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

Rita Lovise: Craving Coffee

Read "Craving Coffee" reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard

by Jakob Baekgaard
January 11, 2014

The Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer once wrote a beautiful poem about coffee called “Espresso." In the poem, Tranströmer noticed the ambiguities about the drink, which looks “like drops of black melancholy captured by the soul" and yet, at the same time, is able to give: “a beneficial kick: Go. Inspiration to open your eyes." Norwegian singer/songwriter Rita Lovise's album Craving Coffee has the same qualities as Tranströmer's poem. Her music is a brew that is both smooth ...

Extended Analysis

Diane Hubka: West Coast Strings

by Geannine Reid
January 11, 2014

This Blue Ridge Mountain-bred artist grew up in Western Maryland in a musical family and learned violin, trombone and guitar from an early age. After college Diane Hubka moved to Washington, DC where she frequented local jazz clubs Blues Alley, One Step Down and Mr. Y's Soul Kitchen, absorbing the sounds of local legends Charlie Byrd and Shirley Horn, hearing national acts, as well as honing her own skills in those rooms. In 1986 she moved to New York City ...

Album Review

University of Toronto 12TET: Rebirth

by Jack Bowers
January 11, 2014

You'd be hard-pressed to find a more congenial curtain-raiser than Jason Stillman's animated, inflexibly swinging “Contemporary Insanity," which opens Rebirth, the debut album by the University of Toronto's snug and well-upholstered 12TET. That's admittedly a tough act to follow, and while the ensemble gives it the old college try it doesn't always live up to the promise of that bright beginning, a shortcoming that can be ascribed in large measure to charts that, while purposeful and assured, simply aren't as ...

Album Review

Omar Sosa: Senses

by Dan Bilawsky
January 11, 2014

Pianist Omar Sosa seems to have a split personality: He's the extroverted dazzler who exudes vivacity and leads the charge, but he's also the introverted-and-contemplative pianist who muses and meditates with fingers on keys. Much of his work allows for both aspects of his artistry to shine; Senses does not. This one is all about the thoughtful and sensitive Sosa baring his soul. Senses is essentially a (by)product of the pianist's time spent at the Experimental Media ...

Extended Analysis

Gary Husband & Alex Machacek: Now

by John Kelman
January 10, 2014

Over the course of the past decade or so, Abstract Logix has gone from being a web-based shop front for all things fusion--and that's fusion in the true sense of the word, by the way; not just the high octane, often pyrotechnic genre it's narrowed down to over the decades--into a record label with a small but significant discography whose roster includes everyone from Jimmy Herring and Wayne Krantz to Lenny White and John McLaughlin. It made its next inevitable ...

Album Review

UNT Two O'Clock Lab Band: Kind of Two

Read "Kind of Two" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
January 10, 2014

The University of North Texas, home to the country's oldest, most honored and, many would say, explicitly outstanding Jazz Studies program, has a number of topnotch big bands in the stable, each of which is named after its specific rehearsal time. While the One O'Clock Lab Band, which has been recorded most often, is best known among them, the distance between the top two or three is so slender as to be immaterial. Hard on the heels of the One ...

Extended Analysis

Dewa Budjana: Joged Kahyangan

by Geannine Reid
January 10, 2014

Guitarist, composer and producer Dewa Budjana is from Waikabubak, West Sumba, Indonesia. Budjana has been building a collection of jazz-inspired works and CDs, while also playing and composing for the rock band Gigi. Budjana's influences are varied and he has always infused the traditional sounds Indonesia no matter what genre he is exploring. Budjana's ability to bring together rock and jazz has firmly established his position as one of Indonesia's top guitarists. Budjana's courageous investigation of blending jazz ...

Album Review

Kate McGarry and Keith Ganz: Genevieve & Ferdinand

Read "Genevieve & Ferdinand" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
January 10, 2014

There is no greater beacon of sincerity, honesty and emotional purity than Kate McGarry. She's proven it time and again, whether singing standards, modern day favorites, originals or obscurities, and she does so once more on Genevieve & Ferdinand. In some ways this album marks a new beginning for McGarry; it's her first live album, first duo recording, and first release on the Sunnyside imprint. All of that might lead people to believe that McGarry's starting with ...

Album Review

Sarah Manning: Harmonious Creatures

Read "Harmonious Creatures" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
January 10, 2014

In order to create the music for Harmonious Creatures, saxophonist Sarah Manning had to put the hustle and bustle behind her. She picked herself up and took to the woods, composing and communing with nature at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire where she was living out her time as a MacDowell fellow in October of 2012. The time she spent at that artist's refuge gave her a chance to reflect, bridge worlds, and blur lines in her compositions. The ...

Album Review

Johnny Chang, Angharad Davies, Jamie Drouin, Phil Durrant, Lee Patterson, John Tilbury: Variable Formations

Read "Variable Formations" reviewed by John Eyles

by John Eyles
January 10, 2014

Variable Formations was recorded at a gig at London's Café Oto in February 2013. The music on it was the final set of the evening, having been preceded by a solo piano set from John Tilbury in which he used themes and sound samples from the 1939 film The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, a semi-improvised duo set from violist Johnny Chang and Canada-born synth player Jamie Drouin who were visiting from Berlin, and a trio set from violinist Angharad Davies, ...