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

Soar Trio: Emergency Management Heist

Read "Emergency Management Heist" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
January 19, 2014

Edgetone Records prides itself on taking risks and offers extensive support for its roster of artists, who often compose and perform outside the box. Therefore, the cleverly titled Emergency Management Heist is an avant-garde trio outing that emits a sensation that the musicians could be planning some sort of raid amid pensive or gradually climactic incarnations. They broadcast grave situations via nervy meanderings but most always get to the root of the issue. Hence, the trio means business, but doesn't ...

Book Review

Shakin' All Over: Popular Music and Disbaility

by Ian Patterson
January 19, 2014

Shakin' All Over: Popular Music and Disability George McKay 230 pages ISBN: #978-0-472-05209-7 University of Michigan Press 2013 Given the vast quantities written about popular music culture it is perhaps surprising that so little critical space has been given to disability and popular music. Despite this anomaly, author George McKay, Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Salford, argues that there exist identifiable and powerful links between popular music and the “damaged" ...

Live Review

Phish at Madison Square Garden

by Doug Collette
January 18, 2014

Phish Madison Square Garden New York, NY December 31, 2013 Above and beyond the secret language of their community, Phish have long been masters at making statements without coming right out and saying what they mean, largely because of the mutual faith long ago instituted between the band and their fans. The recognition of their 30th anniversary together offered at the end of their 2013-14 New Year's Run at Madison Square Garden ...

Album Review

Mauro Schiavone: UFO

by Mark Corroto
January 18, 2014

The amalgamated form of a fully integrated jazz trio is thing of beauty. A united ensemble finds each note played by the pianist somehow anticipated by bass and drums. When said trio is primed even for improvised passages, then the performance is something special. Perhaps pianist Mauro Schiavone's trio record should have been titled “ESP" instead of UFO. The disc contains five trio pieces, three with the addition of guitarist Francesco Guaiana, and one that adds ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With David Tughan

by AAJ Staff
January 18, 2014

Meet David Tughan: I was born and raised in Northern Ireland. My passion for jazz began at 13 when I encountered the Count Basie Orchestra while vacationing in Florida. Inspired by the swinging energy and joyful sounds of the big band, I began listening to many instrumentalists like Oscar Peterson, Stan Getz, Stephane Grappelli, and singers like Nat King" Cole, Chet Baker, and Mel Torme. Currently, alongside working with my quintet in clubs and festivals in UK ...

Album Review

Eric DiVito: The Second Time Around

Read "The Second Time Around" reviewed by Jeffrey Uhrich

by Jeffrey Uhrich
January 18, 2014

In his follow-up to his well-received debut release Breaking the Ice (2012, PJC Records), guitarist Eric DiVito's sophomore album The Second Time Around is a satisfying display of DiVito's dazzling abilities as a musician. With an impressive trio comprised of Corcoran Holt on bass and Alyssa Falk Verheyn on drums, DiVito provides the listener with a pleasing mix of well-crafted originals and intriguing adaptations of a few jazz standards. Located in New York City, DiVito is ...

Extended Analysis

Gerry Gibbs Thrasher Dream Trio

by Chris M. Slawecki
January 18, 2014

Drummer, composer and bandleader Gerry Gibbs--son of renown vibes player and bandleader Terry Gibbs--grew up playing with musical legends from jazz traditionalists such as Clark Terry and James Moody, to Gary Bartz and Sam Rivers and other more adventurous conceptualists, to Parliament-Funkadelic and other artists who skirt the fringes in between. Gibbs' exceptionally dexterous work with pianists includes time spent in performance with bands led by Cedar Walton, Danilo Pérez, Kenny Kirkland and Brad Mehldau. Teamed here with two extraordinary ...

Album Review

Cigdem Aslan: Mortissa

Read "Mortissa" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki

by Chris M. Slawecki
January 18, 2014

Ҫiğdem Aslan was born in the cultural crossroads of Istanbul. She moved to London, hoping to advance her onstage and classroom studies in various musical cultures; these studies include her Songs of Smyrna project, which celebrates rebetiko and sephardic music from Turkey, and joining the She'Koyokh Klezmer Ensemble and the Balkan group Dunav. Mortissa is her solo debut, composed of rebetiko and smyrniac songs (often called “the blues of the Agean") from the 1920s and '30s. “Most of the songs ...

Album Review

Matt Wilson Quartet: Gathering Call

Read "Gathering Call" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
January 18, 2014

Other than leading his Arts & Crafts and Quartet ensembles, drummer Matt Wilson may be among the most recorded jazz session drummers of recent times. With guest pianist John Medeski, the ensemble delves into a set consisting of Wilson originals and a mixed bag of pop and jazz tunes, penned by diverse artists such as Beyonce,' Duke Ellington, Butch Warren, Hugh Lawson and others. Nonetheless, the musicians swing hard and enact a few classic jazz type blowing fests. And they ...

Interview

Josh Pollock: More Than Just The Notes

by Anthony Shaw
January 17, 2014

Josh Pollock may seem a strange guitarist to be featured in a jazz magazine in as much as a large body of his music is distinctly rock-worthy. Indeed in this interview he explicitly avows the necessity for rock bands, and especially ones in which he is involved such as 3 Leafs and Citay, to really rock! But in addition to his mainstay work in and around San Francisco theaters (Shotgun, EXIT Theater) Pollock has been participating in ...