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.

Catching Up With

Perico Sambeat: More Than He Could Imagine

by Marta Ramon
March 14, 2014

Perico Sambeat is one of the most famous Spanish sax players around the world. Before he got special recognition in 2003 when he won the Bird award at the North Sea Jazz Festival, he had been working internationally for more than twenty years. This eclectic jazz musician has a rich discography both as a leader and as a sideman which includes different styles, from the straight ahead to Latin, hip hop or flamenco-jazz. This lively mind is always ...

Live Review

Celebrating Cecil Taylor at the Painted Bride Art Center

by Victor L. Schermer
March 14, 2014

Still the New Thing The Painted Bride Art CenterPhiladelphia, PA March 8, 2014 This concert was the first in a series entitled “Still the New Thing" honoring three icons of avant-garde jazz: Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, and Sun Ra. Cecil Taylor turns 85 years old in March. To acknowledge the occasion, saxophonist, band leader, and composer/arranger Bobby Zankel brought with him to the Painted Bride four other legendary musicians who worked extensively with Taylor or ...

Album Review

Polar Bear: In Each And Every One

Read "In Each And Every One" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
March 14, 2014

Polar Bear is back. Not just with a bang, but with a whole array of other sounds, including the occasional whimper. In Each And Every One brings together 11 tunes from the pen of drummer Sebastian Rochford--from the gently bucolic to the downright macabre. There's also an early front runner for the Best Song Title Of 2014 award. In Each And Every One is the British band's fifth album. It appears four years after Peepers (Leaf Label, 2010) ...

Album Review

Barb Jungr: Hard Rain (The Songs of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen)

Read "Hard Rain (The Songs of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen)" reviewed by John Eyles

by John Eyles
March 14, 2014

Ever since Barb Jungr released her first album of Bob Dylan songs, Every Grain of Sand (Linn, 2002), she has been consistently praised as a Dylan interpreter par excellence. Each of her subsequent albums has included at least one Dylan song--she even included a couple each on her tribute albums to Elvis Presley and Nina Simone. As Jungr herself has said, “Once I had started singing Dylan's songs, I couldn't stop." Man in the Long Black Coat (Linn, 2011) was ...

Bailey's Bundles

Jazz Quanta March

by C. Michael Bailey
March 14, 2014

RareNoise, chant, drunken big band...Good Lawd! Free Nelson Mandoomjazz The Shape of Doomjazz to Come/Saxophone Giganticus RareNoise 2014 You have to love RareNoise Records for inventive sonic turbulence. Add to this alto saxophonist Rebecca Sneddon sense of humor aping the title of this “double EP" from two of the most famous saxophone recordings of the 1950s: Ornette Coleman's The Shape of Jazz To Come (Atlantic, 1959) and Sonny Rollins' ...

Album Review

Leo Welch: Sebougla Voices

Read "Sebougla Voices" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki

by Chris M. Slawecki
March 14, 2014

For decades, singer, guitarist, fiddler and harmonica player Leo Welch has played and sung fertile, deep South country blues and gospel at smalltown picnics and parties in and around his hometown of Sabougla in north central Mississippi, where he also leads the local gospel group Leo Welch & The Rising Souls, and belongs to the Skuna Valley Male Chorus and the Sebougla Voices vocal group. On Sabougla Voices, titled to honor these roots and their attendant ghosts, “Bud" Welch stomps ...

Album Review

John Russell / Ståle Liavik Solberg: No Step

Read "No Step" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
March 14, 2014

The duo of British guitarist John Russell, an important figure of the London free improvisation scene since the seventies, and Norwegian drummer Ståle Liavik Solberg, a central figure in Oslo's thriving improvised music scene in recent years is a working unit. The two not only perform together as a duo, but over the last two years have occasionally performed in quartet with fellow British electronics player Steve Beresford, and double bassist John Edwards. After countless performances, Russell and Solberg developed ...

Album Review

Quentin Moore: You Forgot Your Heart

Read "You Forgot Your Heart" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki

by Chris M. Slawecki
March 13, 2014

Continuing the pattern of his self-produced debut Vintage Love (2009) and Quentinized (Mixtape) (2011), Quentin Moore wrote, sang most vocals, played most instruments, and recorded and produced You Forgot Your Heart himself, from the heart. “With this project, I wanted to offer something organic to listeners, while maintaining that core soul sound," Moore suggests. “I like to say my style is vintage soul, with a contemporary feel." You Forgot Your Heart honors and advances the vocal soul music ...

Interview

Hans Ulrik: Still Searching

by Robin Arends
March 13, 2014

It is not easy to classify Danish saxophonist Hans Ulrik. He dedicates himself as easily to movie soundtracks and jingles as to an album of Latin or Christmas music. At the same time it is not difficult to recognize Ulrik's dreamy, Nordic voice. Like other European jazz musicians Ulrik started his career in the United States. While studying in Berklee in the mid 1980's he built up a network of jazz musicians and later on, back in Denmark, made good ...

Live Review

Vinterjazz Copenhagen: Carsten Dahl Trio w/ Reuben Rogers and Greg Hutchinson at Jazzhus Montmartre

by Henning Bolte
March 13, 2014

Carsten Dahl Trio w/ Reuben Rogers Vinterjazz 2014 Jazzhus Montmartre Copenhagen, Denmark February 20-21, 2014 Vinterjazz Vinterjazz has the same setup as the Jazzfestival Copenhagen in the summer. It is spread over the whole city but on a smaller scale. During the ten days in February about 400 concerts take place, while the summer festival has more than 1,000. Vinterjazz has a couple of headliners and foreign guests but that ...