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

Opus 5: Progression

Read "Progression" reviewed by Andrew Luhn

by Andrew Luhn
May 18, 2014

In the world of jazz the quintet is an established tradition. The standard quintet format has been one of the most common throughout the history of the music. It's a hard format to mess up, but it's an even harder format in which to stand out. On their most recent recording, Progression, Opus 5 stands out as a group rooted in tradition but always exploring possibility. Aesthetically the group follows in the spirit of some of the ...

Album Review

Mikolaj Trzaska/ Devin Hoff/ Michael Zerang: Sleepless In Chicago

Read "Sleepless In Chicago" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
May 18, 2014

With Poland proving such a welcoming venue for so many of Chicago's finest, it's no surprise to see a little quid pro quo from time to time. Reedman Mikołaj Trzaska, one of his country's most forward thinking players, has collaborated with various visiting Americans, most notably Joe McPhee and Ken Vandermark, but it is as a member of the latter's Resonance Ensemble that he may be best known. The two side long cuts on the LP Sleepless In Chicago each ...

Album Review

The Jim Butler Group: Postcards from the World

Read "Postcards from the World" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
May 18, 2014

Saxophonist and band leader Jim Butler is a veteran musician who splits time between his home town of San Francisco and Tokyo and with the appropriately- titled Postcards from the World, delivers an audacious set of modern jazz blending select standards with fresh new material marking his group's fourth album together. Having led The Jim Butler Group on tours around the country, in Asia and the Middle East the past ten years, the album is in a sense, the culmination ...

Album Review

Mário Franco Trio: Our Door

Read "Our Door" reviewed by Gabriel Medina Arenas

by Gabriel Medina Arenas
May 18, 2014

Our Door, the debut album from the Mário Franco Trio, is lush with nostalgia and camaraderie, but also creates a vibrant breath of fresh air, offering hope for the present and future states of Portuguese jazz. These gifted musicians met at the end of the 80's in Lisbon's Hot Clube de Portugal, one of the oldest jazz clubs in Europe. As emerging players, they learned the unique syncopated genre there, since it is also a music school, where ...

Album Review

Daniel Lercher / Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø: TH_X

by Eyal Hareuveni
May 18, 2014

Austrian sound artist Daniel Lercher and Norwegian experimental trombonist Henrik Munkeby Nørstebø, known for his collaborations with Swedish double bassist Nina de Heney and drummer Raymond Strid, first met in the Czech republic in 2010. The two took part in the 30-piece Czech-Norwegian- Austrian improvisers orchestra and decided to keep working together. They devised the pieces on their debut project, TH_X, for a series of concerts in Trondheim in 2011 and revisited and recorded these pieces a year later.

Live Review

All Star Tribute to Ralph MacDonald at Holy Cross College

by Nigel Campbell
May 17, 2014

Etienne Charles with his All Star Band Jazz on D Hill Holy Cross College Arima, Trinidad May 11, 2014 On a picturesque plateau above the town of Arima overlooking the distant Caroni plains on the island of Trinidad, the Holy Cross College Alumni produced a jazz event for the ages--Jazz on D Hill-- featuring an All Star Tribute to Ralph MacDonald on Mother's Day, May 11. The music of the late ...

Film Review

The Who: Sensation - The Story of Tommy

by Doug Collette
May 17, 2014

The Who Sensation-The Story of Tommy Eagle Video 2014 In a reflection of the dynamism of their stage presence, Sensation -The Story of Tommy jumps back and forth between a history of the early Who and the seeds of inspiration that, in combining guitarist/composer Pete Townshend's ambition, encouragement from co-manager Kit Lambert and the exploratory creativity of the late Sixties, ignited a not so spontaneous combustion of rock and roll art that was Tommy.

Album Review

Marc Ribot Trio: Live at the Village Vanguard

Read "Live at the Village Vanguard" reviewed by Troy Collins

by Troy Collins
May 17, 2014

Renowned Downtown guitarist Marc Ribot has performed with everyone from famed roots producer T Bone Burnett to avant-garde legend John Zorn. Ribot's own efforts as a bandleader have been equally eclectic, ranging from the freewheeling Latin jazz excursions of Los Cubanos Postizos to the Albert Ayler-inspired no wave assault of Shrek. In 2004 Ribot formed Spiritual Unity, a quartet dedicated to exploring Ayler's legacy, with trumpeter Roy Campbell, drummer Chad Taylor and most significantly, bassist Henry Grimes, who (prior to ...

Live Review

Moody Blues at the NYCB Theatre At Westbury

by Mike Perciaccante
May 17, 2014

Moody Blues NYCB Theatre in Westbury Westbury, NY May 7, 2014 The Moody Blues is an English rock band that was among the first groups to fuse rock and pop with classical music. The band's 1967 album Days of Future Passed (Derem Records, 1967) is considered by many to be the precursor to progressive rock and one of the classic albums of the rock era. Although best known today for the lush psychedelic-era ...

Album Review

Paul Bley: Play Blue

Read "Play Blue" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
May 17, 2014

Pianist Paul Bley, born in 1932, began his jazz career in the 1950's, working with every one from saxophonists Charlie Parker, Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Sonny Rollins, and Ornette Coleman, as well as clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre and trumpeter Chet Baker, and more legends of the time than can be listed here. He has, under his own name, made over a hundred recordings, in every style. The most often mentioned of these scores of recordings are two solo piano sets for ...