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.

Extended Analysis

The Nels Cline Singers: Macroscope

by Matt Marshall
March 18, 2014

With the release of this album by The Nels Cline Singers, Detroit's Mack Avenue Records takes a bold leap into the outer fringes of jazz. Their impressive slate of artists already included the likes of Kenny Garrett, Sean Jones and Christian McBride, who are open to pushing jazz boundaries, but the label had no one who goes as far afield as guitarist Cline. In fact, it's probably best to think of Cline, whether leading the Singers or any of his ...

Album Review

MoFrancesco Quintetto: Maloca

by Ian Patterson
March 18, 2014

Italian bassist Francesco Valente's fascination with the culture of Brazil inspired the title of this album. A moloca is an Amazonian ancestral longhouse and a habitat for sharing knowledge, stories and music. In this case, the communal home is his adopted Lisbon and Valente's family is a multi-national quintet whose musical ancestors have bequeathed the jazz vernacular in all its global diversity. Together, the musical narratives that the MoFrancesco Quintetto shares draw from traditional and contemporary jazz, Iberian folkloric flavors ...

Extended Analysis

Red Norvo: Four Classic Albums

by David Rickert
March 18, 2014

Red Norvo played the vibes while leading his own band during the swing era and grew into smaller groups in the forties and fifites once the practicality of leading a large ensemble became too much. He was one of the first to specialize of what has always been somewhat of an unusual instrument for jazz, but his nimble soloing and chords provided a template for others like Milt Jackson to follow. The four sessions collected here are from his fifties ...

Album Review

The Puppeteers: The Puppeteers

Read "The Puppeteers" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
March 18, 2014

For six years, until May 2011, Puppet's Jazz in Brooklyn hosted sessions by many fine jazz musicians. Four of those musicians, including the club's co-founder, drummer Jaime Affoumado, come together on The Puppeteers, a collection of tunes inspired by hard bop, Latin, funk and many other welcome influences. The club may no longer be around, but its legacy lives on in The Puppeteers and their excellent self-titled debut album.From the familiar opening phrase of bassist Alex Blake's “On ...

Extended Analysis

China Moses: Crazy Blues

by Mehdi El Mouden
March 18, 2014

Pouring old wine into new bottles has become a specialty of vocalist China Moses and Pianist/Arranger Raphael Lemonnier. Rejuvenating classics with a pint of spirited innovation is a landmark of the duet, who, for their first encounter revisited the best of Dinah Washington, This One's for Dinah. For their second collaboration they pay tribute to great dames of blues and soul, and reexamine how 'blues' can be so jazzy. As such, Crazy Blues is unchained and blurs the dividing line ...

Album Review

Lena Bloch: Feathery

Read "Feathery" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
March 18, 2014

Saxophonist Lena Bloch's Feathery is a cerebral album laced with a mature, tender passion. It is also a collaborative effort with her sidemen contributing to the creative process democratically while maintaining their individuality.Drummer Billy Mintz's thunderous beats and crashing cymbals set an expectant and dramatic mood on Guitarist Dave Miller's solemn and ethereal “Rubato." Miller's haunting almost baroque explorations add a mystical touch while bassist Cameron Brown's bowed and reverberating strings maintain the western classical sensibility while meandering ...

Album Review

Mike DiRubbo: Threshold

Read "Threshold" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
March 18, 2014

Mike DiRubbo's eight disc as a leader, Threshold finds the ever inventive alto saxophonist in a solidly hard bop environment that is reminiscent of Blue Note records of the 1950s but has a clear modern edge. In addition to leading a superb and sympathetic quintet, DiRubbo penned eight of the nine tracks on this riveting record with a momentum that never slacks from the first note to the last.DiRubbo's acerbic, passionate tone marks his tight and intelligent improvisations ...

Album Review

Clare Fischer: After the Rain

Read "After the Rain" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
March 17, 2014

The late Clare Fischer, best known as a multi-award-winning jazz composer / arranger, also had a classical side, one that is paramount on this engaging album whose themes were written over an extended period of time from Fischer's days as an undergraduate at Michigan State University to his later years as a renowned jazz artist whose extensive body of work has been acclaimed by musicians and fans all over the world. The portfolio is divided into three ...

Interview

Gerard D'Angelo: Who's Kidding Who?

by DanMichael Reyes
March 17, 2014

The old adage about those who can do and those who can't teach doesn't fit nicely into any music tradition. If this fallacy were to hold true, then it would be best for music history books to write off Joseph Haydn for taking on pupils--Beethoven being one of the more famous ones. That old idiom penned by George Bernard Shaw doesn't hold up for traditional Western music, it doesn't hold up for other musical traditions where practitioners are required to ...

Live Review

Live From Old York: Gavin Bryars, Craig Vear, Matt Quinn & The Chimera Ensemble

by Martin Longley
March 17, 2014

Gavin Bryars/Craig Vear York Unitarian Chapel March 1, 2014 This gig opened up the 2014 season of Late Music concerts, a series that's dedicated to newer developments in modern composition, at least when viewed in the context of centuries-old classical tradition. This two-part evening combined the works of Gavin Bryars and one of his old students, Craig Vear. Bryars is an eminent freshly-septuagenarian English composer with his roots lying in 1970s minimalism. His ...