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

The Allman Brothers Band at The Beacon Theatre 2014

by Doug Collette
April 5, 2014

The Allman Brothers Band Beacon Theatre New York, NY March 21 & 22, 2014 Originally scheduled to be the final two shows of The Allman Brothers Band's 2014 Beacon Theatre run, those dates were subsequently superseded with the announcement of additional performances. However, the distinction returned to the Friday and Saturday shows when Gregg Allman's illness caused the rescheduling of the final four appearances. The founding member and vocalist/songwriter's absence from 3/21 and 3/22 would ...

The Mort Report

Septuagenarian is Not a Sexual Proclivity!

by Mort Weiss
April 5, 2014

Backstage at a concert I was doing a few years back, I heard the house announcer getting ready to bring me on, doing his thing. As I'm checking to see if my fly was zipped I heard the words (not in any particular order): jazz, clarinet, septuagenarian and Mort Weiss. I remember thinking--what the f**k? OK, I was asked to write something about a now-well-known little break I took from the scene for 40 years, and ...

Album Review

Dave Rempis / Lasse Marhaug: Naancore

Read "Naancore" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
April 5, 2014

When you've been through the desert on a horse with no name, as the 1971 song by the band America goes, it feels good to be out of the rain. Indeed, music crafted outside of genres and categories often evokes that horse with no name. This duo by Chicago saxophonist Dave Rempis and Oslo electronics/noise artist Lasse Marhaug reminds you that words can barely scrape the surface of this improvised noise. Unlike the “Horse With No Name," there is someone ...

Album Review

Nashville Jazz Orchestra: It Ain't Necesssarily So

Read "It Ain't Necesssarily So" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
April 5, 2014

This splendid debut recording by the Nashville Jazz Orchestra is subtitled “New Twists on Gershwin Classics." No argument there, starting with the picturesque “Cuban Overture" from 1932 and encompassing a trio of songs from the folk opera Porgy and Bess, which premiered three years later. Also on the bill of fare are the standards “But Not for Me," “Someone to Watch Over Me," “How Long Has This Been Going On" and the ambitious “Prelude No. 2," deftly arranged by Jamie ...

Album Review

Albatre: A Descent into the Maelstrom

Read "A Descent into the Maelstrom" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
April 5, 2014

Albatre is a Pan-European trio based in Rotterdam, comprised of two Portuguese living in this city--alto saxophonist Hugo Costa and bassist Gonçalo Almeida, member of the Portuguese Lama Trio--joined by German drummer Philipp Ernsting. The trio's debut offers its schizoid vision of free jazz on metal and punk steroids with electronic sonic neurosis. Albatre's aesthetics stick to a thick, distorted stew of fast beats, sudden mood shifts, frantic drumming, and urgent, brutal sax and bass outbursts. Surprisingly enough this explosive, ...

Live Review

37th Paradise Valley Jazz Party at Scottsdale Hilton Resort

by Patricia Myers
April 4, 2014

37th Paradise Valley Jazz Party Scottsdale Hilton Resort Scottsdale, Arizona March 22-23, 2014 An A-team of East Coast, West Coast and Arizona musicians played a mix of swing and bebop sounds in 14 jam-session-style sets at the 37th annual Paradise Valley Jazz Party. A special element at this party was the contrast in ages among the 23 musicians. Melissa Aldana is a 24-year-old New York City tenor saxophonist, and Los Angeles vocalist Melissa ...

Album Review

Jeff Kunkel: Meu Coracao Brasileiro

Read "Meu Coracao Brasileiro" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
April 4, 2014

Brazil never lets go once it's wrapped its arms around a musician. Pianist Jeff Kunkel discovered this firsthand. In 2007, Kunkel, the Coordinator of Jazz Studies at Montclair State University's Cali School of Music in New Jersey, took a sabbatical and took off to see Brazil for himself. The experience was life-changing, and he's since returned there several times to musically mingle with his newfound friends. Meu Coracao Brasileiro is the result of Kunkel's experiences with the ...

Extended Analysis

Alexander Hawkins: Step Wide, Step Deep

by Phil Barnes
April 4, 2014

The effortless and precocious ability shown by British pianist Alexander Hawkins to step between the jazz tradition and music more associated with free improv makes for a heady brew on this thrilling collection. While it is arguable that the genres are far from mutually exclusive the ability to make accessible music from that which is often viewed as 'difficult' is rare and deserves to be better known outside of his homeland. This album retains only guitarist Otto Fischer ...

Album Review

Antonio Adolfo: Rio, Choro, Jazz...

Read "Rio, Choro, Jazz..." reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
April 4, 2014

For the more casual fans, Bossa Nova is the Brazilian contribution to music. But there's more than that, and a background from which the popularization of Brazilian sound began in America via saxophonist Stan Getz' teamings with Joao Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim on Getz/Gilberto (Verve Records, 1963) and guitarist Charlie Byrd for Jazz Samba (Verve Records, 1962). Going deeper, and further back before the days of Bossa Nova, is pianist Antonio Adolfo on Rio, Choro, Jazz..., for ...

Live Review

So Cal Jazz 2013: Highlights and a Serious Low

by Chuck Koton
April 4, 2014

Azar Lawrence Quartet RG Club Venice, CA January-September 2013 2013, already slipping deep into the fog of forgetfulness, had its share of memorable jazz moments here in Southern California. And while, according to the Western, as well as the Chinese calender ( Happy Year of the Horse!), this review and these expressions of gratitude (as well as a few well deserved outbursts of contempt), may be tardy, for the Persian followers of All About Jazz, ...