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.

Extended Analysis

Wood Flute Songs: Anthology/Live 2006-2012

by Mark Corroto
November 12, 2013

A box set that includes over nine hours of one musician's output could be considered indulgent. Indulgent yes, unless that musician's last name is Parker. Certainly the family of Parker we're talking about includes the bebop innovator Charlie Parker, free jazz saxophonist Evan Parker, and jazz padrone William Parker . The latter Parker is a bassist, band leader, writer, poet, spokesman, and a weather vane that points listeners and musicians to the new directions of jazz. This release ...

Album Review

Jake Hertzog: Throwback

Read "Throwback" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
November 12, 2013

With his fourth solo venture, nascent New York-based guitarist Jake Hertzog beckons the services of celebrated jazz trumpeter, Randy Brecker. His conspicuous synergy with longtime associates, bassist Harvie S and drummer Victor Jones is true to form on a set that highlights an uncanny blend of harmonically appealing content and edgy jazz-fusion extravaganzas, heightened by Hertzog's judicious use of distortion techniques. Throwback represents a significant level of maturity attained by this young artist, largely owing to a host ...

Album Review

As Deafness Increases: As Deafness Increases

Read "As Deafness Increases" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
November 12, 2013

The musicians of the new Norwegian trio As Deafness Increases (borrowing its name from the composition of Paul Rutherford and drummer Paul Lovens from their duo album, Po Torch, 1978)--double bassist Inga Margrete Aas, Guitarist Rudolf Terland Bjørnerem and trombonist Henrik Nørstebø Munkeby met in the Czech Republic in the summer of 2010 while they played and recorded with the Önczkekvist improvising orchestra. All three graduated from the music academies in Oslo and have a classical education and experience with ...

Live Review

Jazzfestival Umeå 2013

by Henning Bolte
November 12, 2013

Jazzfestival Umeå Umeå, Sweden October 23-27, 2013 Umeå, 400 miles/650 km north of Stockholm at the Ume river and near the gulf of Bothnia, is the capital of Västerbotten County. The city is located in the plain coastal strip with an enormous wide horizon on all sides, and everything within reach in the city itself. The municipality with about 117,000 inhabitants is an important traffic junction for the northern region as well as an ...

Interview

Arun Ghosh: A Very British-Asian Jazz Head-Space

by Ian Patterson
November 11, 2013

If clarinetist/composer Arun Ghosh continues as he's going there's a danger he'll soon dethrone saxophonist Gilad Atzmon as the UK's hardest-working jazz musician. In between gigs, festival appearances and European tours, Ghosh is busy writing music for theatre, film, dance and multi-media events. His relatively short recording career has been marked by a refusal to stand still and a desire to explore. Two highly acclaimed albums, Northern Namaste (Camoci Records, 2008) and Primal Odyssey (Camoci Records, 2011) celebrated Ghosh's British ...

Album Review

Duke Ellington: The Ellington Suites

Read "The Ellington Suites" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
November 11, 2013

It should not be so hard to identify the most important jazz musician in the history of the genre. It is one of five artists: Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, and Miles Davis. Much can be made for Ellington being the logical choice. Edward Kennedy Ellington (1899-1974) lived the entire history of jazz. He led arguably the most important big band of the swing era while also recording widely in smaller formats. But Ellington considered his music ...

Profile

Father John D'Amico Remembered

by Bruce Klauber
November 11, 2013

The job of “house pianist" at the long-running 23rd Street Cafe Tuesday night jam session in Philadelphia requires equal amounts of the following: Versatility, creativity, generosity, understanding, good humor, patience, even temperament, positive disposition, and overall, the ability to not take things too seriously. Pianist Father John D'Amico, who held that piano chair for years and recently passed away at the age of 74, possessed all those qualities. Those who deemed him “a saint" were pretty accurate, as ...

Album Review

David Buchbinder & Odessa/Havana featuring Hilario Duran: Walk To The Sea

Read "Walk To The Sea" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
November 11, 2013

Walk To The Sea is award-winning trumpeter David Buchbinder's sophomore album with the Odessa/Havana band, featuring Grammy-nominated pianist and musical director Hilario Duran. It's a spot-on world music venture that stylizes indigenous concepts and applications from Spain, amid Jewish folk, Arabic and Afro-Cuban structural components, woven into a majestic concoction of radiant jazz-centric fare. With triumphant and impacting horns, frothy percussion vamps, alternating pulses, and probing ballads, Buchbinder persuasively excites and entertains. The trumpeter links a festive outline ...

Extended Analysis

Art Pepper: Unreleased Art - Vol. VIII (2013)

by Victor L. Schermer
November 11, 2013

After recovering from a hellish descent into drug addiction, crime, and incarceration, the legendary alto saxophonist Art Pepper resurrected himself as a player. He accomplished several fine recordings, a number of live performances on the US West Coast, a couple of important stops in New York, and a notable tour of Japan. Pepper thus had a few good years in the late 1970s and died all too soon of a stroke in 1982 at the age of 56. His comeback ...

Album Review

Jan Bang: Narrative from the Subtropics

Read "Narrative from the Subtropics" reviewed by Nenad Georgievski

by Nenad Georgievski
November 11, 2013

Years ago, renowned film director Derek Jarman filmed a daring film called Blue where the viewers could only see a blue screen behind which the sounds from the scenes could be heard but not seen. This way, the viewers imagined the film based on the dialogues and the sound they heard, and placed their own images onto the blue screen. In a similar manner, renowned producer Jan Bang makes music with a strong cinematic flair that functions as a soundtrack ...