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.

New York Beat

Stacey Kent at Birdland

by Nick Catalano
December 8, 2013

After appearing in 18 countries on a world tour in support of their Warner Brothers CD The Changing Lights, Stacey Kent and her conductor/arranger/ saxophonist (and husband of 22 years) Jim Tomlinson wound up their travels at Birdland during the week of December 3rd. Transcending genres and national boundaries, the elfin-voiced multi-lingual Kent who has sung in French, Italian, German and Portuguese has won over fans worldwide and attained new dimensions of jazz internationalism. Her album sales exceed 1.3 million ...

Album Review

Jane Ira Bloom: Sixteen Sunsets

Read "Sixteen Sunsets" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
December 8, 2013

Sidney Bechet pioneered the use of the soprano saxophone in jazz in the early 20s. John Coltrane brought that “straight horn" out of a relative dormancy of use in 1959 with his anthem-like take on Rodgers and Hammerstein's “My Favorite Things" on his Atlantic Records album of the same name. Steve Lacy took the soprano “out there," and Dave Liebman continues to stretch its boundaries. The name Jane Ira Bloom can be added to that list of icons. ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With Joseph Daley

by AAJ Staff
December 8, 2013

Meet Joseph Daley: After nearly 40 years of recognition as one of the consummate sidemen on the adventurous music scene with remarkable artists like Sam Rivers, Carla Bley, Gil Evans, Charlie Haden, Taj Mahal, and many more, Joseph Daley stunned musicians and fans alike with his brilliant CD, The Seven Deadly Sins (Jaro, 2010). The album also received rave reviews and made several Best of 2011 lists. The Seven Deadly Sins features his Earth Tone Ensemble, a full jazz ...

Album Review

Myra Melford: Life Carries Me This Way

Read "Life Carries Me This Way" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
December 8, 2013

All great artists turn their listeners into voyeurs, allowing them an intimate glimpse into their private thoughts. For pianist Myra Melford the invitation has been a long time coming. After twenty-plus years of recording, Life Carries Me This Way is her first solo session. She has drawn praise for her recent work in the collaborative Trio M with Matt Wilson and Mark Dresser, her quintet Snowy Egret, the electric-acoustic Be Bread, and a duo project Dialogue with Ben ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With Igor Bezget

by AAJ Staff
December 8, 2013

Meet Igor Bezget: Igot Bezget is one of the most influential guitarist, composers, and musicians in his field. Born in Maribor, Slovenia, Bezget started to play guitar in his late teenage years as a self- taught musician in rock bands. Later on, through listening to Miles Davis records he became interested in jazz and studied with Peter O'Mara while attending Bruckner University in Austria. Bezget developed interests for different styles of world music and started playing other plucked instruments ...

Album Review

Giulia Barba: The Angry St. Bernard

Read "The Angry St. Bernard" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
December 8, 2013

Listening to The Angry St. Bernard by musician and composer Giulia Barba, it is surprising to learn that it is her debut recording. A baritone saxophonist (maybe the Italian equivalent to Claire Daly, she displays a jazz veteran's maturity in both her compositions and playing. The eight tracks recorded here deliver a diverse sound and, more importantly, the promise of multi-directional growth. Doubling on baritone saxophone and bass clarinet, Barba arranges the music to divert the listener's attention ...

Album Review

TOTEM>: Voices of Grain

Read "Voices of Grain" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
December 8, 2013

The trio returns with a vengeance on its second album, where they delve into a boundary-less avant-garde foray, proffering an extension of sorts, to Solar Forge (ESP, 2008). And the musicians hop right into the thick of things on the opener “Genosong," where electric guitarist Bruce Eisenbeil saws, slices, and seemingly hacks his way through a dense forest atop the powerful and popping asymmetrical pulse set forth by the rhythm section. But they switch gears on the otherworldly and somewhat ...

Album Review

Keefe Jackson’s Likely So: A Round Goal

Read "A Round Goal" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
December 8, 2013

Chicago based multi-instrumentalist and composer Keefe Jackson's intriguingly innovative live album A Round Goal is a modern choral symphony of sorts. Recorded during the Jazzwerkstatt festival in Berne Switzerland on February 20, 2013 Jackson utilizes, in lieu of human voices, woodwinds of various ranges creating brilliantly dramatic music. Western classical influences are apparent, throughout. On “There Is No Language Without Deceit" Polish clarinetist Waclaw Zimpel's agile, stimulating sonic dance emerges from a tightly woven backdrop of alternating refrains ...

Extended Analysis

Sly and the Family Stone: Higher

by Carlo Wolff
December 7, 2013

Sylvester Stewart is a maddening guy. Both a cock of the walk and abjectly self-destructive, the man better known as Sly Stone, leader of the Family Stone, psychedelicized funk better, or at least more notoriously, than anyone else as the 1960s collapsed into the 1970s. In albums like Dance to the Music (1968), the 1969 breakout Stand!, the shadowy 1971 masterpiece There's a Riot Goin' On and 1973's disturbingly catchy Fresh, Sly and his musical--including some blood--kin crafted unparalleled, unsurpassed ...

Album Review

Tony Succar y Mixtura: De One Sessions Live, Volume 1

Read "De One Sessions Live, Volume 1" reviewed by Dave Wayne

by Dave Wayne
December 7, 2013

Born in Peru and raised in Miami, Tony Succar has been steeped in the sounds and traditions of Latin music practically since birth. Still in his 20s and comfortably ensconced as an Artist-in-Residence at Florida International University, the versatile percussionist / pianist has worked with worked with the likes of Arturo Sandoval, Néstor Torres, Ed Calle, and Tito Puente Jr., to name a few. While De One Sessions Live, Volume 1 features Mixtura, a fiery, homegrown, all-instrumental Latin jazz band, ...