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.

Genius Guide to Jazz

A Brief, Yet Largely Incomprehensible, History of Blue Note

by Jeff Fitzgerald, Genius
March 24, 2014

In future generations, when the story of Our Music is told, there will certainly be a short list of absolutely necessary items which must be mentioned for any complete understanding of the birth and growth of Jazz. It is almost easier to determine what does not belong on the list than what does. To narrow it down to the essentials, I pictured the Cliff's Notes of the Reader's Digest Condensed version of Jazz history. To that end, I ...

Live Review

Charles Lloyd at the Musical Instrument Museum

by Patricia Myers
March 23, 2014

Charles Lloyd and Sangam Musical Instrument Museum Phoenix, Arizona March 9, 2014 Saxophonist Charles Lloyd, who has continually reinvented his musical style since the late 1960s, delivered a deluge of sound and rhythm changes in a spell-binding concert that integrated avant-garde jazz with elements of Asian and Eastern European music. Performing with tabla master Zakir Hussain and percussionist Eric Harland, the acoustic union known since 2004 as Sangam created free-flowing invention. Lloyd, 75, ...

Album Review

Donald Edwards: Evolution Of An Influenced Mind

Read "Evolution Of An Influenced Mind" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
March 23, 2014

Donald Edwards is one of those drummers that seem to be taken for granted. He's constantly being called upon to support others, shaping moods and grooves on record for everybody from saxophonist Dayna Stephens to trombonist Conrad Herwig to vocalist Carolyn Leonhart, but he's largely avoided being in the spotlight. He's only released two other leader dates in his two-plus decades as a professional drummer, and both records went largely unnoticed. Now, after serving as a sideman on a half ...

Album Review

Sam Boshnack Quintet: Exploding Syndrome

Read "Exploding Syndrome" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
March 23, 2014

Intrepid trumpeter and composer Samantha Boshnack's Exploding Syndrome is one of those delightful, surprising discoveries that makes writing about jazz so rewarding. The explorative and intriguing record balances innovation with a strong melodic sense and the intimate ambience of the quintet with a definite dramatic flair. The three part “Suite for Seattle's Royal Court," that forms the thematic focal point of the disc, exemplifies these contrasting yet complimentary trends well. The intense cinematic first movement opens with the ...

Interview

The Feeling: Creative Control Again

by Christine Connallon
March 23, 2014

Sitting in the plush lobby of a Lower East Side hotel of New York City, Dan Gillespie- Sells and Richard Jones blend right in to the crowd, so much so that I walked past them lounging around a table with two tea pots, near a roaring fire without recognizing them. When I set myself up at another table and brought out a notebook, Gillespie- Sells figured I must have been their 5:30 interview and came over to collect me. Deliciously ...

Album Review

The Lalama Brothers: Erie Avenue

Read "Erie Avenue" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
March 23, 2014

The Lalama brothers have logged plenty of miles in the jazz world, but Erie Avenue, so named for the street where the brothers grew up in West Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, is the first record they've ever put out together. Pianist Dave Lalama has worked with everybody from drum titan Buddy Rich to vocal icon Anita O'Day, and he currently helms Hofstra University's jazz program. Saxophonist Ralph Lalama is a talented leader, sought after sideman, and mainstay in the ...

Album Review

Bernie Worrell: Elevation: The Upper Air

Read "Elevation: The Upper Air" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
March 23, 2014

Alert Manfred Eicher, somebody has stolen one of his pianists! Certainly in a blindfold test, most listeners would mistake Elevation: The Upper Air for a release by ECM Records, probably identifying the pianist as Marcin Wasilewski or Tord Gustavsen before ever guessing it was by one of the founders of Parliament/Funkadelic, Bernie Worrell. But there it is. Gasp. A solo acoustic piano outing by the keyboardist that fueled the music of George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Rolling Stones, Talking ...

Album Review

Cecilia Persson: Open Rein

Read "Open Rein" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
March 23, 2014

Swedish pianist and composer Cecilia Persson is best known for her work in vocalist Lina Nyberg's band and with PAAVO the band she leads with vocalist Sofia Jernberg. Open Rein is Persson's debut as a solo artist, featuring a set of impressive originals. The release solidifies her status as a promising composer, improviser and bandleader, already recognized as such by Swedish Radio, who awarded her the Jazzkatten prize as the composer of the year and the Norrbotten Big Band, that ...

Extended Analysis

Tom Guarna: Rush

by John Kelman
March 23, 2014

With his five recordings on Steeplechase since 2005's Get Together, it's hard not to think of him as a dyed-in-the-wool mainstreamer, but Tom Guarna's extracurricular activities tell a completely different story. He may love big fat hollowbody guitars and the Great American Songbook, but Guarna's work with George Colligan on Realization (Sirocco, 2005) and the stylistically broader Runaway (Sunnyside, 2008) demonstrate a purview reaching farther afield than his admittedly fine straight-ahead recordings as a leader. Even more revealing ...

Album Review

Dominic J Marshall Trio: Spirit Speech

Read "Spirit Speech" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
March 22, 2014

Dominic J Marshall has clearly absorbed a lot of influences in his 24 years. The pianist, born in Scotland and now resident in Amsterdam, brings many of them to Spirit Speech, the third album by his trio. Hip-hop, jazz, classical, folk: it's a disparate bunch and while it isn't exactly chalk and cheese there's still a risk that mixing them all together could create something unpalatable. Marshall neatly sidesteps the risk. Spirit Speech is proud of its influences but never ...