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.

Live Review

Tinariwen at Mali Fest

by Harry S. Pariser
May 6, 2014

Tinariwen Nourse Theater Mali Fest San Francisco April 19, 2014 “A divided people will never reach its goal It will never cultivate an acacia tree with beautiful leaves A divided people will lose its way Each part of it will become an enemy in itself"--Toumast ("The People") Tinariwen. The name means “The Deserts," after the region from which these Touareg performers hail. For the Touareg, who inhabit vast expanses of ...

Extended Analysis

Vote For Vein: Three People Can't Be Wrong!

by Dave Wayne
May 6, 2014

Working in a piano trio these days, it's really quite hard to stand out with so many amazing players in the piano trio biz. Think about it. You have to compete with The Bad Plus, Satoko Fujii, Keith Jarrett, The Dawn of Midi, Vijay Iyer, Marcus Roberts, and a zillion other innovative and talented musicians using the exact same instrumentation. Yet, for all of the activity in this particular area there's always a new piano trio on the horizon with ...

Album Review

The Daniel Rosenboom Quintet: The Daniel Rosenboom Quintet: Fire Keeper

Read "The Daniel Rosenboom Quintet: Fire Keeper" reviewed by Mike Oppenheim

by Mike Oppenheim
May 6, 2014

Fire Keeper, the debut album from the Daniel Rosenboom Quintet, exemplifies the vast possibilities for contemporary jazz artists. The album is undeniably jazz, with extensive improvisations and complex compositions, orchestrations and harmonies found in few other genres. The quintet is also unabashedly rooted in other contemporary genres. Progressive rock, as heard in the overdriven electric guitars, power chords and aggressive drumming, with additional influences from funk, contemporary classical and experimental music are major elements of the Quintet's sound. The compositional ...

Album Review

Michael Dessen Trio: Resonating Abstractions

Read "Resonating Abstractions" reviewed by Robert Bush

by Robert Bush
May 6, 2014

Michael Dessen is a slide-trombone virtuoso and computer musician of the highest order, and the music his trio crafts on Resonating Abstractions showcases his work as a composer in compelling fashion. Key to this success are the contributions from singular double-bassist Chris Tordini and the multi-rhythmic drums of Dan Weiss. Together they realize and expand the structures of Dessen's vision, aided by the live-sampled or algorithmic electronics on roughly half the tracks. “Grid After Grid," opens ...

Live Review

Jazzkaar 2014

by John Kelman
May 5, 2014

Jazzkaar 2014 Tallinn, Estonia April 16-28, 2014 Any opportunity to return to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia in Eastern Europe, is one worth grabbing. Beyond the somewhat surreal feeling of being in a country that, just 23 years ago, was a completely different place, Tallinn is, quite simply, one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, with an old town separated from modern Tallinn by high walls that were once fortifications but now act as everything ...

Album Review

Sonny Rollins: Road Shows, Vol. 3

Read "Road Shows, Vol. 3" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
May 5, 2014

Look beyond harmony, go past technique, and pay no mind to personality. When you do all of that, Sonny Rollins still remains one of the greatest improvisers to ever wield an instrument. And why is that? The answer is simple: Rollins is forever in a state of becoming. He's the rare player who doesn't play towards a destination; he plays for the journey, and his journeys are epic and legendary. While that's hardly news to any longtime ...

Album Review

Kahil El'Zabar Ritual Trio: Follow The Sun

Read "Follow The Sun" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
May 5, 2014

It is safe to state that the percussionist Kahil El'Zabar has never made a mediocre or a mundane album and Follow the Sun is no exception. On this intriguing and provocative disc El'Zabar leads his group through five originals and four covers that he interprets with his signature, fluid touch.Oscar Hammerstein II's heartsick standard “Softly As In A Morning Sunrise" gets a raw yet sophisticated makeover as El'Zabar and bassist Junius Paul lay down rumbling, intricate vamps. Over ...

Live Review

Fatoumata Diawara at Nourse Theater

by Harry S. Pariser
May 5, 2014

Fatoumata Diawara Nourse Theater Mali Fest San Francisco, CA April 18, 2014 A buzz was in the air among those assembled at San Francisco's Nourse Theater for the first night of Mali Fest, a set of two concerts which featured two distinct acts. This initial evening headlined the multitalented singer, songwriter, musician and actress Fatoumata Diawara. Born in the Ivory Coast but raised in Mali (where her family belongs to the royal caste), Diawara ...

Live Review

Amanda Martinez at Joe's Pub

by Ernest Barteldes
May 5, 2014

Amanda Martinez Joe's Pub at the Public Theater New York, NY May 2, 2014 On her debut New York appearance in celebration of her third CD Mañana (the first to get a full US release (Sola Records, 2014), Canadian singer-songwriter Amanda Martinez took to the stage with a spirited rendition of “Va Y Viene," the opening track from the disc. She followed that with “Cada Uno Vive," a flamenco-tinged tune from the ...

Album Review

Seamus Blake and Chris Cheek: Reeds Ramble

Read "Reeds Ramble" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
May 5, 2014

As leader of the 1995 funky, alternative/electronic music group The Bloomdaddies, saxophonist Seamus Blake released the band's debut album Bloomdaddies (Criss Cross 1110, 1996) that included fellow reed man Chris Cheek among the personnel. Twenty-years later, after forging independent careers as sidemen, big band soloists and leaders of their own groups, on Reeds Ramble, Blake and Cheek reunite once again in a jazz outing that lays down 'their' version of the oft used term “tenor madness." There's a slight double ...