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

The Depaul University Jazz Ensemble: Salutes Woody Herman

Read "Salutes Woody Herman" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
September 30, 2013

Were he still with us, bandleader Woody Herman would have turned one hundred years young on May 16, 2013. What better way, then, to mark the occasion than by doing something that made “the Chopper" happier than anything else: swinging hard and often. Chicago's DePaul University Jazz Ensemble does precisely that on this superb album comprised of eleven memorable themes associated with Herman and his Herds from the 1940s and '50s, thanks in part to the towering presence of a ...

Extended Analysis

Sun Ra: Jazz in Silhouette

by Robert Mitchell
September 30, 2013

"A Certain Beat A Sudden Chord These things charm the mind with veiled enchantment That lingers long after the song is done" As with many cult artists, the back catalogue of Sun Ra is long and varied with large, less than bitesize chunks available for consumption if you so desire. Many of Sun Ra's LPs have been re-issued on vinyl, and to anyone curious about Sun Ra (and let's face it--who isn't ...

Album Review

Ivo Perelman: One

by Glenn Astarita
September 30, 2013

Brazilian saxophonist Ivo Perelman's inaugural recording for this progressive UK-based record label includes frequent companion, bassist Joe Morris and Hungarian drummer Balazs Pandi (Merzbow, ZU). As for Pandi, he's contributed to several albums for this label and brings a hardcore progressive metal and avant-rock realm of experience to the forefront. Otherwise, the trio launches a largely hyper-mode onslaught via potent rhythmic invectives amid the leader's ravaging flurries and climatic sorties into the upper-register. Perelman is a cunning artisan. ...

Album Review

Elliott: Girls with Radical Haircuts

Read "Girls with Radical Haircuts" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
September 30, 2013

The three young Danish musicians who comprise Elliott-- guitarist Alex Jønsson and double bassist Jens Mikkel Madsen, two-thirds of the indie-pop-jazz Foyn Trio! with Norwegian vocalist Live Foyn Friis, and trumpeter Jakob Sørensen, are aware of all music that was created in the last one hundred years. As the trio declares: “we already have everything from Billie Holiday to The Beatles and Björk," yet this trio is definite that there is more that it can offer. These ...

Live Review

Magnus Ostrom at Solstice Arts Centre, Navan, Ireland

by Ian Patterson
September 29, 2013

Magnus ÖströmSolstice Arts CentreNavan, IrelandSeptember 20, 2013 That Magnus Öström's quartet made it to Navan at all was good going given that the band's previous gig had been on a Scottish island boasting no fewer than eight whisky distilleries. The Scottish--as the quartet discovered--take their whisky and their hospitality seriously. That gig was part of the three-day Lagavulin Islay Jazz Festival, one of a growing number of jazz festivals popping up throughout the British Isles. ...

Album Review

Skip Heller: Songs With Memories: Skip Heller and Friends Play Floyd Tillman

Read "Songs With Memories: Skip Heller and Friends Play Floyd Tillman" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
September 29, 2013

It would be oh so tempting to say the music impresario Skip Heller has found his niche with Songs With Memories: Skip Heller and Friends Play Floyd Tillman but with his next recording, more likely than not, he would prove that statement ludicrous. Heller's 2012 Fakebook II: That's Entertainment (Weatherbird) was a sequel to his 2004 recording of “standards" Fakebook (Hyena Records), the two bookending a number of recordings documenting Heller's curious musical evolution to where we are now.

Album Review

Mintz Quartet: Mintz Quartet

Read "Mintz Quartet" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
September 29, 2013

The jazz world is packed with dynamic drummers, and players who raise the job of timekeeping--and beyond--to a fine art. And then there are the supreme poets of the drum kit: The late Paul Motian, with his gentle orchestra of textures, colors, and diaphanous accents; Jack De Johnette, with his bustling undercurrents and rock steady grooves; and, perhaps lesser known, but no less noteworthy, is Billy Mintz, with his melodious, metallic, shuffle-and-bump rhythmic dance. Mintz--who has recorded with ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With Fidel Cuellar

by AAJ Staff
September 29, 2013

Meet Fidel Cuellar: A native of Bogota, Colombia, Fidel Cuellar moved to New York City in 2007 to continue his apprenticeship as a jazz pianist and composer under the tutelage of renowned musicians like Bruce Barth, Mike Holober, and John Patitucci. In 2009, Cuellar graduated summa cum laude from the City College of New York's jazz performance program. Fidel Cuellar's stylistic versatility but distinct pianistic approach has put him in the radar of some of New York's best ...

Album Review

Brian Landrus Kaleidoscope: Mirage

Read "Mirage" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
September 29, 2013

Multi-instrumentalist and composer Brian Landrus' Mirage is his most accomplished, and thematically unified recording to date. The music shimmers like the phenomenon of the title as pastel colored harmonies of a string quartet bleed into the deep, earthy tones of low reeds and the fusion-like sounds of the band, Kaleidoscope.On “Don't Close Your Eyes" the evocative romanticism of the chordophones and soulful swagger of the rhythm section seamlessly blend enhancing its emotional reach. The crystalline ring of pianist ...

Album Review

University of Toronto Jazz Ensemble: Reflections

Read "Reflections" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
September 29, 2013

Wherever Gordon Foote goes, you may rest assured that pleasurable music is sure to follow. After twenty-six years at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, where he led the school's superlative Jazz Ensemble, Foote moved eastward to Toronto a year or so ago to oversee the splendid University of Toronto Jazz Orchestra, which recorded its most recent CD, Reflections (the first under Foote's supervision), in April 2013. To describe the album as impressive would be an understatement. The ...