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

André Santos: Ponto De Partida

Read "Ponto De Partida" reviewed by Chris Mosey

by Chris Mosey
January 16, 2014

This album is exactly what it says it is: a Ponto de Partida, or “Starting Point" for André Santos, a young jazz guitarist from the island of Madeira, and his band. What's on offer here is pretty sparse and minimalist but hints at greater things to come. The band has already won a prize in the 25th Portuguese Premio Jovens Musicos awards. The opener, “Zion" consists of a rather basic guitar- based groove that ...

Album Review

Aki Takase La Planete: Flying Soul

Read "Flying Soul" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
January 16, 2014

Japanese pianist, composer Aki Takase collaborates with her peers on what could be considered an all-star international lineup, originating from her partnership with French clarinetist Louis Sclavis. Interspersed with several pieces, spanning one-minute to two- minutes in length, the nouveau chamber, jazz, and improvised segments are brusque, changeable and smoothly cohesive. In addition, many of these works take on the flavor of intersecting vignettes. Takase's Midas touch can be ever-so-gentle or constructed on steamy, avant-like flurries. The band conjures notions ...

Year in Review

Mark F. Turner's Best of 2013

by Mark F. Turner
January 16, 2014

Jazz keeps growing and evolving through all of its permutations and 2013 was another stellar year of music. It's always difficult to pick the best from a host of outstanding releases yet the task is a labor of admiration. Another cool thing about “Year End" lists is discovering something new. Here are just a few of my favorites and hopefully something yet to be discovered for those unfamiliar with these fine releases. Wayne Shorter Quartet

Album Review

Daniel Karlsson Trio: Das Taxibat

Read "Das Taxibat" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
January 15, 2014

When not driving a taxi boat around Stockholm's archipelago, pianist Daniel Karlsson is best known as the pianist/organist in drummer Magnus Öström's band and the award-winning, Swedish jazz-fusion quintet Oddjob. The latter's chameleon-like shifts have encompassed funk and chill-out, jazz takes on Ennio Morricone's Western themes and, on JAZOO (Headspin Records, 2013), jazz--of a sophisticated kind--for kids. Das Taxiboat, however, marks Karlsson's first outing as a leader since his promising debut Pan Pan (Caprice Records, 2005), though this time he ...

Live Review

Afro Horn at Zinc Bar

by Tomas Pena
January 15, 2014

Francisco Mora-Catlett and Afro Horn Zinc Bar Greenwich Village, NY January 8, 2014 There was a moment during Afro-Horn's performance at the Zinc Bar where the lines between reality and fiction became a blur. It occurred when Sam Newsome, an imposing figure of a man and a consummate reed player, appeared to be possessed by the spirit of Probe, the protagonist and wielder of the Afro Horn, a rare object of power in Henry Dumas's ...

Album Review

University of Missouri Concert Jazz Band: Home: The Columbia, MO Sessions, Vol. 1

Read "Home: The Columbia, MO Sessions, Vol. 1" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
January 15, 2014

An observation worth repeating: college jazz ensembles keep getting better and better. And that's a good thing. Furthermore, they no longer reside for the most part in larger cities on the east or west coasts, but are emerging more often in such mid-sized hamlets as, say, Columbia, MO, better known for jump shots and touchdowns than high notes and fascinatin' rhythms. That's where the University of Missouri ensemble makes its home, and a handsome abode it is, as exemplified on ...

Book Review

Juan Tizol: His Caravan Through Life and American Culture

by Tomas Pena
January 15, 2014

Juan Tizol--His Caravan Through Life and American Culture Basilio Serrano Pages ISBN: #978-14691-8166 Xlibris 2012 Basilio Serrano is a seasoned educator, historian and a person who is all too familiar with the plight of Puerto Ricans whose contributions to jazz have been ignored or forgotten. In 2000 he wrote a series of articles on Juan Tizol's cross-cultural collaborations with Duke Ellington, Harry James and other nationally known orchestras. In addition he has ...

Album Review

Judith Pinto Coy: Here’s to Life

Read "Here’s to Life" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
January 15, 2014

There is evidence of a revival of vocalese jazz singing in the recent releases of Dorian Devin's The Procrastinator (Self Produced, 2013) and Suzanna Smith's Halfway Between Heaven & Love (Ink Pen Records, 2013). Enter Edmonton-native Judith Pinto Coy, who, while not contributing her own vocalese transcriptions, interprets those of the masters masterfully. On her debut Here's to Life, Coy interprets Jon Hendricks' treatments of Thelonious Monk's “Monk's Dream" and Miles Davis' “Four" and Oscar Brown, Jr's take on Tommy ...

Album Review

Butterfly Effect Ensemble: Chimera

Read "Chimera" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
January 15, 2014

Butterfly Effect Ensemble is a trio of three veteran Israeli musicians--woodwinds player Stephen Horenstein, known for his decade long association with innovative trumpeter Bill Dixon, a dedicated educator and passionate collaborator with cross-genres artists as dancers; percussionist Jeffrey Kowalsky, the principal percussionist in Israel symphony and philharmonic orchestras, who plays on myriad of ethnic percussive instruments (Indian, Arabic, Caribbean and African) and a close collaborator of Horenstein in many of his projects, and pianist Lior Navok, a contemporary composer and ...

Music and the Creative Spirit

Dr. Basil Peter Toutorsky, Classical Composer & Pianist

by John Wesley Reed Jr.
January 15, 2014

The Toutorsky Mansion is a five-story, 18-room house located at 1720 16th Street, NW in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. As of 2012, it is the location of the embassy of the Republic of the Congo. The 12,000-square-foot (1,100 m2) mansion was completed in 1894 for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Henry Billings Brown, who paid $25,000 in 1891 to buy the land from the Riggs family, and spent $40,000 on its construction. The house ...