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.

Live Review

Phoenix at Barclays Center

by Christine Connallon
October 13, 2013

Phoenix Barclays Center Brooklyn, NY October 2, 2013 On an early October evening that felt much more like summer than fall, the four man band from Versailles named Phoenix rolled into Brooklyn's upscale Barclays Center. An eclectic crowd milled around outside, soaking in the last rays of sunshine of the day, a demographic comprised of young and mature, parents and teens, native New Yorkers and fans sporting delightful accents, awash in neon ...

Album Review

Aaron Parks: Arborescence

Read "Arborescence" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
October 13, 2013

Slowly but surely, over the past several years, ECM Records has forged relationships with some of New York City's most impressive musicians--no mean feat given that, despite the Big Apple no longer being the jazz mecca it once was, it certainly remains a lightning rod for some of the world's most creative musicians, ranging from trumpeter Ralph Alessi and saxophonists Tim Berne and Chris Potter, to pianists David Virelles, Jason Moran and Craig Taborn--all of whom have been represented, either ...

Catching Up With

Rob Garza: Being Open-minded

by Nenad Georgievski
October 13, 2013

DJ and producer Rob Garza has been known as one half of the kaleidoscopic duo Thievery Corporation, along with Eric Hilton. Earlier this year Garza released a collection of 14 remixes that he has done for artists such as Gogol Bordello, Tycho and Miguel Migs. Remixes is a crisscross concoction that merges beats, ambient waves, low --fi, psychedelic, deep house into an intriguing whole. On the other front, regarding Thievery Corporation, the band has been touring sporadically and has just ...

Album Review

Perelman - Shipp - Dickey - Cleaver: Enigma

Read "Enigma" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
October 13, 2013

Even though Brazilian tenor saxophonist Ivo Perelman is a renowned powerhouse amid his gusty and highly energized mode of attack, he's an expert when it comes to reconfiguring melodic content and refreshing previously stated themes on-the-fly. Nonetheless, the principal basis for his craft is ingrained within the art of improvisation as he usually works within small ensembles. Enigma finds the artist performing with longtime collaborators, pianist Matthew Shipp and drummers Whit Dickey and Gerald Cleaver. It has become discernible over ...

Extended Analysis

Peter Gabriel: And I'll Scratch Yours

by Nenad Georgievski
October 13, 2013

Peter Gabriel is surely one of the most unpredictable artists today. His career path has proven to be of a mercurial kind with him taking the road less travelled as Gabriel has more often than not sought unusual experiences as a source for his intensively felt music. Long an inventive musical conceptualist he has always sought challenge on all fronts--musically, visually, technologically and emotionally. His bold and innovative career choices have made him a step ahead of the curve as ...

Album Review

Tolvan Big Band: Effortlessly - Music by Helge Albin

Read "Effortlessly - Music by Helge Albin" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
October 13, 2013

Swedish saxophonist, composer and arranger Helge Albin has led the Tolvan Big Band since 1979. Albin turned this ambitious, up-to-date big band, located in Malmö in southern Sweden, into a musical institution with an international reputation. They have collaborated with notable American musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie, Dave Liebman and Michael Brecker, British composer Mike Westbrook and Danish saxophonist Lars Møller; the band even dedicated one of its programs to new arrangements of the John Lennon songbook. ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With Jim Ferris

by AAJ Staff
October 13, 2013

Meet Jim Ferris: I play the sax and flute. Moved to Raleigh, NC from Rochester, NY in 1999. I have been leading my own jazz group since the late '80s in New York and North Carolina. In Rochester, I fronted the Jim Ferris Quartet for about a decade and have been performing for more than 35 years, playing jazz, R&B, top 40s, rock and more. The Jim Ferris Trio reached number one on the ReverbNation jazz ...

Album Review

Earl MacDonald and the Creative Opportunity Workshop: Mirror of the Mind

Read "Mirror of the Mind" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
October 13, 2013

Not satisfied with the traditional jazz spectrum, pianist and educator Earl MacDonald explores new ways of expressing his progressive taste and with Mirror of the Mind deciding to challenge the boundaries of jazz with a unique instrumentation and sound forged by his new band, Creative Opportunity Workshop. As Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Connecticut and former director of Maynard Ferguson's Big Bop Nouveau Band, MacDonald has had plenty of experience in the large ensemble circuit and with ...

Album Review

Ilaiyaraja: Soundtrack: Neethane En Ponvasantham

Read "Soundtrack: Neethane En Ponvasantham" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki

by Chris M. Slawecki
October 13, 2013

In India, the 2012 film Neethane En Ponvasantham and its companion soundtrack proved to be quite the cultural event. Movie scenes were shot in three Indian languages (Tamil, Telugu and Hindi). The soundtrack was collaboratively written by the film's director, Gautham Menon, with lyricist Na. Muthakumar and Ilaiyaraaja, the composer globally known as “The Maestro" because he has written more than 4500 songs and scored more than 950 films in India. While the film was released in December ...

Live Review

Steve Hackett at Casino du Lac Leamy Theatre

by John Kelman
October 12, 2013

Steve Hackett Casino du Lac Leamy Théâtre Gatineau, Canada October 5, 2013 It might seem odd that the guitarist who left Genesis more than 35 years ago has ultimately become the only one to champion the music made during the group's years spent in the progressive rock arena, while those who continued on as a trio expressed less and less interest in that music, becoming far more commercially successful with the '80s-style pop that became ...