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

Jamie Reynolds: Counterpart

Read "Counterpart" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
April 1, 2014

The space between traditionalism and experimentalism is a tough place to live. The bulk of the attention usually goes to those who work at these polar extremes, either bowing to the altars of tradition or knocking them down with sledgehammers. Pianist Jamie Reynolds does neither when he writes and plays. Reynolds' debut--Time With People (Fresh Sound New Talent, 2012)--found him working out his own language and concepts within a piano trio setting. It wasn't a run-of-the-mill trio ...

New York Beat

Tribute To Sammy Nestico at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola

by Nick Catalano
April 1, 2014

On Monday March 24th Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola was the again the scene of a memorable big band concert from the Manhattan School of Music Concert Jazz Band under the direction of Justin DiCioccio. On the occasion of Sammy Nestico's 90th birthday, the director (who was a cohort of Nestico's in White House dance bands of the 60's and 70's) focused on the legendary charts that the famed composer/arranger wrote for the Count Basie Band from 1966-84. Beginning ...

Album Review

PJ Rasmussen: Another Adventure

Read "Another Adventure" reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard

by Jakob Baekgaard
April 1, 2014

There are many different ways to travel. While most people travel geographically, guitarist PJ Rasmussen likes to travel in sound. Another Adventure is the title of his second album and finds him, as the title implies, in an musically adventurous mood. “Full Speed Ahead" begins the journey with a larger than life guitar anthem that moves through different phases, ranging from a fast and heavily distorted guitar riff to adroit brass breaks, abstract avant- garde screeching and ...

Album Review

Ian Carey and Ben Stolorow: Duocracy

Read "Duocracy" reviewed by Jeffrey Uhrich

by Jeffrey Uhrich
April 1, 2014

Trumpeter Ian Carey and pianist Ben Stolorow shed all inhibitions and strip down to the bare essentials with their provocative new release, Duocracy. As seasoned veterans of the San Francisco Bay area jazz scene, Carey and Stolorow each have released critically acclaimed albums as leaders and began playing together while gigging in the Bay Area. The two decided on the duo format as the most expedient and inventive format, albeit risky, to explore their improvisational chemistry as musicians. The satisfying ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With Lena Bloch

by AAJ Staff
April 1, 2014

Meet Lena Bloch: Lena Bloch was born in Moscow and has studied music in Israel, Germany, and the United States where she earned a Master's of Music in Composition at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Since moving to the United States in 2003, Bloch has been a solist with the Vermont Jazz Big Band, the Ambassadors of Light, Vishnu Wood Quartet, and the Northampton Jazz Workshop. In 2008, Bloch moved to Brooklyn and has performed with notable artists like ...

Album Review

Adasiewicz - Erb - Roebke: Yuria's Dream

Read "Yuria's Dream" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
April 1, 2014

Experimental saxophonist Christoph Erb recorded this lone 43-minute track in Chicago with prominent improvisers and composers, vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz and bassist Jason Roebke amid a tour of the US. Here, the trio articulates an immense plane of perceptions, and if charted, may appear as a histogram that contains various deviations from the mean, when considering dips and spikes. The musicians embrace an in-depth improvisational forum, while occasionally abutting the fringes of minimalism. But they also delve into microtonal vistas with ...

Album Review

Nils Bo Davidsen: Noget at glæde sig til: Solooutburst In Various Frames Part I

Read "Noget at glæde sig til: Solooutburst In Various Frames Part I" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
April 1, 2014

Danish bassist Nils Bo Davidsen is a prolific musician in the vibrant Danish jazz scene who performed and recorded with such greats as John Tchicai, Dave Liebman, Tim Berne, Marc Ducret and Dr. Eugene Chadbourne. He led his own ensembles (Jazz til Tiden Ilk Music, 2011), collaborated with trumpeter Kasper Tranberg (zone Blue (Ilk Music, 2012) and experimented with various keyboards on his solo FaKIRGIRaF (Ilk music, 2013). In 2013 he decided to record himself playing ...

Interview

Ambrose Akinmusire: Painting Saviors

by DanMichael Reyes
March 31, 2014

Trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire (pronounced ah-kin-MOO-sir-ee) is as imaginative as the sonic soundscapes he creates and as informative as the titles that he bestows on his songs. Ambrose Akinmusire's allure stems from the complexity of his albums; a complexity that requires the listener to fully participate and engage with the artist and ask questions as to who the characters are, what events are taking place, and the emotions that the composer is trying to convey. This type of intricacy is the ...

Album Review

Nils Petter Molvaer: Switch

by John Kelman
March 31, 2014

Sometimes when forced into change, the best thing to do is toss what came before and shoot for something completely different. With Stian Westerhus leaving trumpeter Nils Petter Molvær's trio after three years of extensive touring and the sole, spectacular document Baboon Moon (Sula, 2011), Molvær's career--defined, since emerging in the mid-'80s with the acclaimed group Masqualero, by a restless drive for evolution and surprisingly regular revolution--was at a crossroad. If there's anything predictable about this spearhead to a new ...

Book Review

Dance of the Infidels: A Portrait of Bud Powell

by C. Michael Bailey
March 31, 2014

Dance of the Infidels: A Portrait of Bud Powell Francis Paudras 355 Pages ISBN: # 0-306-80816-1 Da Capo Press 1998 Pianist Earl Randolph “Bud" Powell (1924-1966) is one of jazz's brightest stars and most tragic figures. The new millennium has enjoyed a renewed interest in Powell, his life and art with Alan Groves and Alyn Shipton's Glass Enclosure: The Life of Bud Powell (Bloomsbury Academic, 2001), Peter Pullman's Wail: The Life of Bud ...