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

Tchicai - Kohlhase - Fewell - McBee - Hart: Tribal Ghost

Read "Tribal Ghost" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
November 18, 2013

Late saxophonist John Tchicai's roots and influences emanated with the 1960s innovative free-jazz ensemble, The New York Art Quartet. He became a significant global artist in all things considered to be cutting-edge within the ever-expansive jazz vernacular. This 2007 concert, recorded at the New York City venue Birdland, features compositions by guitarist Garrison Fewell and one track written by Tchicai. Ultimately, the album is unique from a perspective that includes sojourns into the avant jazz space, while containing memorably melodic ...

Live Review

Etienne Charles and Creole Soul at SubCulture

by DanMichael Reyes
November 17, 2013

Etienne Charles and Creole Soul SubCulture New York, NY November 8, 2013 Fresh from his three-week residency at Doha's Jazz At Lincoln Center, Etienne Charles along with his band, Creole Soul, took to NYC's SubCulture on a chilly autumn evening. Charles and the band played to a packed audience at the beautiful NoHo venue and to special guests including Newport Jazz Festival founder George Wein and songwriter William Salter--best known for penning the Grover ...

Album Review

Jon Cowherd: Mercy

by Ian Patterson
November 17, 2013

Pianist/keyboard player Jon Cowherd is best known for his association with drummer Brian Blade's Fellowship--a group he co-founded in 1998--but as a producer and arranger too, there are clearly other strings to his bow. Cowherd's keyboard collaborations with jazz, country and rock artists including singers Cassandra Wilson, Rosanne Cash and Iggy Pop, point to his versatility, so it's maybe something of a surprise that his debut as leader, firmly rooted in the jazz idiom, is so stylistically homogenous. Heavyweights Blade, ...

New York Beat

Harry Allen and the Physics of the Tenor Saxophone

by Nick Catalano
November 17, 2013

In Robert Altman's most underappreciated film Kansas City there is a memorable scene for music fans. In the 1930's at the Hey Hey club (one of the town's hotter venues) some of the more notable K.C. folk (politicians, society matrons, wealthy denizens) are having a good time. Everyone in town recognizes these eminent figures but ignores the black jazz musicians playing in the background. But for the film audience the musicians--Lester Young, Count Basie, Mary Lou Williams, Coleman Hawkins, Jay ...

Album Review

Steven Lugerner: For We Have Heard

Read "For We Have Heard" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
November 17, 2013

In something of a departure for the Lithuanian No Business label, young San Francisco-born, NYC-based reedman Steven Lugerner presents a LP of his thoughtfully arranged charts. To breathe life into the notation, Lugerner has assembled a talented crew, which he carefully deploys in varying combinations across the ten cuts. Not only that but he also overdubs himself in places to create a woodwind chorus and orchestral scale touches.On trumpet, Bay Area resident Darren Johnston veers between melodic extemporizations ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With Daniel Villa Verde

by AAJ Staff
November 17, 2013

Meet Daniel Villa Verde: In 2002, Daniel Villa Verde started to work as a guitar teacher, focusing on technique, harmony, and improvisation. He worked with local musicians in Rio De Janiero with jazz and fusion concerts from 2004 to 2007. He joined the Federal College University in Rio during 2005 and studied two and a half years until the middle of 2007. After Rio, he moved to Florianopolis--Southern Brazil-- where he had the opportunity to be among music therapist, ...

Album Review

Rich Thompson: Less is More

Read "Less is More" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
November 17, 2013

Drummer and educator Rich Thompson's third release as a leader Less is More, on the Seattle based Origin records, is a suave mix of quintessential hard bop standards; show tunes and a couple of originals that is full of delightful group dynamics and individual virtuosity. Thompson leads his quartet with a relaxed confidence and impeccable dexterity all the while maintaining both a thematic unity and a uniform excellence throughout. Opening with trumpeter Kenny Dorham's “Lotus Blossom" the record ...

Album Review

ROVO and System 7: Phoenix Rising

Read "Phoenix Rising" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
November 17, 2013

Fabled British progressive rock guitarist Steve Hillage was a pioneer back in the 1970s via his work with Gong. His morphing of far- out, psychedelic guitar licks with cutting edge prog stylizations became highly influential. Moreover, the guitarist's solo albums during this time fused electronics with dreamy soundscapes, sturdy backbeats and memorably melodic comps. Moving forward, Hillage and fellow Gong alumni, keyboardist Miquette Giraudy formed System 7 in 1989, shifting focus to the house beat, ambient electronica and space-rock art-forms. ...

Catching Up With

Nils Petter Molvaer: The Trumpet Does the Dreaming

by Adriana Carcu
November 16, 2013

Nils Petter Molvaer has long reached the musical excellence that places him amongst the most accomplished contemporary jazz musicians. As an early exponent of Nu Jazz, he mapped out a virgin musical territory and contributed to the branding of the Nordic Sound, today a genre in its own right, and still in full expansion. Molvaer's sonic hallmark--traced back to Miles Davis by many jazz critics, and accredited by himself to Jon Hassell--has that unique quality in which the ethereal dreaminess ...

Album Review

The Scientist Meets Ted Sirota: Heavyweight Dub

Read "Heavyweight Dub" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
November 16, 2013

Like fellow Chicagoan Mars Williams, Ted Sirota does not limit himself solely to jazz. The saxophonist Williams fronts the hip-hop funk freestyle band Liquid Soul and Sirota has assembled this Jamaican music band. Reggae music, the drummer's first love, has been incorporated into his longstanding jazz outfit Ted Sirota's Rebel Souls. With Heavyweight Dub he dives headlong into unexpurgated Jamaican music. Those familiar with Sirota's work in Sabertooth, who released Dr. Midnight (Delmark, 2007) and their longstanding gig ...