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

Leslie Pintchik: In the Nature of Things

Read "In the Nature of Things" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
March 26, 2014

Pianist Leslie Pintchik takes advantage her her New York home base on her recordings by enlisting some of the city's most innovative musicians to help her share her vision. On previous three CD releases Pintchik has sculpted a seductive sound that combines the cerebral with engaging and beautiful, much in the mode of piano legend Herbie Hancock. And here, on her In the Nature of Things she treads softly on more of a Hancock influence, that of his exceptional 1968 ...

Album Review

John La Barbera Big Band: Caravan

by Jack Bowers
March 26, 2014

Summoning Juan Tizol's travel-worn “Caravan" to raise the curtain on a big-band album poses a challenge for any arranger, one that John La Barbera easily brushes aside on the third recording as leader of his own ensemble. And while “Caravan" dazzles in La Barbera's capable hands, it is merely the opening salvo in a session that smolders from end to end, clearly rivaling and and some ways even trumping his Grammy Award-nominated debut album, On the Wild Side.

Book Review

Pops – The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong by Terry Teachout

by C. Michael Bailey
March 26, 2014

Pops--The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong Terry Teachout 508 Pages ISBN: # 1906779562 Aurum Press 2014 Critic Terry Teachout published his biography of Louis Armstrong, Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) in 2009, republishing it under the present title of Pops--The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong in Kindle and hardcover format. Qualitatively, the biographies are the same. Teachout as biographer has benefitted from all previous Armstrong reportage plus recently ...

Album Review

N.E.W.: Motion

by Mark Corroto
March 26, 2014

The candy known as Reese's peanut butter cups ran an advertisement for years where two snackers feigned and argument that went something like; “you got your peanut butter in my chocolate!" followed by “no, you got your chocolate in my peanut butter!" The parties ultimately agreed that these two flavors, taste great together. Same can be said for the trio N.E.W. of drummer Steve Noble, bassist John Edwards and guitarist Alex Ward. Their flavors of rock and improvised jazz merge ...

Album Review

Jeff Ballard Trio: Time's Tales

Read "Time's Tales" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
March 26, 2014

World-class drummer Jeff Ballard (Chick Corea's New Trio, Brad Mehldau Trio) goes above and beyond the call of duty on his first album as a leader. Celebrated for his modern jazz drumming, spanning bop and the outside spectrum, he expands his wares on this eventful trio release by flawlessly engineering a consortium of high-spirited pieces. With Ballard's esteemed associates, saxophonist Miguel Zenon and guitarist Lionel Loueke, they frame the jazz idiom on Afro-Cuban, Caribbean, classical and other stylistic genre-hopping forums. ...

Live Review

The Necks at the Bishopsgate Institute

by Phil Barnes
March 25, 2014

The Necks Bishopsgate Institute London March 21, 2014 The Necks live are a different beast to their studio incarnation. In the studio the mixing desk becomes almost a fourth member of the band with, using the recent Open album as an example, contributions being faded in and out or panned across the stereo image to enhance and fine tune the soundscape. Live, however, you get the full visceral experience unmitigated by clever production and, in ...

Album Review

Christine Tobin: A Thousand Kisses Deep

Read "A Thousand Kisses Deep" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
March 25, 2014

A Thousand Kisses Deep brings together Christine Tobin's voice, Leonard Cohen's songs, a bunch of Premier League musicians and superb arrangements. What's not to like? Nothing. There's absolutely nothing not to like. Tobin is blessed with a distinctive, expressive, voice. She's also an artist who pursues her own vision with an admirable determination--and who isn't afraid to risk comparison with some of the finest writers of the modern era. That vision has seen her re-imagining Carole King's classic ...

Album Review

Joel Harrison & Anupam Shobhakar Multiplicity: Leave the Door Open

Read "Leave the Door Open" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
March 25, 2014

If but a single word must describe guitarist/composer Joel Harrison it's restless; one look at his discography, from his “breakthrough" Free Country (ACT, 2003) to the 19-piece big band of Infinite Possibility (Sunnyside, 2013) and it's clear that this Guggenheim Fellowship Award winner isn't content in any one place for long. Leave the Door Open may be his first album of 2014--and yet another departure, this time exploring an improv-heavy kind of world music sourced from the East and West ...

Interview

John Edwards Double Bass Man

by Sammy Stein
March 25, 2014

When John Edwards plays his double bass, he is extraordinarily engaging. He plucks, tweaks, bows, hits and hums aloud. So engrossed is he that it is difficult to look away. One memorable gig, I overheard a member of the audience say “ It's almost pornographic what he does with that bass." I first came across Edwards whilst watching him as part of a trio in London. I kept finding myself watching this incredible musician, completely absorbed ...

Profile

Carleen Anderson: At Home in London

by John Wesley Reed Jr.
March 25, 2014

One of the most powerful vocalists today is Carleen Anderson, the “2013 Jazz FM UK Vocalist of the Year." Amy Winehouse once said, “For live performances, you absolutely have to see Carleen Anderson at least three times in your life!" Amy confessed while sitting in on one of Ms. Anderson's soundchecks; Carleen sang “Don't Look Back In Anger," it brought her to tears (Amy Winehouse: One Shining Night, 2006). Born in Houston, Texas on May 10, 1957, Carleen ...