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

The Two Al's: And the cowgirls kept on dancing

Read "And the cowgirls kept on dancing" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
February 18, 2014

The Two Al's are Dutch explorers of the prepared piano Albert van Veenendaal and Scottish, Amsterdam-based percussionist Alan Purves. Both offer a wild ride of inventive, bizarre, cheerful, squeaky, absurd and freaky spontaneous improvised songs on their first recorded collaboration. Both musician are experienced in solo and intimate, chamber formats with adventurous like-minded musicians from the vibrant, local Dutch scene as well as other innovative sonic explorers from other European scenes. Both worked in multidisciplinary formats ...

Interview

Don Was: The Music Is Paramount

by R.J. DeLuke
February 17, 2014

The president of the iconic Blue Note Records, the man who is stewarding the label as it marches into it's 75th anniversary year celebration, comes from the wrong side of the tracks, in a sense. He's not a gut in a suit. He came up through the trenches as a working musician. He liked jazz and played gigs in bunches during his years in his hometown of Detroit. But his adaptability to all kinds of music brought him to fame ...

Album Review

Fareed Haque: Trance Hypothesis

Read "Trance Hypothesis" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
February 17, 2014

Guitarist Fareed Haque answers the musical question, what if Jimmy Smith's chicken shack served tandoori chicken? His world music DNA--son of a Pakistani father and Chilean mother grants him the authority to make blender drinks of all the musics that are stockpiled in his brain. A master of music in jazz, classical, and the music of the Asian sub-continent, Haque has found a home in the bands of Paquito D'Rivera, Javon Jackson, Kahil El'Zabar, and Sting. His funk/jamband ...

Album Review

Birchall & Woolhouse: The Scenery of Life Unfolding

Read "The Scenery of Life Unfolding" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
February 17, 2014

Piano trio albums--piano, bass and drums--may be the more common means of artistic expression in jazz, but piano/bass duet sets come long fairly often, too. Bassist Charlie Haden is a master of the approach, proof of which can be found on his teamings with pianists Keith Jarrett and Hank Jones on, respectively, Jasmine (ECM Records, 2011) and Come Sunday (EmArcy, 2012); and add to the list of superb pairing 2011's Insight (Pirouet Records, 2009), with pianist Marc Copland and bassist ...

Album Review

Joshua Breakstone: With the Wind and the Rain

Read "With the Wind and the Rain" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
February 17, 2014

Prolific recording artist Joshua Breakstone delivers his twentieth album as leader tipping his hat to a major influence in his professional life, the late Japanese promoter and bassist Mitsuru Nishiyama, to whom With the Wind and the Rain, is dedicated. A guitarist of note with at least fifty tours of Japan under his belt, his experience performing in a format where the late bassist played the cello in an essentially expanded rhythm section, left Breakstone with a desire to document ...

Album Review

Peter Orins: Empty Orchestras

Read "Empty Orchestras" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
February 17, 2014

The debut solo album of French, Lille-based drummer Peter Orins establishes new and bold relationships between the human musician and the musical-electronic machinery. Orins, known for his remarkable role and original compositions for the Japanese-French quartet KAZE as well as for his involvement in local outfits as Flu(o), TOC and the Circum Grand Orchestra, designed an electronic device, autonomous enough to intervene and influence his playing in almost unpredictable ways. The four pieces may be called ...

Album Review

Nir Felder: Golden Age

Read "Golden Age" reviewed by Mark F. Turner

by Mark F. Turner
February 17, 2014

There were a few strong reactions when Nir Felder was donned “The Next Big Jazz Guitarist" in a 2010 NPR article. The in-demand New York based musician is seemingly unfazed by the headline and continues grinding out a stream of constant gigs and sessions associated with the likes of Greg Osby, Terri Lyne Carrington, and more recently, drummer Rudy Royston's debut 303 (Greenleaf Music, 2014). In spite of frenzied scheduling Felder has cultivated his music in the long overdue debut, ...

Book Review

Bach: Music In The Castle Of Heaven by Sir John Eliot Gardiner

by C. Michael Bailey
February 16, 2014

Bach: Music In The Castle Of Heaven John Eliot Gardiner 672 Pages ISBN: # :0375415297 Knopf 2013 There are a dozen reasons why Bach: Music In The Castle Of Heaven is an important addition to the J.S. Bach bibliography, several being associated with its author, Sir John Eliot Gardiner. Gardiner is the dean of the college of Bach Choral specialists, a college containing names like Joshua Rifkin, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Philippe Herreweghe, Ton ...

Album Review

Marcos Pin: Duology Session 1

Read "Duology Session 1" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
February 16, 2014

Galician guitarist Marcos Pin is no stranger to ambitious projects. His Barbanza (Free Code Jazz Records, 2012) was a cinematic, expansive large ensemble work that fused modal jazz orchestration with his native musical heritage. His Duology is much more intimate yet no less challenging an undertaking. It will consist of ten separate sessions, each a duet with a like-minded colleague. The first of these is with pianist Yago Vàzquez who perfectly complements Pin on a series of five standards the ...

Book Review

Falling Cars and Junkyard Dogs

by Doug Collette
February 16, 2014

Falling Cars and Junkyard Dogs Jay Farrar 192 ISBN: #1593765126 Soft Skull Press 2013 Anyone who's familiar with Jay Farrar's work with Uncle Tupelo, Son Volt, his various collaborations such as New Multitudes and Gob Iron or his solo work knows he has a love of language almost as passionate as his love for music. It should come as no surprise then that he would inevitably write a book or that the publication ...