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.

Album Review

Michael Wollny Trio: Weltentraum

Read "Weltentraum" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
February 19, 2014

The inventive German pianist Michael Wollny combines a delight in exploration with an impressively high work rate. As a result, he's become one of the European jazz scene's most prolific and most unpredictable performers. Weltentraum is the debut recording from the Michael Wollny Trio, a piano, bass, drum collaboration that on the surface at least bears a striking resemblance to [em], Wollny's previous piano, bass, drums collaboration. Given that [em] was one of the most enjoyable and talented bands on ...

Album Review

Natalie Cressman: Turn The Sea

Read "Turn The Sea" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
February 19, 2014

Trombonist/vocalist Natalie Cressman follows-up her excellent debut recording, Unfolding (Self Produced, 2012) with her fully realized yet completely different Turn the Sea. Cressman is a busy artist recently appearing on many projects as disparate as anchoring the horn section of Trey Anastasio's band and appearing on recording dates led by Peter Apfelbaum and Josh Roseman to her conspicuous role on Laura Furci's excellent Think Con La Tua Cabeza (2013) Cressman brings these multiple exposures to bare on ...

Album Review

Made To Break: Cherchez La Femme

Read "Cherchez La Femme" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
February 19, 2014

Conceived in 2011, the electric/acoustic ensemble Made To Break has had the opportunity to tour and evolve as an improvising unit. The result, their third disc recorded in 2013, Cherchez La Femme reveals a truly engaged band. That statement wouldn't be unexpected if we were talking about a rock group or a jazz band for that matter, but Made To Break is a working improvisational group. Credit, of course, goes to master organizer Ken Vandermark, a saxophonist who ...

Album Review

Mike Davis: Fortunes and Hat-Tricks, Vol. 2

Read "Fortunes and Hat-Tricks, Vol. 2" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
February 19, 2014

Double bassist Mike Davis organizes his spontaneous, immediate improvisations-compositions according to two arbitrary guidelines. The Fortunes group of such compositions draw its inspiration from evocative song titles taken from about 100 fortune cookies, but Davis and his trio co-conspirators--saxophonist Jacob Duncan and drummer Jason Tiemann--never discuss their different interpretations of these titles before playing. The second concept for these compositions, Hat- Tricks, dictates that each musician writes brief, abstract instruction for another musician, and none of the musicians discusses with ...

Multiple Reviews

Ulysses Owens Jr.: Of Odysseys And Evolution

by Dan Bilawsky
February 18, 2014

The back panel of drummer Ulysses Owens Jr.'s Onward & Upward is adorned with a telling quote from spiritual teacher/writer Ernest Holmes. His statement, that “evolution is proof of an irresistible urge which pushes everything onward and upward," could be applied to myriad topics, but it truly captures the essence of jazz drumming through time; it also speaks of the protean pulsations produced by one of the instrument's rising stars. Owens' musical odyssey has taken him from ...

Album Review

Antonio Farao American Quartet: Evan

by Bruce Lindsay
February 18, 2014

Pianist and composer Antonio Faraò has a wealth of experience in jazz, beginning as a youngster in his native Italy and developing through a career that extends over 30 years. Evan, dedicated to his young son, is Faraò's twelfth album as leader. The seven originals and two covers are credited to Antonio Faraò American Quartet. The band's title reflects the fact that the recording took place in the USA and gives an indication of Faraò's musical compatriots--bassist Ira Coleman, saxophonist ...

Live Review

Barbara J. Kukla, Dave Braham and Don Williams at the West Orange Public Library

by David A. Orthmann
February 18, 2014

Barbara J. Kukla, Dave Braham and Don Williams West Orange Public Library West Orange, NJ February 9, 2014 The focal point of a recent event at the West Orange Public Library was Barbara J. Kukla's recently published book, America's Music: Jazz In Newark. The author, a former writer and editor for the Newark Star-Ledger, was joined by keyboardist Dave Braham and drummer Don Williams, both of whom are featured in the volume. Prior to the ...

Album Review

Alma Micic: Tonight

Read "Tonight" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
February 18, 2014

Vocalist Alma Micic hails from the creatively fertile Balkan area (Belgrade, Serbia) of Eastern Europe. As of late, she has been plying her trade in New York City and has struck up a very productive and creative relationship with guitarist Doug Wamble resulting in her third recording, Tonight, following The Hours (CTA Records, 2008) and Introducing Alma (CTA Records, 2004). A release every four to six years has become a norm for many artists and in the case of Micic, ...

Album Review

Dave Stryker: Eight Track

Read "Eight Track" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
February 18, 2014

A thoughtfully developed theme or concept for a recording is an underutilized dimension that can add creative depth to a project. Guitarist Dave Stryker nests several themes into Eight Track, his follow-up to his well-received Blue to the Bone IV (Steeplechase, 2012). Eight Track is the guitarist's tip-of- his-hat to the classic AM pop tunes of the 1970s, tunes often heard playing on a car eight-track stereo system. These are songs from the pre-Disco '70s, when a certain sophisticated innocence ...

Album Review

Skordatura PunkJazz Ensemble: How To Chase A Minute In One Second

Read "How To Chase A Minute In One Second" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
February 18, 2014

"What's in a name?" Juliet asked in that play by William Shakespeare, “that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." True. But a band's name does provide a clue to its music. The Belgian band Skordatura PunkJazz Ensemble chose an amalgamation of jazz, cross tuning, and punk as its sobriquet. Their debut How To Chase A Minute In One Second draws not so much from the 1970s punk rock tradition of expression ...