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

David Ian: Valentine’s Day

Read "Valentine’s Day" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
February 13, 2014

"A familiar world of jazz classics with the vintage feel..." Is it possible for jazz to have the same “historically-informed performance" preoccupation as classical music has since the 1970s?. This is not the same as the “period instrument" preoccupation of the same period in classical recording, though they do go hand-in-hand. “Historically informed" means the period performance practices are studied and applied today. Such rigorous attention does not exist in jazz as there are scores of artists trying to perform ...

Album Review

Rebecca DuMaine & The Dave Miller Trio: Better Than Anything

Read "Better Than Anything" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
February 13, 2014

Smart. Simple. Confident. Competent. These are just four descriptors that apply to Rebecca DuMaine's recital with the Dave Miller Trio entitled Better Than Anything. DuMaine and Miller assemble a recital of fifteen standards and near standards that nominally orbit the specters of Bob Haymes, Antonio Carlos Jobim and Leonard Bernstein, who each provide two songs to the mix. DuMaine and Miller's chemistry as one would expect from a daughter-father collaboration. The pair released Deed I Do (Summit Records, 2012), establishing ...

Album Review

Judy Philbin: Keeping It Simple

Read "Keeping It Simple" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
February 13, 2014

Vocalist Judy Philbin and guitarist Adam Levine explore the close confines of the jazz vocals-guitar duo. From a production point of view the complexity lies less in the sonic alchemy that jazz is and more in the proper selection of songs to perform. A third of the songs are original compositions, two by Philbin alone and two by Philbin and Levine. The remaining two-thirds are from as early as Irving Mills' “Moonglow" (1933) and as late as Roy Orbison's “Blue ...

Album Review

The Ocular Concern: Sister Cities

Read "Sister Cities" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
February 13, 2014

Sister Cities is entrancingly concocted by this Portland, OR. band led by keyboardist Andrew Oliver and guitarist Dan Duval. The primary focal point is the five-part “Sister Cities Suite," abetted by a three-piece strings section, where the musicians frame the inspiring factors of a globalized 21st century, somehow affiliated with, or corresponding to the names of Portland's sister cities on a worldwide basis. Regardless, the album hovers very close to masterpiece-like proportions. There is no filler material as the program ...

Album Review

John Russell / Ståle Liavik Solberg: No Step

by Mark Corroto
February 13, 2014

Like a pair of jugglers, free improvising musicians John Russell and Ståle Liavik Solberg excel at keeping multiple objects in the air and in constant motion. No Step is a brief recording from May 2013, and although clocking in at just 33-minutes, the session leaves the impression these two connect with each other at multiple junctures. Separated by two generations, Russell's guitar and Solberg's percussion work share the same DNA. The guitarist was a key figure in the ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With Noah Peterson

by AAJ Staff
February 13, 2014

Meet Noah Peterson: My first jazz gig was showing up at the U.S Marine Field Band fresh out of boot camp and the Armed Forces School of Music. I was asked if I wanted to be in a combo. I said yes and was told to get a fake book from the supply room. At the time, I had to ask what a fake book was. I showed up to the officer's club and the Staff Sergeant calls out “Ceora." ...

Live Review

The Little Radio at The Mermaid County Wicklow Arts Centre

by Ian Patterson
February 12, 2014

The Little Radio Mermaid County Wicklow Arts Centre Bray, Ireland February 6, 2013 There were hymns, ancient folk tunes, a Gaelic anthem, pop songs and TV themes, all delivered with the joie de vivre of those performing not for an audience , but for their own pleasure--and that was just the Welsh rugby fans from Cardiff who had descended on the pubs of Dublin and its environs in anticipation of the weekend's Ireland-Wales match. ...

Album Review

Akira Sakata & Giovanni Di Domenico: Iruman

by Mark Corroto
February 12, 2014

Surprisingly, Iruman is saxophonist Akira Sakata's first piano duo recording in his forty-plus year career. The question this disc raises is not why did it take him so long to record in this format, but could another duo performance eclipse this one? Sakata has been flag bearer of the Japanese free jazz movement since the 1970s. Recording first with pianist Yosuke Yamashita, then he was 'discovered' by bassist Bill Laswell and he went on to record with Material, ...

Album Review

Louise Dam Eckardt Jensen: Farvefisen Blomstrer

Read "Farvefisen Blomstrer" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
February 12, 2014

The band Sweet Banditry asks the musical question, “if a post-punk jazz band sings in Danish, does the sound still scare you?" The answer is definitely, yes! Saxophonist Louise Dam Eckardt Jensen of The Slow Food Cook Book, Louie's Spaced-Out Ensemble, and the duos Herbert Eckardt with percussionist Luca Marin and Seiki with drummer Andreas Pichler, composed and organizes Sweet Banditry with her New York partners.The music, dedicated to controversial Danish filmmaker Jens Jørgen Thorsen, stacks a punk ...

New York Beat

Joey DeFrancesco at Birdland

by Nick Catalano
February 12, 2014

On the final night of January and the onset of Super Bowl weekend, Joey DeFrancesco brought his touring trio into Birdland celebrating his latest CD release for HighNote One For Rudy. With bandmates guitarist Paul Bollenback and drummer Carmen Intorre DeFrancesco lit up the room with his B3 and deftly moved to the trumpet and then to the piano--performance features he has included in his last several years. The album celebrates the organist's association with famed record ...