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

Håkon Stene: Lush Laments for Lazy Mammal

Read "Lush Laments for Lazy Mammal" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
April 29, 2014

Lush Laments for Lazy Mammal is an exception in the catalogue of the Norwegian label, Hubro Music, but so is the art of percussionist Håkon Stene. Unlike other releases of the acclaimed label, the music does not draw inspiration from improvised music, modern jazz or fusion, prog and post-rock, but it offers distinct meditative compositions by British contemporary composers Laurence Crane and Gavin Bryars, and new original work commissioned by and featuring Norwegian pianist Christian Wallumrød, that corresponds with the ...

Jazz Near Me

Rare Songbird at Lafayette Bar in Easton

by Gloria Krolak
April 29, 2014

Rara avis Michelle Glick was heard warbling recently in her natural habitat, a no-jive, real-live jazz bar. Also known as Easton PA's Lafayette Bar, a tavern that counts more beards and berets than baseball caps, she was coaxed out of her self-enforced retirement by owner Tunsei Jabbour. Tunsei (pronounced Tahn-sigh) promised her back-up by the Rich Messbauer Trio, including Messbauer on bass, Joe Battaglia on guitar, Ron Glick on drums, and the deal was done. The two Glicks ...

Album Review

Melphi: Through The Looking Glass

Read "Through The Looking Glass" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
April 28, 2014

Melphi is a Dutch quartet, named for the character of Dr Jennifer Melfi, the psychiatrist in The Sopranos. Through The Looking Glass is the band's first album (available only as a download). Alice went through the looking glass: into a fantastic world where nothing was as it seemed and strange, menacing characters appeared as if from nowhere. A mobster's shrink, a young Victorian girl's journey into a dreamlike fantasy. Put them together and what's the result? Nothing strange, nothing menacing--just ...

Live Review

Celebrating Sun Ra at the Painted Bride Art Center

by Victor L. Schermer
April 28, 2014

The Warriors of the Wonderful Sound and the Sun Ra Centennial Arkestra The Painted Bride Art Center “Still the New Thing" Philadelphia, PA April 19, 2014 This concert concluded a tripartite series curated by saxophonist, band leader, and composer/arranger Bobby Zankel entitled “Still the New Thing" honoring three icons of avant- garde jazz: Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, and Sun Ra on the occasions of their birth dates and anniversaries of key events in their ...

Album Review

Daunik Lazro / Joëlle Léandre: Hasparren

Read "Hasparren" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
April 28, 2014

Whether one rates a free improv album or not can be notoriously subjective, depending as much on the listener's mood as any musical attribute. So when a recital comes along by two of France's most adventurous musicians where everything seems to just click, it's worth teasing out what makes it such a success. Let's be clear, it's not background music. To get the most from it requires some concentration. Perhaps headphones. That way the near perfect interaction between Daunik Lazro's ...

Multiple Reviews

Rejoice - Three New Ivo Perelman Discs

by Mark Corroto
April 28, 2014

Just think what could have been if artists like Jimmy Lyons or Albert Ayler were recording today. We might have had the ability to witness their development and observe how creative music gets nudged in new and different directions. That's exactly the gift we're given with the proliferation of recent Ivo Perelman recordings. The São Paulo-born, resident of Brooklyn whose initial influences were Stan Getz and Paul Desmond has (along with Matthew Shipp) extended the avant-garde innovations of the 1960s ...

Album Review

Mats Gustafsson/dieb13/Martin Siewert: Fake The Facts: Soundtrack

Read "Soundtrack" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
April 28, 2014

Stripped to its core, music is communication. It is the accompaniment to life's movie. The first fabulists, our cavemen ancestors probably invented music by imitating the sounds of nature, such as bird calls, wolf howls, and the patter of rain on the cave's entrance. The pleasure delivered by that experience caused several members of the cavemen's tribe to give up hunting-and-gathering for a steady gig as musicians. Fast forward twenty thousand years and with noted music in place, our Bird, ...

Extended Analysis

George Bouchard: Listen To Your Dreams

by Geannine Reid
April 28, 2014

Saxophonist George Bouchard was born and raised in Buffalo, New York. Bouchard completed a degree in Economics at the University of Buffalo and then joined the Navy where he was a musician in the service for the next four years. During this time, Bouchard completed the Berklee School of Music correspondence course in arranging. After the Navy, Bouchard earned a Master's Degree in Composition from Memphis State University and began his college teaching career immediately upon graduation. Bouchard is a ...

Album Review

Dalia Faitelson: As The World Sleeps

Read "As The World Sleeps" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
April 28, 2014

Danish, Israeli-born vocalist-songwriter and guitarist Dalia Faitelson calls her new collection of original songs--all born in the still, dark hours of night, the times that dreams are born--"a kinky jazz salute to Marlene Dietrich." In a way, Faitelson, like Dietrich, reinvents herself. Leaving aside her world music project Pilpel to acknowledge the formative influence of songwriters like Joni Mitchell and Tom Waits, but channeling such influences through an intimate, cool acoustic jazz setting. Faitelson is accompanied ...

Album Review

The Nels Cline Singers: Macroscope

Read "Macroscope" reviewed by Troy Collins

by Troy Collins
April 27, 2014

Macroscope is a first for guitarist Nels Cline's ironically named band, The Nels Cline Singers, in more ways than one. The group's four previous albums were released by the notoriously adventurous Cryptogramophone label, so it is somewhat surprising to see the amplified power trio's latest endeavor issued by the relatively mainstream Mack Avenue imprint. More importantly, it is the first recording to feature Trevor Dunn in place of original bassist Devin Hoff, and although it is a novel detail, The ...