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

Outside Line: Introducing Outside Line

Read "Introducing Outside Line" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
January 30, 2014

The glory days of Leeds United may be long gone, but while its football team has seen better times, the Yorkshire city's music scene has gone from strength to strength. The individualist stance taken by musicians such as Matthew Bourne hasn't always pleased the jazz police, but it's given Leeds a reputation as a vibrant and always interesting musical community. Guitarist Jamie Taylor has been a part of that community for some time. A lecturer at the esteemed Leeds College ...

Album Review

Matt Wilson Quartet + John Medeski: Gathering Call

Read "Gathering Call" reviewed by Carlo Wolff

by Carlo Wolff
January 30, 2014

Drummer Matt Wilson is certainly mercurial. Not only can he be found playing in all manner and format, working with everyone from Myra Melford to John Zorn to Elvis Costello, he regularly leads two quartets: Arts & Crafts, and this one, featuring roiling windman Jeff Lederer, cornetist Kirk Knuffke} and bassist Chris Lightcap. Augmented here by ubiquitous Boston-based pianist John Medeski, the MWQ turns in a diverse brace of tunes, held together by sequencing and two throat-clearers, the title track ...

What is Jazz?

The Power of Jazz

by John Wesley Reed Jr.
January 30, 2014

"Jazz has the power to make men forget their differences and come together...Jazz is the personification of transforming overwhelmingly negative circumstances into freedom, friendship, hope, and dignity." Spoken by Quincy Jones at the First International Jazz Day in 2012 at the United Nations. The soul of Jazz is expressed in the life of its humblest most gifted people. Musicians find expressions humility, courage, and deep heritage, from the past to its vast promise for the future.

Extended Analysis

David Buchbinder: Walk to the Sea

by Dave Wayne
January 30, 2014

Now that the exploration of the relationships between different ethnic musics and modern-day improvised music has reached the first of- hopefully-many crescendos, forward-looking artists such as the Canadian trumpeter David Buchbinder and pianist Hilario Duran have been looking at the many intersections of disparate-seeming ethnic musics through the same lens. Never mind the fact that a lot of Jewish musicians were directly involved in the Latin-dance and Exotica fads of the mid-20th Century. There's nary a trace of cheese or ...

Album Review

Daunik Lazro / Joelle Leandre: Hasparren

Read "Hasparren" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
January 30, 2014

This outing signifies the fifth recording and sole duo pairing by these consummate improvisers, spanning several decades. Recorded at a cultural center in Hasparren, France, the musicians explore the lower register with a profusion of prismatic contrasts as they interrogate and expand upon numerous schematics that at times, seem uncannily composed or sketched out prior to their summit. Of course, the album is totally improvised and the artists' striking intuitiveness is not surprising. The duo engages ...

Album Review

Adam Pultz Melbye: Gullet

Read "Gullet" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
January 30, 2014

The title of the first solo album of prolific Danish double bassist Adam Pultz Melbye is inspired by a quote from Samuel Beckett novel Watt (published in 1953). Metaphorically, Melbye follows Beckett's words, determined to liberate himself from a symbolic deep-toned sonic gullet filled with known articulations, a reinvent and explore new dimensions, colors and sounds in the infinite vocabulary of his trusty instruments. Melbye, now resides in Berlin and is one of the busiest musicians ...

Interview

Beth Fleenor: The Discipline Of Being

by Jack Gold-Molina
January 30, 2014

Reeds player, multi-instrumentalist sonic manipulator, and founder of the Frank Agency that was “established in an effort to open the lines of communication, dedicated to bridging the spaces between artists, presenters, and audience members," Beth Fleenor strives to move freely between musical genres uninhibited by categorical boundaries. She has worked extensively with musical luminaries including Wayne Horvitz, Gino Yevdjevich and Kultur Shock, and Samantha Boshnack. Adopting the motto that “art is the discipline of being," Fleenor has performed internationally at ...

Album Review

Ben van Gelder: Reprise

Read "Reprise" reviewed by Mark F. Turner

by Mark F. Turner
January 29, 2014

Marked by an attentive copacetic style, Ben van Gelder's sophomore release Reprise is a continuation of good music witnessed in his 2011 debut Frame of Reference . The alto saxophonist's release on Pirouet Records moves forward with an introspective and airy vibe brought via quintet of peers that's gelled into a tight unit over two years in New York. The set is a cohesive linking of free improvisation and thoughtful composition that combine tension and release ...

Extended Analysis

Mark Dresser: Nourishments

by Dave Wayne
January 29, 2014

Well-established as one of the foremost virtuoso contrabassists on the face of the planet, Mark Dresser has turned his attention to a variety of other projects over the past few years. The former member of Anthony Braxton's “classic" quartet with drummer Gerry Hemingway and pianist Marilyn Crispell, Dresser's best known recent work has been with drummer Matt Wilson and pianist Myra Melford in Trio M. He's also recorded numerous albums- usually as a soloist or a member of small co-operative ...

Album Review

Preservation Hall Jazz Band: That's It!

Read "That's It!" reviewed by Wade Luquet

by Wade Luquet
January 29, 2014

Fifty years is a long time to carry the torch of the music of others and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band has done just that with class, joviality, and a sense of purpose to preserve traditional New Orleans jazz music. In a step away from their mission of preservation, the band has created new music in a hall recording of their newest album That's It. It should come as no surprise that their collection of original tunes is delivered with ...