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.

Multiple Reviews

Two Intonema Releases: Lucio Capece and Vile Cretin

by John Eyles
February 26, 2014

The Intonema label released its first CDs in 2011 and has maintained a steady stream of noteworthy releases since, the current pair bringing the total to ten. One of the more remarkable features of Intonema is that it is a Russian label, based in St Petersburg--surely a measure of how far the world has evolved since the days when the only improvised music that emerged from the USSR (as it was at the time) had been smuggled out before being ...

Album Review

Ralph Towner / John Abercrombie: Five Years Later

Read "Five Years Later" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
February 25, 2014

The long overdue release of Ralph Towner and John Abercrombie's Five Years Later, originally released in 1982, may well be the most eagerly anticipated of the Re:Solutions series that brings into print--on CD (four titles for the first time, Five Years Later previously only available for a limited time in Japan), vinyl and high resolution digital formats--seven historic ECM recordings. Add the three Abercrombie Quartet albums recorded immediately prior to Five Years Later--1979's Arcade, 1980's Abercrombie Quartet and 1981's M, ...

Live Review

Nicky Schrire Quartet at Raphael Vineyard

by Dan Bilawsky
February 25, 2014

Nicky Schrire Quartet Raphael Vineyard Long Island Winterfest Peconic, NY February 22, 2014 Long Island Winterfest, which puts musical acts in wineries for six straight weekends during the bleak midwinter, is a boon to the economy and cultural atmosphere of the East End. It truly helps to drum up business during the off season, as locals and visitors drop into the vineyards to sip some vino while soaking in the sounds of the ...

Album Review

Scott Sawyer: Dreamers

Read "Dreamers" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
February 25, 2014

Creative musicians are dreamers by their very nature, but not the garden variety type; plain old dreamers simply imagine possibilities while musical dreamers imagine and realize them. They follow thoughts, concepts and ideas from inception through completion, ushering in life with their hands, hearts and minds. They sow the seeds of harmony, melody, rhythm, nuance and life to create something that's, hopefully, worth hearing and holding. Creative musicians, in essence, work the seam between anything-is-possible openness and structural specificity, marrying ...

Album Review

Yasam Hancilar Band: Here’s to Life

Read "Here’s to Life" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
February 25, 2014

Turkish vocalist Yasam Hancilar sings like an engineer. That should come as no surprise as he studied engineering before beginning his education and career as a jazz singer. It might be safe to assume that Hancilar is equally left- and right-brained, an assumption supported by his recording of standards, Here's To Life. Hancilar is uniquely analytical and creative as a musician. Supported by an international piano trio, Hancilar arranges ten tried and true standards, challenging their composition, intent, time signature ...

Extended Analysis

Miroslav Vitous Group

by John Kelman
February 25, 2014

With the ongoing demand for historic titles to see first-time CD issue, ECM has raised the ante even further with Re:solutions: seven classic recordings, released on CD (four available for the first time and one previously only available for a limited time in Japan), vinyl and high resolution digital formats. They're all important, but 1981's Miroslav Vitous Group stands out as one of the most significant, completing, as it does—and more than three decades after the fact—the Czech bassist's early ...

Album Review

XNA: When We Changed You

Read "When We Changed You" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
February 25, 2014

The handsome packaging is a bounded cardboard book with artwork, photos and lyrics to instill or perhaps reinforce that this newly formed neo-progressive rock band, cherishes the artistically minded era of the olden days of yore. It's not a shabbily produced set by any stretch. With a few understated quotes and inferences to vintage Genesis and an all-encompassing prog rock trajectory, the band seamlessly fuses the old with the new. The production coalesces memorably melodic comps with the artists' impressive ...

Album Review

Bergljot: Solen avløser regnet som avløser solen

Read "Solen avløser regnet som avløser solen" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
February 25, 2014

The Czech-Norwegian trio Bergljot is now at its third incarnation. The trio--Czech pianist Vojtěch Procházka, whose musical background includes experimenting with extensive work with electronic keyboards, classical Indian music, as well as jazz--along with Norwegian double bassist Adrian Myhr, who explores the sonic vocabulary through preparations and extended bowing techniques, and drummer Tore Sandbakken, who plays with Myhr in a trio with French saxophonist Michel Doneda. This trio began working as the Vojtěch Procházka Trio, playing ...

Record Label Profile

Cellar Live Records: The Finest in Live Jazz Recordings

by Mike Oppenheim
February 25, 2014

Cellar Live Records is a contemporary jazz label located in Vancouver, British Columbia. Jazz saxophonist and producer Cory Weeds founded the label in 2001, one year after purchasing The Cellar Restaurant and Jazz Club (later renamed Cory Weeds' Jazz Cellar). Since that time, Cellar Live Records has released over seventy albums. Performers at Cory Weeds' Jazz Cellar are some of the most important names in Canadian jazz, as well as major international artists. These include Joey DeFrancesco, Kenny ...

Album Review

Jeff Baumeister: Pretty Melodies, for people who dig that sort of thing

Read "Pretty Melodies, for people who dig that sort of thing" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
February 24, 2014

Pianist Jeff Baumeister can't be accused of being enigmatic with an album title or rushing into a recording. It took him eight years to create this frankly titled follow-up to his debut--Useful Music (Wahbo Records, 2005). Baumeister's first album received some favorable reviews, but the pianist wasn't looking to tread on the same ground with his sophomore date. In fact, he went in a completely different direction, making a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn with constructive methodology and working with ...