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

12 Points 2014, Umea

by Henning Bolte
April 25, 2014

12 Points 2014 Umeå, Sweden April 10-12, 2014Umeå, 400 miles north of Stockholm at the Ume river and near the gulf of Bothnia, is the capital of Västerbotten County. The city is located on the plain coastal strip, with an enormous wide horizon on all sides, and everything in the city is within easy reach. The municipality, with about 117,000 inhabitants, is an important traffic junction for the northern region of Norrland, as well as the ...

Album Review

Peter Brendler: Outside The Line

Read "Outside The Line" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
April 24, 2014

Thirteen years after graduating from Berklee and over a decade into his career as a professional bassist, Peter Brendler has taken the plunge and released his first album as leader, Outside The Line. Look before you leap, as they say. Wise advice, if the quality of this debut is anything to go by.Brendler has already shown himself to be a bassist with a wide stylistic and dynamic range--powerful and hard-driving on Jon Irabagon's wild and wacky Foxy (Hot ...

Profile

EJ Park: Touching Us Softly with Her Song

by Victor L. Schermer
April 24, 2014

Her name is EJ Park. She's a young woman from Gwangju, South Korea. She disembarks from a plane in a city and country she's never been to before. She's a singer and pianist with a passion for jazz, and she's enrolled in the jazz master's degree program at the University of the Arts (UArts) in Philadelphia, PA, USA. She wants to be a successful vocalist. She doesn't know anyone, and no one here in the States ever heard of her. ...

Album Review

The Young Mothers: A Mothers Work Is Never Done

Read "A Mothers Work Is Never Done" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
April 24, 2014

Ingebrigt Håker Flaten reminds us that jazz is the musical equivalent of a dark star, a musical black hole, absorbing all musical energy and classifications. The Norwegian-born bassist-turned Austin, TX resident assembled a multi-genre sextet under the uncategorizable name The Young Mothers. Sure, let's not call this jazz, because it would alienate 99% of fans. But jazz, in truth, it is. The bassist has a taste for the extreme reaches of jazz. As a member of the Scandinavian ...

Live Review

Jazz in Church 2014, Bucharest, Romania

by Adriana Carcu
April 24, 2014

Jazz in Church Lutheran Church Bucharest April 3-6, 2014 The second edition of the Bucharest Jazz in Church Festival found the best way to establish a valuable musical tradition, not only in Romania, but also the wider, European jazz arena. Featuring musicians from France, Italy, UK, Switzerland, Poland and Hungary as well as Romanian artists, the organizers provided four days of solid musical substance and enticing creative diversity. By aptly ...

Album Review

Orquestra Jazz De Matosinhos: Jazz Composers Forum

Read "Jazz Composers Forum" reviewed by Chris Mosey

by Chris Mosey
April 24, 2014

In 1937 Duke Ellington's recipe for big band jazz was: “It don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that swing." Count Basie later added a caveat defining swing as something “you can really pat your foot by." Times sure have changed. Portugal's Orquestra Jazz de Matosinhos commissioned pieces by eight modern composers of big band music--four each from either side of the Atlantic--for their latest album and swing only rarely entered into the equation. Although something ...

Extended Analysis

Enrico Pieranunzi, Marc Johnson, Joey Baron: Play Morricone 1 & 2

by Gabriel Medina Arenas
April 24, 2014

Film lovers all over the world recognize Ennio Morricone as one of the best score composers of all time. His music has been used in more than 500 movies and TV shows. About 60 of them have won Oscars, Golden Globes, BAFTA awards and other honors. Enrico Pieranunzi, Marc Johnson and Joey Baron started a trio in 1984 and one of their most interesting projects has been to create and record jazz arrangements for some of Ennio Morricone's ...

Album Review

Thera Hoeijmans: Another Mile

Read "Another Mile" reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard

by Jakob Baekgaard
April 24, 2014

As a jazz singer, it always takes courage to sing your own songs. No one questions the quality of the familiar standards and there is also the aspect of tradition, knowing that the song can be phrased in a certain way. But sometimes singing your own songs becomes a necessity. Interpreting the works of other songwriters isn't enough for a singer who is also a songwriter. Thera Hoeijmans is a Danish jazz singer, but she is also ...

Album Review

KUU!: Sex gegen Essen

Read "Sex gegen Essen" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
April 24, 2014

KUU! is a new Berlin-based quartet comprised of actor- vocalist Jelena Kuljic and three acclaimed and experienced improvisers-- guitarist Frank Möbus, leader of the band Der Rote Bereich and frequent collaborator with Portuguese double player Carlos Bica, American drummer Jim Black, Finnish guitarist Kalle Kalima and drummer Christian Lillinger, leader of the GRUND group and member of Hyperactive Kid trio. Together the four aim to shake upside down the vibrant Berlin scene with a raw, thorny ...

Album Review

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

Read "Surya Namaskar" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
April 23, 2014

Guitarist Dewa Budjana's two releases on MoonJune Records in 2013, Dawai in Paradise and Joged Kahyangan introduced a talented musician whose Indonesian roots dovetailed with prog rock, jazz fusion and a melodic pop sensibility; Budjana showed tremendous chops but, as he demonstrates once again, he's perhaps primarily a tunesmith. Budjana draws from a similar well of influences on this recording but in contrast to Joged Kahyangan's charts Surya Namaskar boasts a freer, less constructed vibe with Budjana's solos coarser in ...