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

Ed Reed: Ed Reed - I'm A Shy Guy: A Tribute to the King Cole Trio & Their Music

Read "Ed Reed - I'm A Shy Guy: A Tribute to the King Cole Trio & Their Music" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
October 1, 2013

San Francisco vocalist Ed Reed is a bona fide contemporary of West Coast jazz luminaries: Art Pepper, Frank Morgan, Dexter Gordon, Wardell Gray and Hampton Hawes. Unlike that august group, Reed remains to tell his story, and by proxy, theirs' in the bargain. Like this same group, drugs (and in the case of Gray, murder) suspended Reed's musical career. Unlike Pepper and Morgan, who staged much heralded late-career comebacks, Reed did not first record until 2007 at age 78. Neither ...

Album Review

Billy Mintz: Mintz Quartet

Read "Mintz Quartet" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
October 1, 2013

What is remarkable about drummer's Billy Mintz's debut recording Mintz Quartet is his masterful versatility on his instrument. That is no surprise as Mintz, an in demand sideman, has played with a wide variety of musicians during his career ranging from disco diva Gloria Gaynor to saxophonists Lee Konitz and Charles Lloyd. A well-known educator and writer, Mintz also showcases his sophisticated compositional skills on this intriguing album.“Ugly Beautiful" for example, is an intense and free flowing piece. ...

The Mort Report

Love... Sorrow... Jazz... and Death

by Mort Weiss
October 1, 2013

When we think of an art form, the tendency is to look in every and all directions except inward--wherein all answers lie, although shielded and hidden from one's self and any that choose to be within your sphere of understanding and passion. Why must it take years of self- study and searching the myriad avenues and paths that lead directly to one's innermost feelings of hope, love, fear and despair? And reaching that destination, only to find that every hope ...

Album Review

Manuel Valera & New Cuban Express: Expectativas

Read "Expectativas" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
October 1, 2013

A follow up to pianist Manuel Valera's 2013 Grammy--nominated New Cuban Express, his seventh album as leader, Expectativas continues the melding of Afro-Cuban rhythms with the modern fusion jazz sound fusing the two into a new form of jazz best described as “modern Latin fusion." Consisting of eleven originals and one cover, the project is a testament to Valera's compositional talents and his vision for the future Latin Jazz. As such, the approach is not all Latin-tinged as evidenced by ...

Album Review

Gavin Templeton: In Series

Read "In Series" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
October 1, 2013

Alto saxophonist Gavin Templeton has become a pivotal force in the L.A. progressive jazz scene and it's easily discernible, given his strong improvisational faculties, resonating tone, and penchant for bridging conventional means into the outside schema of the jazz vernacular. On his second solo release for Nine Winds Records, he embeds rock riffs, variable tempos, and odd-metered unison choruses with guitarist Perry Smith and a host of mood-evoking thematic episodes via these multicolored pieces. The artists conclude the ...

Interview

Jack DeJohnette: Painting With Sticks

by George Colligan
October 1, 2013

The following interview is reprinted from George Colligan's blog, Jazztruth.The name Jack DeJohnette is synonymous with modern jazz drumming. Many know him for his years spent with the Keith Jarrett Trio, but he first came to prominence with Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis in the '60s. He's always in demand as a sideman--although you wouldn't call Jack DeJohnette to merely be a sideman--his musical contribution to any project is such that he is always a collaborator. He has ...

Interview

Alexis Cuadrado: A Bassist in New York

by Franz A. Matzner
September 30, 2013

Bassist, bandleader, and innovative composer Alexis Cuadrado has made a name for himself over the last decade with a series of ambitious albums that push the envelope of jazz composition. His latest work A Lorca Soundscape (Sunnyside, 2013) may very well represent the most challenging piece yet to emerge from his restive mind. As thought provoking as it is musically stirring, the album puts to music the poetry of Federico García Lorca's seminal collection “A Poet in New York," finding ...

Album Review

Philip Clouts Quartet: The Hour Of Pearl

Read "The Hour Of Pearl" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
September 30, 2013

The Hour Of Pearl--a title taken from John Steinbeck's Cannery Row--is the second album from the UK-based Philip Clouts Quartet. A melodic collection of original tunes, it combines lightness of touch with a rhythmic sensibility: a winning combination.Pianist and composer Clouts was born in Cape Town. Although he moved to the UK in his infancy, the family home was filled with the music of his homeland, Abdullah Ibrahim and Chris McGregor proving to be especially influential on Clouts' ...

Extended Analysis

Ian Torres Big Band: January

by Jack Bowers
September 30, 2013

In the interest of brevity, the name of Chicago-based trumpeter Ian Torres' debut album as shown above has been abridged. For the record, the complete title is January: The Birth and Development of the Ian Torres Big Band. The “Birth" is depicted in the first five numbers, recorded in 2008-09, “Development" in the last half-dozen, recorded in 2013. The album as a whole is an homage to Torres' “inspiration, cheerleader, biggest supporter and fan"--his mother, Janis, who died suddenly in ...

Album Review

Roberto Magris: Cannonball Funk 'n Friends / One Night in with Hope . . . Vol. 2

Read "Cannonball Funk 'n Friends / One Night in with Hope . . . Vol. 2" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
September 30, 2013

Pianist Roberto Magris, who logs so much time in studios that he should be awarded Frequent Recording points, is back with two more albums, the first by a quintet with alto Jim Mair sitting in for Julian Cannonball" Adderley and trumpeter Hermon Mehari for Cannonball's brother, Nat, the second a trio session billed as Vol. 2 in a tribute to the late pianist Elmo Hope but containing no music written by its dedicatee (well, the album's title does read “and ...