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

Johanna Graham: Don’t Let Me Be Lonely

Read "Don’t Let Me Be Lonely" reviewed by Nicholas F. Mondello

by Nicholas F. Mondello
September 29, 2013

Years back, there was a fascinating self-help book entitled The Road Less Traveled (Simon and Schuster, 1978) by psychiatrist, M. Scott Peck. The premise of that long-time #1 best-selling effort was simple: in Life sometimes making a riskier choice--where the unknown awaits--can be the most rewarding. Perhaps taking Peck's suggested advice, Don't Let Me Be Lonely by British vocalist Johanna Graham takes a right turn at a musical crossroads and, for the most part, the result is a musically satisfying ...

What is Jazz?

Ye Olde Criticism of Jazz

by Scott Krane
September 29, 2013

SURREALISM, n. Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express--verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner--the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by the thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern. ENCYCLOPEDIA. Philosophy. Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of previously neglected associations, in the omnipotence of dream, in the disinterested play of ...

Profile

Jimmy Ponder: His Recorded Output

by Colter Harper
September 28, 2013

Jazz history has been intimately tied to its recorded output. Styles and genres are defined by landmark records, which stand responsible for representing the diffuse activities and artistic visions of a given musical community or individual. However, recordings are not simply glimpses of past musical realities but rather images of those realities filtered through various “lenses." The restrictions of technology, interests of record companies, personalities of record producers, and versatility of musicians all affect what is presented as the musical ...

Album Review

Gustavo Cortiñas: Snapshot

by Jack Bowers
September 28, 2013

Drummer Gustavo Cortinas, who leads a group of admirable musicians on his engaging debut album, Snapshot, was born in Mexico, received his higher education in the States (Loyola University, New Orleans; Northwestern University) and currently resides in Chicago. Besides playing drums, Cortinas wrote and arranged every number on Snapshot, showing impressive proficiency in those areas as well. This is for the most part a sextet session with alternating tenor saxophonists, one of whom, Victor Goines, a native of New Orleans, ...

Live Review

2013 Ultima Contemporary Music Festival

by John Kelman
September 28, 2013

2013 Ultima Contemporary Music Festival Oslo, Norway September 5-14, 2013 Last year's first visit to the Ultima Contemporary Music Festival in Oslo, Norway revealed a rich program that blurred the lines between composition and improvisation in ways few (if any) festivals of its kind do. While the primary reason to attend the festival--Norway's Jaga Jazzist collaboration with Britain's Britten Sinfonia, the finale to the first Conexions season curated by host of BBC Radio 3's Late Junction, ...

Album Review

Sunna Gunnlaugs: Distilled

Read "Distilled" reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard

by Jakob Baekgaard
September 28, 2013

It is tempting to connect a musical aesthetic with a particular place. In fact, the whole idea of national music relies on the concept of an intrinsic national spirit, which creates an original musical expression. The only problem with a concept like national music is that it tends to pigeonhole musicians and create prejudice rather than adventurousness. Then it is great to have an artist like Icelandic pianist Sunna Gunnlaugs, who is good at turning things around. ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With Dorian Wallace

by AAJ Staff
September 28, 2013

Meet Dorian Wallace:Dorian Wallace is a composer, pianist, synthesist, writer, and teacher. His career has experienced a diverse musical palette including orchestral, chamber, avant-garde, jazz, free improvisation, classical dance, electronic, film, opera, hip-hop, and rock. He is co-founder/artistic director of Tenth Intervention and Trystero, as well as artistic director of Dorian Wallace and His Big Band. He also plays keyboard in the jam band, AmmoCake.Instrument(s):Composer, pianist, synthesist.Teachers and/or influences?Igor Stravinsky, ...

Album Review

Halie Loren: Simply Love

Read "Simply Love" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
September 28, 2013

Vocalist Halie Loren has never avoided love songs. Her spectacularly engaging Heart First (Justin Time, 2012) is actually full of them, but this program one-ups that album in the love department. Loren mixes and matches popular songs from a variety of sources and eras, throws in a few originals for good measure, and lets her warm and seductive voice work its magic on all of them during the easy-to-enjoy Simply Love Loren has always been repertoire savvy, ...

Album Review

Randy Brecker: Night in Calisia

Read "Night in Calisia" reviewed by Nicholas F. Mondello

by Nicholas F. Mondello
September 28, 2013

The waters of history significantly bathe Kalisz, Poland's oldest city. Specifically, they source back when Kalisz was an important stop on the Amber Road to Rome. Historical streams of another type also run broadly through this exuberantly satisfying recording offered by the triumvirate of trumpeter, Randy Brecker, pianist/composer Wlodek Pawlik, and the hometown Kalisz Philharmonic.This is a sprawling, beautiful and inspiring performance which, through Pawlik's effusive musical pageantry, Brecker's outstanding playing, and the orchestra's hometown fervor, appropriately helped ...

Extended Analysis

Josh Brown: Songbook Trio

by Geannine Reid
September 27, 2013

Trombonist Josh Brown was raised in Burlington, Ontario. His mother was a music teacher and his father was an avid jazz fan. It is no surprise that Brown grew up playing in school and city bands, eventually winning local and national competitions and eventually attended Humber College in Toronto, where he studied music. Brown also went on to attend the prestigious Banff School of Fine Arts, and Thelonious Monk Jazz Aspen Snowmass. Making the move to New York in the ...