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

Ab Baars / Meinard Kneer / Bill Elgart: Give No Quarter

Read "Give No Quarter" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
November 4, 2013

Dutch reeds master Ab Baars and German double bassist Meinard Kneer began to work as a duo and recorded an acclaimed album, Windfall (Evil Rabbit, 2010). While playing a gig in 2010 at the Bimhuis Club in Amsterdam, the duo hosted veteran American drummer Bill Elgart, known for his collaborations with Paul Bley and Lee Konitz, and since then the duo became a trio. Give No Quarter, the debut album of the trio, was recorded in 2012 after a European ...

Album Review

Tommy Cecil: Our Time: Sondheim Duos, Volume 2

Read "Our Time: Sondheim Duos, Volume 2" reviewed by Dr. Judith Schlesinger

by Dr. Judith Schlesinger
November 3, 2013

This is the follow-up to the 2012 Side By Side: Sondheim Duos by the same brilliant pairing of Tommy Cecil, bass, and Bill Mays, piano. From the opener, the jaunty “Everybody Says Don't" (from Anyone Can Whistle, 1964), it's clear that this 2013 session will unfold like the first--laced with superb technique, imaginative arrangements, feeling and wit. And also like Volume 1, this session neatly punctures the old cliché that Sondheim may be a gifted lyricist, but cannot write beautiful ...

Album Review

George Cotsirilos: George Cotsirilos Trio - Variations

Read "George Cotsirilos Trio - Variations" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
November 3, 2013

Variations, guitarist George Cotsirilos' sixth recording, is a well-behaved trio affair in keeping with his more recent recordings like Past Present (OA2 Records, 2010). Cotsirilos plays with an acoustically round electric tone that never gets in the way of his fluid lines and well- considered melodies. His seven original compositions all have standards handle to them, in particular, the opener, “A Walk for Ethel," which recalls “I Get a Kick Out of You" crossed with “Scrapple from the Apple." Cotsirilos ...

Book Review

Keith Richards on Keith Richards

by Nenad Georgievski
November 3, 2013

Keith Richards on Keith Richards Interviews and Encounters Edited by Sean Egan 288 pages ISBN: 9781613747889 Chicago Review Press 2013 There is an enduring appeal when it comes to the lives of Keith Richards and the other Rolling Stones that has spawned a myriad of biography books throughout the years. But no matter how many biographies and testimonies are published, a whole new avalanche of books are written each new year that again ...

Album Review

New York Voices: Let It Snow

Read "Let It Snow" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
November 3, 2013

New York Voices is unquestionably one of the finest singing ensembles ever assembled and with Let It Snow, lend their quality vocals to the wintery season of cheer delivering a powerful performance of familiar Christmas songs sure to be regarded as a future holiday classic. Kim Nazarian, Lauren Kinhan, Peter Eldridge and founding member and tenor vocalist Darmon Meader, have been planning this project for some time after adding Christmas tunes to their December concerts many years ago. The music ...

Album Review

Open Trio: Dinosaurs

Read "Dinosaurs" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
November 3, 2013

The Swedish Open Trio, headed by pianist Joakim Simonsson, has operated since 2000. Its third release (after Colors and Goodbye Everything, 2003 and 2008, both on Found you Recordings, the label that Simonsson runs) refers ironically to its longevity but fortunately not to its fresh and creative output. The trio still stresses its lyrical and highly melodic strong foundations. The group plays with a natural ease, confidence and elegance. Though Simonsson is the leader and the ...

Interview

Rudresh Mahanthappa: Integrity

by George Colligan
November 3, 2013

Editor's Note: The following interview is reprinted from George Colligan's blog, Jazztruth. I had only met Rudresh Mahanthappa once briefly; we played with different bands at a gig at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. I was subbing with Miguel Zenon [while] he was performing with Vijay Iyer's quartet. I always found his playing to be super intense, which made me think that he might be a super intense personality. When we met years later at our ...

Extended Analysis

Miles Davis: In a Silent Way

by Nenad Georgievski
November 3, 2013

"Miles' audience isn't where it used to be but neither is his music" was used to market the new releases of Miles Davis' indefatigably changing music in the late 60's that caused seismic shifts in the world of jazz and completely had redirected it into new and fresh territories. In a career that stretched five decades Miles Davis did more than just become a star--this enigmatic 20th century icon fused an astonishing array of different musical styles, refused to be ...

Interview

David Fiuczynski: Salt, Sweat, Love, Tears

by George Colligan
November 2, 2013

[ Editor's Note: The following interview is reprinted from George Colligan's blog, Jazztruth] David Fiuczynski is a very unique guitarist. Many of you know him from his successful band called Screaming Headless Torsos. He's played with Hasidic New Wave, trumpeter Cuong Vu, and pianist Hiromi. I first met David at a rehearsal with drummer Billy Hart, and then we played a few projects with clarinetist Don Byron over the years. We've been working together in Jack DeJohnette's band ...

Album Review

Chris Biesterfeldt: Urban Mandolin

Read "Urban Mandolin" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
November 2, 2013

A mandolin player opening his first album as leader with Dizzy Gillespie's mercurial “Bebop"? Wow! That takes a lot of (fill in the blank). But Chris Biesterfeldt, best known as a guitarist, and for Broadway shows at that, not only sails through those tricky changes but handily nails everything else on this impressive trio album whose other protagonists are bassist Adam Armstrong and drummer Eric Halvorson. The mandolin, not exactly a guitar but somewhere in the neighborhood, ...