my mother who I never thought that ...