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

Quentin Angus: Perception

Read "Perception" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
May 13, 2014

Quentin Angus, a multi-award-winning Australian guitarist, follows up his 2011 debut recording, Retrieval Structure, with the ambitious Perception. Born in 1987, he still clocks in as a “young" artist, but his music is strikingly mature. An apt comparison is the monumentally talented guitarist Pat Metheny, with a broad vision and a penchant for grand statements and complex, layered arrangements. Angus, of course, has not reached a Metheny-esque level of artistry, but the groundwork-the foundation-is there. Perception is not ...

Extended Analysis

Jimmy Giuffre: New York Concerts

by Hrayr Attarian
May 13, 2014

Saxophonist and clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre was a first rate innovator who restlessly reinvented his art without losing its signature character. Despite leaving behind a large recorded legacy Giuffre remains far from being a household name known mostly in hardcore jazz aficionado circles. In 2012 producer Zev Feldman of Elemental Music came across two unreleased Guiffre tapes from 1965. Both were cut in New York at, now defunct, venues. Feldman was taken by the freedom of the music and ...

Album Review

Jeff Cosgrove: Alternating Current

Read "Alternating Current" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
May 13, 2014

The recipe for this album could be detailed as such: start with one inventive drummer, add two interconnected masters of wholly improvised music, throw a composition from Paul Motian into the pot, and let it all stir itself. Drummer Jeff Cosgrove's fascination with the music of Motian isn't a secret. As the man behind Motian Sickness, a band dedicated to shining a spotlight on Motian-as-composer, he drew attention to the late drummer's written work on The Music ...

Extended Analysis

Sarah Silverman: Sarah

by Geannine Reid
May 13, 2014

Vocalist and pianist Sarah Silverman was born into music, Silverman grew up surrounded by music from her parents; her father toured as a drummer with jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie and her mother performed as a classical violinist in Toronto. Silverman's musical and creative DNA showed itself at a young age, with effortless talents in theatre, dance, and of course, music. Silverman attended the Glenn Gould School of Music on scholarship, and earned her Bachelor's Degree in classical piano performance with ...

Album Review

Charlotte Glasson: Festivus

Read "Festivus" reviewed by Roger Farbey

by Roger Farbey
May 13, 2014

This exceptional album succeeds on several levels. First there's Glasson herself, an undeniably, prodigiously talented multi- instrumentalist whose diverse armamentarium would successfully rival that of Rahsaan Roland Kirk's, maybe substituting his stritch for her saw. The nine tracks here all benefit from Glasson's imaginative arrangements for which the word “quirky" would be hardly adequate. Glasson is accompanied by some excellent musicians including Chris Spedding who first made his name in the jazz world with the likes ...

Album Review

Sequoia: Rotations

Read "Rotations" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
May 13, 2014

Sequoia is an international, Berlin-based double bass quartet comprised of German Meinard Kneer, active on both the Dutch and Berlin improvisation scenes and the founder of Evil Rabbit Records; Klaus Kürvers, who initiated this project, a former architect and cultural historian and another player of the Berlin improvised scene; Canadian Miles Perkin, a frequent collaborator of French pianist Benoit Delbecq, and Italian Antonio Borghini, who studied with Joëlle Léandre and Barre Phillips. The quartet explores the multiple sonic possibilities of ...

Extended Analysis

GoGo Penguin: v2.0

by Phil Barnes
May 12, 2014

Dating the emergence of a cultural phenomenon such as house music in the UK is notoriously difficult. While the tabloid furore probably reached full force in 1988, most would accept that the rise occurred the year before with the first (acid house) 'summer of love.' By any reckoning a lot of time has passed since those days and it seems remarkable how few credible crossovers between jazz and dance music there have been since then. While the looseness of hip ...

Album Review

David Weiss: When Words Fail

Read "When Words Fail" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
May 12, 2014

"Where words fail, music speaks." Jana Herzen, head of Motema Music, shared this Hans Christian Anderson quote with David Weiss after the trumpeter had already titled his new record; the sentiment of that statement just happens to perfectly connect with this album. In 2013, loss seemed to hover around Weiss, his friends, and the jazz community at large. So, when faced with the cruel realities of life and death, Weiss did what any artist of great character ...

Album Review

Nat Birchall Quintet: Live In Larissa

Read "Live In Larissa" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
May 12, 2014

Two shows on the tiny stage of the Duende Jazz Bar in Larissa, Greece, in May 2013, form the basis for the Nat Birchall Quintet's Live In Larissa: a live album that provides a welcome and impressive addition to Birchall's discography.Birchall, a master of soprano and tenor saxophones who's based in the north west of England, has long been inspired by the music and spirituality of John Coltrane. The appearance here of Bill Lee's “John Coltrane" and Alice ...

Album Review

Dewa Budjana (with Jimmy Johnson & Vinnie Colaiuta): Surya Namaskar

Read "Surya Namaskar" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
May 12, 2014

For his seventh solo release, Indonesian guitar master Dewa Budjana garners support from the all-universe rhythm section of Vinnie Colaiuta (drums) and Jimmy Johnson (bass). Many of these works equate to a concentrated focus on song-forms, largely comprised of tuneful themes and elevated with a guts and determination modus operandi. Budjana presents the best of both worlds within a jazz rock and jazz fusion realm, where rich melodies and a dynamic slant offer a platform that resonates loud and clear. ...