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

John Clayton: Parlor Series, Vol. 1

Read "Parlor Series, Vol. 1" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
February 4, 2014

The Parlor Series was conceived of long before it came into existence. Bassist/Composer/Arranger/Educator extraordinaire John Clayton had long hoped to explore the piano-bass duo medium on record. He had admired albums like This One's For Blanton (Pablo, 1974), which paired his mentor--bass legend Ray Brown--with the great Duke Ellington, and Steal Away (Verve, 1995), which brought bassist Charlie Haden and pianist Hank Jones together in service of spirituals. Clayton even told Jones how much he loved that album, going so ...

Interview

Claudio Filippini: Facing North

by Robin Arends
February 4, 2014

Pianist Claudio Filippini, born in Pescara in 1982, is one of the bright young stars of Italian jazz. With his album The Enchanted Garden (CAM Jazz, 2011) he was hailed as the new “wonder boy" of Italian jazz. Now he is regarded as a pianist/composer of international stature, with his album Facing North (CAM Jazz, 2013) receiving widespread critical acclaim. At the age of 11, Filippini enrolled in a course of jazz piano, parallel to his classical studies ...

Live Review

Dianne Reeves at Boettcher Concert Hall, Denver

by Geoff Anderson
February 4, 2014

Dianne Reeves Boettcher Concert Hall Denver, CO January 25, 2014 Let's get right to the most important fact: Dianne Reeves is the greatest living jazz singer. And she gives the dead ones a run for their money too. Pick any aspect: phrasing, intonation, soul, emotion, interpretation, range, control, improvisation. She has it all. And she knows how to use it. Those last three on the list, in particular, conspire to create remarkable and breathtaking ...

Album Review

Shirazette Tinnin: Humility: Purity of My Soul

Read "Humility: Purity of My Soul" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
February 4, 2014

Drummer/percussionist Shirazette Tinnin releases her Hot Tone recording Humility: Purity of My Soul as part of a sonic shock-and-awe campaign initiated by bassist Mimi Jones with her recording Balance and joined by saxophonist ((Camille Thurman}} and her Origins. Both Jones and Thurman contribute to Tinnin's Humility, making things very much an integrated, house-band affair. Humility is very much a drummer-led recording date. Tinnin has a delicate, yet firm grasp of playing polyrhythms like those popularized by Elvin ...

Live Review

Quercus at The Pepper Canister Church, Dublin

by Ian Patterson
February 4, 2014

Quercus The Pepper Canister Church Dublin Ireland 25 January, 2014 St. Stephen's Church is familiarly known as the Pepper Canister Church owing to the form of its cupola. The church's handsome Georgian architecture blends with the affluent surroundings, but it was the pools of light and the dark recesses of its interior that made it the perfect venue for the chamber intimacy of the traditional--and not so traditional--songs of love and pain that are ...

Album Review

Yasam Hancilar Band: Here's To Life

Read "Here's To Life" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
February 4, 2014

A singer from Istanbul, Turkey and student in the Jazz Vocal Department of the Amsterdam Conservatory, Yasam Hancilar realizes a dream with Here's To Life, his self-produced debut album as leader fronting an acoustic quartet of young, up and coming players. A passionate jazz enthusiast who favors the mainstream, straight ahead sound, Hancilar reprises the music of such icons as Irving Berlin, Cy Coleman, Oliver Nelson and Antonio Carlos Jobim among others, in compiling a repertoire of eight familiar standards ...

Album Review

James Brandon Lewis: Divine Travels

Read "Divine Travels" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
February 4, 2014

An auspicious major label debut for a young saxophonist, Divine Travels eschews flamboyance for a deferential, mostly unpretentious bluesy free jazz recording. Lewis, a thirty-something tenor saxophone phenom chose to record here in trio without the safety net of a pianist or accompanying horn. He chose wisely though, enlisting two superstars musicians, bassist William Parker and drummer Gerald Cleaver. Parker, the current godfather of the avant-garde in jazz, leads his own bands and has been a key figure ...

Album Review

Scott Sawyer: Dreamers

Read "Dreamers" reviewed by Jeffrey Uhrich

by Jeffrey Uhrich
February 4, 2014

With a warm and inviting sound, guitarist Scott Sawyer offers an intriguing and engaging collection of songs in Dreamers, his latest release on Doll Records. Sawyer's style of playing is complex yet tastefully restrained and nuanced, reminiscent of guitar legends Jim Hall and Wes Montgomery. By doing so, he allows the song itself to shine as an artistic work, rather than using the song merely as a vehicle to display his prowess on the guitar. On Dreamers, Sawyer ...

Album Review

Frank Lacy: That Which Is Planted

Read "That Which Is Planted" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
February 3, 2014

The real reason the revolution will not be televised (with apologies to Gil Scott Heron) is that the sound of the revolution is free jazz. While those street fighting men are satisfied to throw rock music up against the wall, the real uprising is music of bands like 1032K. With roots in the streets and lofts of the 1960s and 70s, trombonist/trumpeter Ku-umba Frank Lacy, bassist Kevin Ray, and drummer Andrew Drury interpret the sounds of Sam Rivers, Roswell Rudd, ...

Album Review

Eyal Lovett: Eyal Lovett: Let Go

Read "Eyal Lovett: Let Go" reviewed by DanMichael Reyes

by DanMichael Reyes
February 3, 2014

Israeli-born, Berlin-based pianist and composer Eyal Lovett has played the part of the consummate student up to this point. Lovett has studied with some of jazz's greatest luminaries like Hal Galper, Sam Yahel, George Cables, Ari Hoenig, and Jane Ira Bloom to name a few. As a performer he has shared the stage with the likes of Peter Bernstein, Kenneth Dahl Knudsen, Michal Cohen, Anat Cohen and many more. While playing sideman and student under great names is a right ...