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.

Interview

Daniel Rosenboom: Fire Keeper

by Fiona Ord-Shrimpton
May 7, 2014

To say Daniel Rosenboom is no ordinary jazz trumpeter, is no exaggeration. His father, David Rosenboom is currently Dean, Richard Seaver Distinguished Chair in Music at the California Institute of the Arts (and has been at CalArts since 1990), and having a first trumpet teacher in the form of Wadada Leo Smith, where others may have rebelled to the surfscape or gone full Charlie Sheen, Daniel is confidently fulfilling his destiny to boom loud and boom proud. Catching ...

Album Review

Brenda Earle Stokes: Right About Now

Read "Right About Now" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
May 7, 2014

Is Brenda Earle Stokes primarily a vocalist, a composer, or a pianist? That's an unanswerable question if ever there was one. The marketplace typically forces artists to list their chief credential first, making it easier to categorize and pigeonhole them, but that's a problem for Stokes; she's equally talented in all three areas, as demonstrated throughout Right About Now. This album marks Stokes' return to recording after a five year hiatus. During that time, her life, outlook, ...

Extended Analysis

Andre Canniere: Coalescence

by Phil Barnes
May 7, 2014

Coalescence is the perfect title for this engrossing collection from Andre Canniere. The idea that our experiences and influences become absorbed into a larger whole works on many levels both personal and musical. Some would have us believe that true originality in these post-modern times comes only through the juxtaposition of the different elements and influences into new combinations and shapes. That is, of course, debatable and turns on the old 'nature or nurture' argument--the extent to which we have ...

Extended Analysis

Juhani Aaltonen: To Future Memories – The Music of Antti Hytti

by Dave Wayne
May 7, 2014

Can anyone just decide, on a whim, to take up an instrument and simply become a working musician anymore? That's precisely what Juhani Aaltonen did as an eighteen year-old living in the town of Inkeroinen, in central Finland back in the early 1950s. Apart from a year of study at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, and a semester at Berklee (where he worked with Herb Pomeroy), Aaltonen is that rarest of all birds: a self-taught master musician who learned directly ...

Album Review

Marcos Pin and Yago Vazquez: Marcos Pin: Duology

Read "Marcos Pin: Duology" reviewed by Mike Oppenheim

by Mike Oppenheim
May 7, 2014

Duology: Session 1 features the duet playing of guitarist Marcos Pin and pianist Yago Vazquez. The album is a tour through some of the most popular jazz standards. The duo format and individual talents of Pin and Vazquez bring a life and energy to the tunes, revealing the depth and potential in even the most frequently heard standards.The album consists of Charlie Parker's “Donna Lee" and “Dewey Square," Thelonious Monk's “Blue Monk," Jerome Kern's ever-present “All the Things ...

Album Review

1982: A / B

by Eyal Hareuveni
May 7, 2014

The fourth album of the Norwegian improvisational trio 1982-- Hardanger fiddler and violinist Nils Økland, organist Sigbjørn Apeland, and drummer Øyvind Skarbø--feature this original outfit of two different sides, just like in the classic LP format. The A side offers an improvised out-take from the trio 's 2009 Pintura album session (Hubro, 2011). Composer-trumpeter Stian Omenås, a close friend of Skarbø, wrote an arrangement for wind sextet that expanded on the original improvised idioms, later layered ...

Album Review

Bobby Avey: Authority Melts From Me

Read "Authority Melts From Me" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
May 7, 2014

Former Thelonious Monk competition winner, pianist Bobby Avey has been creating a buzz in the jazz community based on the strengths of his three previous solo outings. Yet Authority Melts From Me is his first quintet led outing, inspired by his respect for the people of Haiti and the slave revolt, leading to the country's independence from France in 1804. Here, Avey aligns with a mega-talented supporting cast who respectively add their distinctive voices to his intricately designed oeuvres via ...

Album Review

André Fernandes: Wonder Wheel

Read "Wonder Wheel" reviewed by Chris Mosey

by Chris Mosey
May 7, 2014

André Fernandes, guitarist with the Orquestra Jazz De Matosinhos, one of Portugal's most dynamic big bands, is an accomplished musician and was obviously hoping for great things with this one. He commissioned Maria Bouza Pinto, an artist who is the epitome of “ le cool Lisboa“ to design the cover. And he recruited Ines Sousa from the up-and-coming rock band Julie And The Carjackers to handle vocals. So far, so good, but at this point Fernandes forgot ...

Album Review

Humble Origins: Humble Beginnings

Read "Humble Beginnings" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
May 6, 2014

The opening of the group Humble Organism's Humble Beginnings, “Hello Jansen," with its big bright organ wash and prowling bass, a rumbling set of drums laying down a backdrop, seems to say: “Kick back, baby. You're gonna get in the groove with some organ jazz." And it doesn't sound “humble." To the contrary, its a brash sound the group crafts. Rock energy, soulful grooves, a tasty guitar from Hans Luchs that rips into the shredding category quite often.

Album Review

Glenn Zottola: Clifford Brown Remembered

Read "Clifford Brown Remembered" reviewed by Nicholas F. Mondello

by Nicholas F. Mondello
May 6, 2014

The trumpet is a cruel--yet loving--mistress. It can announce the slightest executional blemish, instantly betraying its player's most sincere efforts, while also allowing its lover to express every possible nuance and emotion. The greatest Masters of the instrument in jazz--Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Chet Baker and others--all could brilliantly deliver expressive emotion. Of those in the trumpet's pantheon, Clifford Brown, by virtue of his genius and enhanced by his mythology, stands out. Any attempt by a trumpeter to emulate Clifford ...