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

Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra: The L.A. Treasures Project

Read "The L.A. Treasures Project" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
April 3, 2014

For nearly thirty-years now the Grammy-nominated Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra (CHJO) has been easily recognizable as one of the best big bands in the business. Led by bassist John Clayton, saxophonist and brother Jeff Clayton and drummer Jeff Hamilton, the group embarked on a mission to document their various rehearsals with West Coast vocal legends Ernie Andrews and Barbara Morrison, and do so with The L.A. Treasures Project recorded live in the famous Showroom of Alva's Dance Studio and Music Store ...

Album Review

Mike Rud: Notes On Montreal

Read "Notes On Montreal" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
April 2, 2014

Do you have to be intimately familiar with a specific locale and its literary representations and intimates in order to appreciate music that's inextricably linked to it? Guitarist Mike Rud's Notes On Montreal raises that question, but it's a question that can never truly be answered. For it's up to each individual artist to find a way to appeal to in-the-know audiences while also catering to a broader segment of people who may know little or nothing about the place(s) ...

Interview

Getting To Know Ras Moshe

by Dom Minasi
April 2, 2014

Ras Moshe is not a name most people are familiar with. If you listen to straight ahead jazz you probably wouldn't know Ras. Now if you go to some of the 'downtown' performances in New York City and Brooklyn you probably have seen him play. I heard him ten years ago playing Tenor Sax at the Sunday Night Avant Series hosted by Dee Pop at the now defunct CBGB'S. I listened very intensely because many feel free form players are ...

Album Review

Tchicai - Kohlhase - Fewell - McBee - Hart: Tribal Ghost

Read "Tribal Ghost" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
April 2, 2014

Of all the collaborations in the later years of legendary reedman John Tchicai, some of the most fertile were in the company of guitarist Garrison Fewell, whether under the Dane's leadership like One Long Minute (NuBop, 2012) and Big Chief Dreaming (Soul Note, 2005) or in undocumented appearances with the guitarist's Variable Density Sound Orchestra. Joining the pair on Good Night Songs (Boxholder, 2006), Boston-based saxophonist Charlie Kohlhase completed a formidable unit. For the week long engagement at New York's ...

Book Review

Being Here: Conversations On Creating Music

by Sammy Stein
April 2, 2014

Being Here: Conversations On Creating Music Radhika Philip 461 pages ISBN: 13:978-0-989-488006 Radhio.org 2013 Imagine having conversations with a large, diverse group of jazz musicians; old and young, both those who have been around for years and those relatively new to the scene. Radhika Philip has done just that, and documented their reflections in her book. The interviews were carried out in various places, including Philip's home, musicians' homes and various locations ...

Album Review

Steve Cardenas: Melody in a Dream

Read "Melody in a Dream" reviewed by Gabriel Medina Arenas

by Gabriel Medina Arenas
April 2, 2014

Melody in a Dream is a humble tribute to Steve Cardenas' mentors and music heroes. The Kansas City guitarist who moved to New York City in 1995 pays his respects to figures like late piano genius Thelonius Monk, avant-garde drummer Joey Baron(who is his sideman in this album), the deceased drummer Paul Motian and pianist Horace Silver. This is the fourth Cardenas solo album, who was a member of Paul Motian Electric Bebop Band for several years, as ...

Extended Analysis

Lina Nyberg: The Sirenades

by Eyal Hareuveni
April 2, 2014

Swedish vocalist Lina Nyberg's new album The Sirenades, her 16th since her debut twenty years ago, is her most ambitious project to date. The title word she invented derives from three words--Sirens, the ancient Greek ones who deceive you and make you forget your mission; Sirens, the long warning horns at war time and Serenade, a song to perform for someone you love--reveals much about Nyberg's innovative and highly personal art. It is playful and whimsical but also thoughtful and ...

Album Review

Nick Levinovsky: Special Opinion

Read "Special Opinion" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
April 2, 2014

Legendary Russian pianist, composer/arranger Nick Levinovsky delivers a masterpiece of an album on Special Opinion superbly supported by friend, saxophonist Igor Butman and his Moscow Jazz Orchestra. The leader offers a non-traditional session of music presenting a taste of Funk, fusion, jazz-rock, a tinge of psychedelic and yes, even good old contemporary straight ahead stuff--all in one varied package of big band music. Though now based in New York, where he lives with wife, singer Kathy Jenkins, since 1983 Levinovsky ...

Album Review

Mike Pinder: The Promise / Among The Stars

Read "The Promise / Among The Stars" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
April 2, 2014

As a founding member of The Moody Blues, keyboardist, percussionist and vocalist, Mike Pinder put the electro-mechanical tape replay keyboard instrument, mellotron on the map. He also composed several classics for the band, including “Melancholy Man" and “How Is It (We Are Here)," as his musicality inspired other artists and ensembles during the advent and glory days of progressive rock. Enjoying a rapid rise to stardom, he ended his decade-long tenure with The Moody Blues in 1978. Yet ...

Mr. P.C.'s Guide to Jazz Etiquette and Bandstand Decorum

April 2014

by Mr. P.C.
April 1, 2014

Dear Mr. P.C.: How do you decide how many choruses to take? -- Long Solo Dave Dear LSD: How do you decide how many miles to drive? How much meat to eat, how many lights to turn on, how often to flush the toilet? When it comes to drawing on non-replenishable resources, all you can do is balance your needs against the greater global good. You see, the operative word ...