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

Georgi Petrov: Lost Originals

Read "Lost Originals" reviewed by Chris Mosey

by Chris Mosey
March 30, 2014

Georgi Petrov, a guitarist from Bulgaria, has been resident in the US for eight years, the last two in New Orleans. His debut album, he says, “reflects a personal struggle with creating my own music and at the same time being sincere with myself. Artists come under great pressure to fit a certain framework and sometimes that makes you doubt yourself and your art. In a sense I feel lost and I am not secure that my ...

Album Review

Reconnaissance Fly: Flower Futures

Read "Flower Futures" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
March 30, 2014

Vocalist, flautist Polly Moller concocted the premise for this album based on collections of Internet-based spam poetry, or as the press release states, “spoetry." It's quite kooky, yet thoroughly engaging. Slight comparisons to small ensemble Frank Zappa, largely from a lyrical standpoint, come to fruition as the band performs with a theatrical flair, and an ideology that could be framed on a soundtrack for a guileful Off-Broadway production. They merge a consortium of unruffled, breezy jazz passages amid brusque unison ...

Album Review

Nils Davidsen: Noget at glæde sig til: Solo Outburst In Various Frames Part I

Read "Noget at glæde sig til: Solo Outburst In Various Frames Part I" reviewed by Henning Bolte

by Henning Bolte
March 30, 2014

Now and then a heavy instrument with low and deep resonance can sound very light; now and then a series of freely combined tones can nonetheless have a strong melodic feel; and now and then very mobile playing can sound tranquil. The double bass is a heavy, low register instrument, but in the hands of some musicians it can be turned into singing wood and curved air. All this applies to the music on this solo outing from Danish bassist ...

Interview

Nicky Schrire: On Songs, Spaces And Places

by Dan Bilawsky
March 29, 2014

What defines power? That's a tough question to answer in general, and an even harder one to figure out when it comes to the world of music. For in music, a whisper may carry greater weight than a roar, an honest gesture can outdo a demonstration of brute strength and technique, and a direct message to the heart can mean more than a shot of adrenaline aimed at the same place. It's the sonorous David-topples-Goliath scenario, where vocalists with strong ...

Album Review

Alexander Hawkins Ensemble: Step Wide, Step Deep

Read "Step Wide, Step Deep" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
March 29, 2014

As he did on his fine solo piano release Song Singular (Babel, 2014), Alexander Hawkins takes his newly formed ensemble on a path that blurs the perceptions of composition and free improvisation. Step Wide, Step Deep floats free of implications and becomes its own entity. The ensemble establishes a rich and unique setting, sometimes disquieting, sometimes melodic but in all cases providing a dialog that resonates in content and in how that content is conveyed. Despite the ...

Extended Analysis

Differential Equations: Jeff Platz / Kit Demos / Fabio Delvo / John McLellan

by Dave Wayne
March 29, 2014

Those drawn to free improvised music can attest to the appeal of the style: the constant flow of ideas and the crackling energy of instantaneous musical interactions. When an improvising band is “on," you know it. What you're hearing is the sound of others listening intently and responding in the moment. Heavily dependent on group chemistry, the success or failure of a free improvising group hinges on the ability of its members to participate in a sort of give-and-take that ...

Album Review

Christy Doran's Bunter Hund: Walkin' The Dog

Read "Walkin' The Dog" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
March 29, 2014

Whilst many 64-year-olds look forward to retirement, Switzerland-based Irish guitarist Christy Doran on the other hand has been kicking into creative overdrive. No.9 (Leo Records, 2013) was a beguiling duo date with Chinese pipa virtuoso Yang Jing, while Mesmerized (Double Moon records, 2013) saw Doran's long-running post-rock group New Bag rejuvenated by the exhilarating vocal presence of Sara Buechi. “I don't think art should have borders or containment," Doran told All About Jazz in a 2013 interview, “there's still a ...

Live Review

Fred Hersch at Miner Auditorium

by Harry S. Pariser
March 29, 2014

Fred Hersch Miner Auditorium, SFJazz Fred Hersch Solo at SF Performances San Francisco March 8, 2014 No stranger to San Francisco, pianist Fred Hersch has been a frequent guest of SF Performances, having last performed here in 2011 when he presented My Coma Dreams, an evening-long work for eleven instruments with a singing actor and multimedia and animation effects at Herbst Theater. (It is based on a real life experience in 2008.) San Franciscan ...

Album Review

Tyler Blanton: Gotham

Read "Gotham" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
March 29, 2014

New York City is the Mecca for musicians, jazz and otherwise. Tributes to the metropolis meet with varying degrees of success. Guitarist/vocalist Lou Reed captured the mood and tone of the big city with his finest recorded outing, New York (Sire Records, 1989). Saxophonist Bob Belden, via his quintet called “Animation," gave the town a menacing hue on his Transparent Heart (101 Distribution, 2012). But the best of the tributes may be vibraphonist Tyler Blanton's Gotham.Blanton is a ...

Album Review

Jakob Buchanan Quartet: Some People & Some Places

Read "Some People & Some Places" reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard

by Jakob Baekgaard
March 29, 2014

Music is invisible. Notes can't be seen as they flow from the instrument and into the ether and yet, as intangible as music is, it is also able to create portraits that embody some of the elusiveness of the past. Danish trumpeter Jakob Buchanan possesses the unique quality of being able to transfer complex emotions into sound. Like an archeologist, he digs deep into the forgotten emotional layers of the past and transforms them into poignant paintings ...