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

Roberto Fonseca: The worthy heir of Afro-Cuban Jazz

by Gabriel Medina Arenas
March 10, 2014

Success didn't knock on his door by random luck. Roberto Fonseca has worked hard to earn his reputation as one of the most renowned and skillful Cuban jazz pianists of his generation. The 38 year-old musician started playing drums when he was four years old and played at the International Jazz Festival of Havana when he was 15. Fonseca began his solo career when he was 24 and to date he has released seven studio albums and one ...

Bailey's Bundles

Three Views of Jazz Piano: Bernie Worrell, Christian Jacob, Andrew Litton

by C. Michael Bailey
March 10, 2014

Here are three well-recorded solo piano recitals by three very different pianists playing three equally different jazz repertoires. In spite of these apparent differences, the three artists approach their material in a similarly spacious way. The results are encouraging. Bernie Worrell Elevation: The Upper Air M.O.D. Technologies 2014 There are a couple of things going on in this release. First, this is the first solo piano recording by ...

Extended Analysis

Vijay Iyer: Mutations

by John Kelman
March 10, 2014

There are times when it's possible to chart an artist's success through his association with record labels. Vijay Iyer--who, over the past 20 years, has built a reputation for genre-defying, forward-reaching music--spent the early part of his career on independent US labels including the highly regarded Pi Recordings, Savoy Jazz and Sunnyside Records. But it was with his move to Germany's ACT Music label and a series of trio and solo recordings, including the Grammy-nominated Historicity (2009), that the pianist ...

Album Review

Elias Stemeseder / Devin Gray / Anna Webber: Jagged Spheres

Read "Jagged Spheres" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
March 10, 2014

The collective trio of Elias Stemeseder, Devin Gray, and Anna Webber ask you to separate the composed elements from the improvised on their debut release Jagged Spheres. The three soon-to-breakout players opt for a musical salmagundi here, filling their plates with minimalist improvisation, noisy thrashings, and organically grown interactions in this chamber jazz presentation. The Austrian pianist Stemeseder has been featured in drummer Jim Black's trio and can be heard on his Somatic (Winter&Winter, 2012). He can also ...

Album Review

Raymond MacDonald & Marilyn Crispell: Parallel Moments

Read "Parallel Moments" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
March 10, 2014

Philadelphia, PA, reared pianist Marilyn Crispell looms as one of the more prolific artisans of progressive jazz and avant-garde forums amid her affiliations with saxophonist, composer Anthony Braxton and bassist Gary Peacock, among others of note. Here, she aligns with highly respected Scottish saxophonist Raymond MacDonald, who is the co-founder of the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra and also composes for film, theater and TV. Therefore, many of these improvisation-based duets tend to bridge various perspectives and thought processes, and such is ...

Album Review

Jozef Dumoulin: A Fender Rhodes Solo

Read "A Fender Rhodes Solo" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
March 10, 2014

Belgian keyboards player Jozef Dumoulin describes his new solo album, his first solo album, as the the first solo album in the history of the electric piano, the Fender Rhodes. It is also a culmination of a long exploratory journey into the various, weird, eccentric sonic qualities of this vintage instrument, enhanced with electronic effects. The versatile Dumoulin developed a highly personal voice on the keyboards, including the Fender Rhodes, that always flirted with experimental sounds, ...

Bailey's Bundles

The Latin Tinge: Carmen Cuesta, Rebeca Vallejo and Rozina Patkai

by C. Michael Bailey
March 9, 2014

Latin vocal jazz is alive and well. Each year curiously seems to produce more and more of this commodity. No matter. While the majority is very good indeed, there are those recordings that rise above the mix into the exceptional. These are three of them. Carmen Cuesta Toda Una Vida... Tweedy Records 2014 Following her well-received bossa nova offering, Mi Bossa Nova (Tweedy Records, 2010), Madrid singer Carmen Cuesta ...

Extended Analysis

Mimi Jones: Balance

by Chris M. Slawecki
March 9, 2014

Balance is one of three new titles released in February 2014 by Hot Tone Music, the label founded by bassist/vocalist Mimi Jones. “Hot Tone Music was created to give chances to those who may have been overlooked and denied the necessary support and knowledge to develop," Jones explains. “Women are a big part of that group, and so I always look out for them. Women have come a long way but are still a minority in jazz, so we've formed ...

Album Review

The Bill McBirnie Trio: Find Your Place

Read "Find Your Place" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
March 9, 2014

Canadian jazz flautist Bill McBirnie fronts a unique organ trio on Find Your Place, his sixth album as a leader. McBirnie lends his “Extreme" flute and award-winning chops to an array of swing, Latin-flavored, bossa nova, shuffle and ballads in one audacious outing. Joining forces with fellow Canadians Bernie Senensky on Hammond B3 organ and Anthony Michelli on drums, the trio play their way through a sensational selection of standards from such icons as Cole Porter, Horace Silver, Duke Pearson ...

Album Review

Ken Vandermark Resonance Ensemble: Head Above Water / Feet Out Of The Fire

Read "Head Above Water / Feet Out Of The Fire" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
March 9, 2014

Listening to the music Ken Vandermark writes for large ensembles do we dare compare him to Duke Ellington? Both band leaders and composers wrote and arranged music to be played by a select troupe of musicians and both suffered the fate of surfing the knife edge of innovation. Ellington always seemed to be delivering scores with the ink still drying to last minute rehearsals. Same for Vandermark who has the added burden of an international cast from Chicago to Stockholm ...