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.

Extended Analysis

Diane Schuur: I Remember You (With Love to Stan and Frank)

by Victor L. Schermer
May 9, 2014

Diane Schuur is that rare songbird who is equally competent as a jazz singer and a pops entertainer. While some vocalists go with more lucrative popular music and some take the road of the jazz artist in the pure sense, Schuur is able to straddle the two careers. Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole had a superb grasp of the jazz idiom, but they made the decisive choice to become entertainers. By contrast, Chris Connor, Betty Carter, and Johnny Hartman ...

Multiple Reviews

Furthering The Flute In Jazz: Holly Hofmann and Bill McBirnie

by Dan Bilawsky
May 9, 2014

Long gone are the days when the flute was only seen as a jazz novelty or a saxophonist's double. Once upon a time you could count the number of notable jazz flautists on a hand (or two), but the ranks have swelled a little bit over the years, and those leading the charge today aren't content with working the same exact angles as their predecessors. An ambitious crop of flute players are out there shaking things up ...

Album Review

Michael Fischer / Marcos Baggiani: bAgg*fisH

Read "bAgg*fisH" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
May 9, 2014

The duo bAgg*fisH--Austrian saxophonist and violinist Michael Fischer, and Amsterdam-based Argentinian drummer Marcos Baggiani began working together in 2003. The two were determined to redefine the sonic options of such a duo, blurring the conventional distinctions between muscular free jazz, post-rock, psychedelic dramas and noisy outbursts. The duo's music is wrapped in an experimental, risk-taking envelope, mischievous, driving rhythms, and poetic resonance. Both Fischer and Baggiani are experienced improvisers--Fischer conducts the Vienna Improvisers Orchestra and Baggiani ...

Live Review

Stephan Crump's Rosetta Trio at Constellation

by Hrayr Attarian
May 8, 2014

Stephan Crump's Rosetta Trio Constellation Chicago IL May 3rd 2014 For a little over a year drummer Mike Reed's Constellation has served as a refuge for fans of adventurous music who were left “orphaned" after the death of Chicago Jazz doyen, saxophonist Fred Anderson and the demise of his original Velvet Lounge. The new venue, with its perfect, resonant acoustics, has hosted a wide variety of explorative musicians from various genres. It was here; in ...

Album Review

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

Read "Boom Crane" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
May 8, 2014

Pity the neighbors of the jazz trio Boom Crane. It's not that their garage band approach to music making is off-putting or offensive, it's that the ferocity of their approach is just so demanding. Saxophonist Peter Van Huffel's New York trio of Michael Bates (bass) and Jeff Davis (drums) release this, their inaugural recording, as a purely leaderless effort. Each player contributes music here, and thankfully the engineer has mixed the sound to feature this egalitarian trio. The ...

Album Review

Sara Serpa & André Matos: Primavera

Read "Primavera" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
May 8, 2014

A little bit of magic is evident in the recording Primavera by the Portuguese-born-now-New Yorkers Sara Serpa and André Matos. Not magic as in sleight of hand or illusion, but magical as in enchanting and, indeed, spellbinding. The musical pair, also wife and husband, created this duo recording with the help of some of their own overdubs (again, not a trick) and a few guests. Serpa, whose seemingly uncomplicated vocal style, mates both wordless sounds with sung lyrics ...

Extended Analysis

Henrik Otto Donner and TUMO: And It Happened...

by Dave Wayne
May 8, 2014

As a fanatical music consumer whose obsessive focus on modern jazz from places outside of the United States has become a source of bemused perplexity for my friends and family, I am always a little embarrassed when I encounter an artist whom I should have known about many years ago. Henrik Otto Donner is one such artist. I only found out about him a couple of years ago when I won a copy of his first recorded collaboration with saxophonist ...

Live Review

Orquesta Aragon at San Francisco State University

by Harry S. Pariser
May 8, 2014

Orquesta Aragon McKenna Theater San Francisco State San Francisco April 20, 2014 A San Francisco April sunny Easter Sunday had a number of events going on. The Sisters of the Perpetual Indulgence were holding their legendary Easter Pageant in Golden Gate Park, and marijuana enthusiasts were convening on a hill in Golden Gate Park. But an even headier event was taking place a few miles to the south at San Francisco State University's ...

Album Review

Rasmus Nyvall Kvintett: Bangård

Read "Bangård" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
May 8, 2014

Swedish, Malmö-based saxophonist Rasmus Nyvall plays in local young jazz bands Makross, {Det är inte så lätt, Havtorn, 2012), and SaliBambra. But on his solo debut, Bangård (Rail yard in Swedish}, he wanted to expose the artistic freedoms of jazz bands to a wider audience. Nyvall wrote lyrics in Swedish to eight songs for a quintet, the core of this project, all delivered by the warm and beautiful voice of Linda Bergström, and added four movements for a wind quartet. ...

Album Review

Awakening Orchestra: Vol. 1: This Is Not the Answer

Read "Vol. 1: This Is Not the Answer" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
May 8, 2014

Connecticut native Kyle Saulnier is both a life-long student and a working teacher of jazz. The multi-instrumentalist and composer leads the 20-piece Awakening Orchestra's debut, This Is Not the Answer and it is as rare an achievement as Carla Bley's historic Escalator Over The Hill (ECM, 1971). The latter work--more jazz-operetta in orientation and prescribed in its thematic flow--nevertheless shares many similar elements and the Awakening Orchestra has created no less of a monumental event. Subtitled, “Of Conflict ...