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

Peter Brötzmann / Peeter Uuskyla: Dead And Useless

Read "Dead And Useless" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
April 4, 2014

Nothing new, just better. Let me rephrase that, Dead And Useless is not a new recording by saxophonist Peter Brötzmann and drummer Peeter Uuskyla, it was taken from the 2006 Born Broke (Atavistic, 2008) session and was the second disc of a 2-CD set. It is, though, remastered here as a loving vinyl release (somewhere Mats Gustafsson is drooling) that is also available as a single CD with the artwork, as is now de rigueur, by the artist Peter Brötzmann.

Album Review

Tom Cox & Bill Huntington: Red

Read "Red" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
April 4, 2014

Former House Speaker Tip O'Neill once said, “All politics is local." The same can be said of music, particularly when considering that music so close to home it is often missed. Little Rock-native Tom Cox teaches jazz piano and jazz combo after having taught at the Cleveland Music School Settlement and Akron University's Firestone Conservatory of Music and performed with Freddie Hubbard and Cannonball. Bassist Bill Huntington was part of the Hurricane Katrina diaspora that included noted New Orleans guitarist ...

Album Review

Minibus Pimps: Cloud to Ground

Read "Cloud to Ground" reviewed by Nenad Georgievski

by Nenad Georgievski
April 4, 2014

Characterized by gloom and intricacy, the music on Cloud to Ground by Minibus Pimps is like a set of sonic hallucinogens that permeate deep in the mind. Minibus Pimps is a brainchild of Supersilent's Helge Sten and Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones, and the result is a creation that is deeply abstract, complex, austere and is virtually unclassifiable. Ever since the demise of Led Zeppelin, judging by JPJ's releases, collaborations, production or arranger duties, it is evident that ...

Interview

Maria Schneider: Going Her Own Way

by Victor L. Schermer
April 3, 2014

Maria Schneider is widely considered one of the finest contemporary band leaders, composers, and arrangers. For two decades, The Maria Schneider Orchestra has generated excitement and sometimes surprise, at club dates, concerts, and festivals and with GRAMMY-winning records on the ArtistShare label, where Schneider pioneered in the process of commissioning recordings by giving subscribers an inside look at the creative process. Recently, her venture into classical music with the recording, Winter Morning Walks (ArtistShare, 2013), featuring soprano Dawn Upshaw and ...

Album Review

Xavier Reija: Resolution

Read "Resolution" reviewed by Mark F. Turner

by Mark F. Turner
April 3, 2014

Like the classic game Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots where the goal is to literally knock the other opponent's head off, Catalan drummer/composer Xavi Reija delivers plenty of head-banging good times in his power trio date Resolution. Yet this isn't your typical fusion-esque recording as it takes some unexpected detours from the progressive-rock idiom with its panache and methodology. A graduate from Berklee School of Music's class of 1999 and widespread activity in Barcelona's eclectic music scene, ...

Multiple Reviews

Swedish indie label Volenza relaunches

by Chris Mosey
April 3, 2014

At the age of 82, Torgil Rosenberg has decided that the time has come to take a back seat in the running his Swedish independent jazz label Volenza. “It's time for a new generation to take over," he says, “My future role in the company will be a purely advisory one." Daughter Lovisa and son Johannes have taken over the running of Volenza, with pianist Jan Lundgren tasked with finding and recording new talent, ...

Album Review

Roscoe Mitchell/Tony Marsh/John Edwards: Improvisations

Read "Improvisations" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
April 3, 2014

Not content with existence as a cutting edge venue for experimental music of all kinds, London's Cafe Oto has also launched its own record label OTOroku, documenting some of the stellar performances in the space. For their sixth release, they have selected material drawn from a 2 day residency by renowned AACM and Art Ensemble of Chicago reedman Roscoe Mitchell. In a continuation of a favorite Oto tactic of matching acclaimed guests with the cream of local improvisers, Mitchell meets ...

Extended Analysis

Alex LoRe Trio: Dream House

by Florence Wetzel
April 3, 2014

Dream House is the excellent debut release by the Alex LoRe Trio, nearly an hour of beautiful music from LoRe on alto sax, Desmond White on bass, and Colin Stranahan on drums. LoRe hails from Florida, and in addition to formal studies at New England Conservatory of Music and Manhattan School of Music, he's worked with a number of luminous saxophone mentors, including Lee Konitz, James Moody, Steve Wilson, and the venerable Bunky Green. LoRe has been paying his dues ...

Album Review

Mattias Ståhl Trio: Jag Skulle Bara Gå Ut

Read "Jag Skulle Bara Gå Ut" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
April 3, 2014

The rebirth of the vibraphone as a tool for creative music making has been a long time coming. Like the clarinet, it had to lose its nerdishness to gain acceptance. Artists like Jason Adasiewicz, Matt Moran and the Swedish-born Matthais Ståhl are making the vibes as relevant today as the mid-sixties and 1970s work of Khan Jamal and Bobby Hutcherson. Like the revival of the clarinet from the likes of Chris Speed, Ken Vandermark, and Don Byron, the ...

Album Review

Jon Di Fiore: Yellow Petals

Read "Yellow Petals" reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard

by Jakob Baekgaard
April 3, 2014

The attraction of a flower is more than its appearance at first sight. Each petal in a flower represents a nuance that adds to the fascination of the flower as a whole and so it is with drummer Jon Di Fiore's album Petals. Every composition on the album is penned by DI Fiore and reveals different aspects of his artistry and taken as whole they form an organic unity. Fiore finds inspiration from many sources: classical music, ...