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

Klaus Filip and Dafne Vicente-Sandoval: Remoto

by John Eyles
November 19, 2013

At first glance, the duo of Klaus Filip and Dafne Vicente-Sandoval seems to have all the ingredients of an archetypal electro-acoustic improvisation encounter. Filip certainly has the bases covered on the electro side, with an impressive track record as a pioneer, including his development of the influential open-source software lloopp and its successor ppooll. Here, though, he is credited with only using sine waves. In contrast, being a classically-trained bassoonist places Vicente-Sandoval firmly in the acoustic camp, despite her frequent ...

Live Review

Myra Melford's Language of Dreams at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

by Harry S. Pariser
November 19, 2013

Myra Melford's Snowy Egret Yerba Buena Center for the Arts San Francisco, CA November 8, 2013 Within the intimate confines of the YBCA Forum in the heart of San Francisco's museum district, a gray, out- of-focus video screened a country road. On one platform set directly under the screen, piano, drums, two chairs and two stools were set up in a row, awaiting the arrival of the musicians. A stage directly below held a large, ...

Album Review

Kheswa & Her Martians: Meadowlands, Stolen Jazz

Read "Meadowlands, Stolen Jazz" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
November 19, 2013

There has not been a more poignant situation in jazz history than that of South Africa, where the pathetic and deplorable conditions of apartheid made “jazz style music" illegal amongst the native people. This of course made jazz musicians outlaws and heroes, and drove the music underground into the townships, where it thrived despite desperate attempts to eradicate it as some form of cultural virus. Vocalist Nonhlanhla Kheswa and Her Martians have revived and expanded the classic South ...

Album Review

Wooden Shjips: Back To Land

Read "Back To Land" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
November 19, 2013

This West Coast nouveau psychedelic space-rock based unit has refined its oeuvre a bit. The moveable wall of sound remains intact, however a tad more concentration in melodic content advances the group to another level that would conceivably increase its scope of awareness within the college and satellite radio circuits. Nonetheless, the band has amassed a strong following, and rightfully so. Guitarist Ripley Johnson's scorching, in-your-face crunch chords, trippy soloing, and the rhythm section's pulsating straight-four grooves are ...

Interview

Nicholas Payton: Sketches of Brilliance

by Nicholas F. Mondello
November 18, 2013

Trumpeter Nicholas Payton has distinguished himself over the decades as a continually evolving artist of significant vision, artistry and focus. He's a musician who knows, respects and displays his roots, knows where he's at now and where he's going creatively. Under his own BMF Records label, Payton recently released Sketches of Spain a new recording with Payton performing the Miles Davis/Gil Evans classic live--a daunting accomplishment. His original composition, “Black American Symphony" is a forthcoming release. All About ...

Album Review

Keith Jarrett: Concerts - Bregenz / Munchen

Read "Concerts - Bregenz / Munchen" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
November 18, 2013

In the realm of solo improvised piano performance, few approach Keith Jarrett's recorded legacy--both for quality and quantity. With Rio (2011), Jarrett brought the number of solo CD releases on his longtime label, ECM, to fifteen. The absence, in full, of Concerts (1982) on CD--originally three LPs of solo performances from Bregenz and München--has remained a mystery for years, the single-disc Bregenz show ultimately issued as Concerts, leaving the double-disc München MIA ever since. There was a close call, with ...

Album Review

The Thing: Boot!

by Mark Corroto
November 18, 2013

Somebody should inform the members of the Scandinavian free jazz trio The Thing they are not rock stars. I repeat, somebody tell saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love, you are not lizard kings. The release of Boot!, their sixth studio album since forming in 1999, is a follow-up to the widely celebrated session The Cherry Thing (Smalltown Supersound, 2012) with Neneh Cherry. The band has also collaborated with the likes of Thurston Moore, ...

Extended Analysis

No End

by John Kelman
November 18, 2013

When Keith Jarrett released Spirits in 1986 on his longstanding/exclusive label, Germany's ECM Records, this two-disc home recording- -featuring the pianist on a multitude of instruments in addition to his main axe, including a bevy or recorders and flutes, guitar, saz and percussion--came out of the blue to his legion of fans while, at the same time, not representing a total surprise. After all, at this point in time, the musically voracious Jarrett was busy recording and touring with his ...

Extended Analysis

Flex Bent Braam: Lucebert

by Eyal Hareuveni
November 18, 2013

The new group of Dutch pianist Michiel Braam, the 8-piece Flex Bent Braam, is a scaled-down continuation of Braam's 13-piece Bik Bent Braam, one of Braam's main projects in the last twenty five years, a group that evolved from traditional big band to a flexible improvising unit, but it is also an attempt to challenge his skills as a composer, bandleader and musical thinker. The line-up of the new band is supposed to change on every new project, combining such ...

Album Review

Chris Biesterfeldt: Urban Mandolin

Read "Urban Mandolin" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
November 18, 2013

Bluegrass instruments like the mandolin, banjo, and fiddle have long been associated genres outside of the high lonesome. This instrumentation has also permeated the jazz and classical worlds as evidenced by the lifetimes of David Grisman, Chris Thile, Bela Fleck, Vassar Clements, Joe Venuti, Bob Wills and on and on. Mandolinist Chris Biesterfeldt places himself in a traditional jazz trio sans the piano and pushes the perimeter of mandolin-centered musical styles well beyond just jazz, though the better part of ...