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

Laura Furci: Laura Furci - Think Con La Tua Cabeza

Read "Laura Furci - Think Con La Tua Cabeza" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
October 25, 2013

Laura Furci is many things. She is a classically-trained pianist, vocalist and composer with a musical vision that penetrates well beyond the artistic horizon we currently realize. Innovation has a cutting edge where the particles of creativity turn in upon themselves and it is on this almost theoretic wave where Furci is most comfortable surfing. Young, beautiful, talented, technically accomplished, organically creative, Furci is a Renaissance woman. Her second recording, following the 2010 EP Out of My Comfort Zone (Magnetica), ...

Interview

Ralph Peterson: Music Teaches You Life

by George Colligan
October 24, 2013

[Editor's Note: The following interview is reprinted from George Colligan's blog, Jazztruth] I was recently in Athens, as part of my tour with Jack DeJohnette. Shortly after arriving, I'm sitting in my hotel room, and I get an unexpected call. “Colligan!" “Uh...yes?" And then I hear one of my obscure compositions, “Reaction," being sung by a gravelly yet pitch perfect voice. It could only be one person.... “Ralph? What are you doing here?" Ralph Peterson is ...

Album Review

Mary LaRose: Reincarnation

Read "Reincarnation" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
October 24, 2013

The best stories are, indeed, the one's you already know. Told over- and-over again, each time a little different. That's comfort food for the ears. Enter vocalist Mary LaRose, recounting the music of Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy, and Ornette Coleman with lyrics she penned and performed as a sympathetic partner to these jazz giants. The singer has visited some of this music before, recording Coleman's “Broken Shadows" and some Mingus on her disc Cutting The Chord (Leadhead Productions, ...

Extended Analysis

John Escreet: Sabotage and Celebration

by Andrew Luhn
October 24, 2013

Since his move to New York in 2006, English-born pianist John Escreet has achieved widespread recognition for his adventurous compositions and his seemingly restless creativity. On Sabotage and Celebration, Escreet augments an already formidable quintet with strings, brass, guitar, and vocals, making it his most ambitious and creative work yet. Escreet composed most of the material in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, when most of New York City was shut down for a week. Frustrated and stuck ...

Album Review

Hristo Vitchev / Liubomia Krastev: Rhodopa

Read "Rhodopa" reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard

by Jakob Baekgaard
October 24, 2013

While jazz as an art form always moves forward, it is also tied to tradition and the music of the past. Many jazz musicians with European ties have found inspiration in the folk music of their country: Jan Johansson's Jazz på svenska, Dag Arnesen's Norwegian Song 1-3 and Sunna Gunnlaugs Songs from Iceland are some of the most notable examples. Hristo Vitchev's Rhodopa could easily be added to this list. While Vitchev has moved to San Francisco ...

Extended Analysis

The Wrong Object: After the Exhibition

by Dave Wayne
October 24, 2013

Sometime during the late 1960s, adventurous European rock musicians led by the likes of Gong, Soft Machine, Magma, and Arzachel began incorporating elements of avant-garde jazz, contemporary classical and various ethnic musics into their own original progressive rock music. The result varied somewhat from region to region, but the most important thing was that very little of this hybrid music fit neatly into the existing parameters of fusion music, then known generically as jazz-rock. Sure, there were stacks of analogue ...

Album Review

Mars Williams/Ingebrigt Haker-Flåten/Tim Daisy: Moments Form

Read "Moments Form" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
October 24, 2013

The secret recipe for a great free jazz recording is to develop and maintain the energy systems of your particular ensemble. The ingredients are, of course, first class improvisers and most importantly those musicians must be willing to collaborate. The recipe seems obvious, but quite often the sum of the parts, when creating music from nothing, doesn't add up to a unified whole. No need to worry when the improvisers are world class and unselfish musicians ...

Album Review

Hristo Vitchev and Liubomir Krastev: Rhodopa

Read "Rhodopa" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
October 24, 2013

Bulganin modern jazz guitarist Hristo Vitchev resides in the Bay Area and alternates between a variety of jazz formations. On Rhodopa, which is a mountainous region in Bulgaria (named after the character from the Greek mythology known also as Hera, sister of Zeus) he teams with clarinetist Liubomir Krastev who shares with him Bulgarian roots on a program of traditional Bulgarian melodies. Vitchev arrangements focus on the lyrical and emotional side of this folklore melody. He, ...

Album Review

Svein Gjermundrød: Kitten on the Funkies

Read "Kitten on the Funkies" reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard

by Jakob Baekgaard
October 23, 2013

The famous folk singer Pete Seeger has once stated that he doesn't listen to recorded music. This underlines the fact that it is actually possible to live a life in music without recording. However, the ghost of recording will often come back to haunt a musician and it is no secret that Seeger has recorded plenty of music himself. To call Norwegian trumpeter Svein Gjermundrød a late bloomer in the record industry would be an understatement, but ...

Live Review

PianOrquestra at Belfast Festival 2013

by Ian Patterson
October 23, 2013

PianOrquestra Sonic Arts Research Centre Belfast Festival Belfast, N. Ireland October 20, 2013 Composer John Cage would have been like a little kid in a sweetie shop; a serious little kid perhaps, but one at play nonetheless, because the Sonic Arts Research Centre of the Queens University Belfast is equipped like few other centers in the world to develop and experiment with the creation of music and sound. Its Sonic Laboratory, a specially ...