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

Otto Hejnic Trio: One

by Bruce Lindsay
November 23, 2013

The Otto Hejnic Trio is that relatively unusual creature, a drummer-led piano trio. The group hails from the Czech Republic where One, its debut, was recorded in late 2011. It's an impressive first release. The trio--Hejnic, Ondrej Krajňák on piano and Josef Fečo on double bass--proves to be a tight and dynamic unit. The music, all Hejnic's original tunes, displays straight-ahead, Latin and European classical influences combined to create an album of varied moods and tempos performed with a consistently ...

Book Review

The Jazz Musician's Tarot Deck

by Florence Wetzel
November 23, 2013

The Jazz Musician's Tarot Deck Matt Lavelle 55 pages ISBN: 14186207 Lulu 2013 Multi-instrumentalist Matt Lavelle is an artist who loves a challenge. Not content to play one instrument, he plays several: trumpet, cornet, flugelhorn, and alto clarinet. Looking to expand his creativity, he started blogging a few years ago, which led to publishing the memoir and how-to guide New York City Subway Drama, and Beyond. Seeking to go beyond straight autobiography, Lavelle's ...

Album Review

Ketil Bjornstad: La Notte

Read "La Notte" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
November 23, 2013

Recorded live on July 21st 2010 at the Molde International Jazz Festival, Norwegian pianist Ketil Bjørnstad's La Notte is an eight piece suite inspired by the 1961 drama of the same name by the great Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni. It is not, however, a mere Antonioni tribute, but an homage to innovative filmmakers in general and in a way to the art of cinema itself. Opening with haunting strings and Danish percussionist Marilyn Mazur's rumbling beats the first ...

Live Review

Rabih Abou Khalil and Penelope X at the Bitola World Music Festival 2013

by Nenad Georgievski
November 23, 2013

Rabih Abou Khalil/Penelope X Bitola World Music Festival NU Centar za Kultura Bitola, Macedonia November 9, 2013 Bitola, one of the most beautiful cities in southeastern Europe, is a place that ignites the imagination immediately. With its tasteful and stylish architecture reflected in multicolored facades and European honorary consulates, it displays the city's rich history that stretches back into ancient times. The city blossomed most during the rule of the ...

Album Review

The Rides: Can't Get Enough

Read "Can't Get Enough" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
November 23, 2013

Originally the result of a creative spark generated between guitarist/vocalist/composer Stephen Stills and keyboardist/vocalist/composer Barry Goldberg, who already shared some history as collaborators on the famous Super Session album (Columbia, 1968) the dynamic solidified dramatically with the introduction of guitarist/vocalist/composer Kenny Wayne Shepherd into the mix. Yet even with this ostensible surfeit of talent, the triumvirate-like the so-named collaboration of Dr. John, John Hammond Jr. and Michael Bloomfield-ends up undermining their intent by alternately trying too hard or second-guessing themselves. ...

Album Review

Ellika Frisell /Solo Cissokho / Rafael Sida: Now

by Eyal Hareuveni
November 23, 2013

Swedish folk violinist Ellika Frisell and singer and kora player Solo Cissokho, a griot from Senegal, have been playing together for over fifteen years now, finding common ground between the solitary Scandinavian fiddle and West-African kora playing. The two released two albums as a duo, Tretkat Takissaba and Abaraka Tack (Xource, 2002 and 2005) and received the BBC World Music Award. Now adds to this celebrated duo drummer and percussionist Rafael Sida, originally from Mexico, a close collaborator Ale Möler, ...

Interview

Paul Augustin: Putting Penang On The Jazz Map

by Ian Patterson
November 23, 2013

Most jazz festival directors would agree that survival is the name of the game in the first years. Unless a festival has the financial backing of a major sponsor it can be a knife edge existence attempting to rustle up private sponsorship and the kind of good will that is required in abundance to meet the obstacles that undoubtedly arise. For small and medium-sized jazz festivals it's an uphill slog, but for such a festival to get off the ground ...

Profile

Memories in Motian

by Zeno De Rossi
November 22, 2013

Soon after hearing about Paul Motian's passing (November 22, 2011) I felt the urge to delve (again) into his music. Later on, inspired by a moving writing by Ellery Eskelin (published on his website and reproduced below, by his kind permission), I thought it would have been interesting to collect brief memories from musicians which worked with him during his long career, as well as from those who were deeply influenced by him. So ...

Profile

An American in Paradise: The sense of Belonging of Andy Narell

by Nigel Campbell
November 22, 2013

American pannist (steel pan soloist) and composer Andy Narell is an iconoclast who fearlessly challenges the narrow definitions of acceptable pan music. He is global, and his usefulness as an ambassador for Trinidad and Tobago's national instrument is tainted by suspicion long held by panmen (steel pan players) and the steel pan fraternity in general here. It may be an attitude of his own making. Long held beliefs are hard to dispel with logic. Pan pioneer Rudolf “Fish Eye" Ollivierre ...

Album Review

Chris Jennings: Drum'n Koto

Read "Drum'n Koto" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
November 22, 2013

For his seventh album as leader, Paris-based bassist Chris Jennings allies himself with like-minded adventurers in koto player Mieko Miyazaki and drummer Patrick Goraguer. The common denominator between the musicians is openness to music that transcends borders and labels. Miyazaki plays in guitarist Nguyen Le's Saiyaki along with tabla player Prabhu Edouard; Goraguer--a regular in Jennings quartet--has played with bassist Richard Bona and singer Fema Kuti, while Jennings's collaborations include oud player Dhafer Yousef and saxophonist Lee Konitz. The idiom ...