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

Bill Hollis: Best of Bill Hollis

Read "Best of Bill Hollis" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
September 22, 2013

Songwriter and pianist William Odell (Bill) Hollis passed away three years ago leaving behind a legacy of 175 original tunes. Best of Bill Hollis on the Blujazz label collects eight of these from two different sessions from 1983 and 1985. The former is recorded with a trio in Bristol, Pennsylvania and the latter with a quartet in Manahawkin, New Jersey.A suave musician, Hollis plays with deceptively simple elegance making each note count. The unabashedly romantic “Love Will Bloom" ...

Album Review

Bryn Roberts: Fables

Read "Fables" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
September 22, 2013

Born in Canada, pianist Bryn Roberts has enjoyed a prolific career as a session artist since moving to New York City in 2001. Snuggled within a modern mainstream vibe, his persuasive compositions pay homage to melodic content, often complemented by saxophonist Seamus Blake's burly delivery and fluid lines. Nonetheless, many of these works contain quite a bit of bounce and pop, as Roberts is a shrewd technician who knows when to balance power and restraint, alongside a light touch amid ...

Catching Up With

Tiempo Libre: Back in Havana

by Luellen Smiley
September 21, 2013

Sometimes an interview with a musician goes deeper than a narrative history of recordings, concert calendar and early training. That happened when I met Jorge Gómez; founder, keyboardist and musical director of Tiempo Libre, an all Cuban born Timba band. We met in a modest hotel room in Santa Fe, New Mexico where he and his six band members were invited to play for the third time at the Lensic Theater. It was steam-bath hot and muggy that Friday afternoon. ...

Album Review

John Butcher, Thomas Lehn, John Tilbury: Exta

by John Eyles
September 21, 2013

The trio of saxophonist John Butcher, synthesiser player Thomas Lehn and pianist John Tilbury had a certain inevitability about it. Although they had not recorded together prior to this album, each of the three possible pairs had done so--Lehn and Tilbury when the Englishman recorded the extraordinary The Hands of Caravaggio (Erstwhile, 2002) with MIMEO of which Lehn was a member, Butcher and Tilbury when the saxophonist joined AMM to record Trinity (Matchless, 2008), and Butcher and Lehn when the ...

Album Review

Jeff Lorber Fusion: Hacienda

Read "Hacienda" reviewed by Jeff Winbush

by Jeff Winbush
September 21, 2013

If the word “fusion" is a dirty word don't tell Jeff Lorber. In 1977, the Jeff Lorber Fusion made the scene and 36 years later there's a new incarnation of the band built around Lorber's keyboards, synths and occasional guitar, Jimmy Haslip on bass, and Eric Marienthal on saxophone. What's changed in nearly four decades later in the current version is a vastly improved model, but Lorber's energy and exuberance for funky, rollicking jams is undiminished.A perfect summation ...

Interview

Kevin Hays: Creative Flow

by George Colligan
September 21, 2013

[ Editor's Note: The following interview is reprinted from George Colligan's blog, Jazztruth]If you aren't familiar with pianist Kevin Hays, you should be. He's recorded and toured with many of the greatest jazz musicians of all time. And those who call him can't seem to get enough of him. His recent projects as a leader on Artistshare have been stunningly beautiful. I've been a fan ever since I came to New York. I heard him with Eddie Henderson's ...

Live Review

The Royal Southern Brotherhood at B.B. King’s Blues Club & Grill

by Mike Perciaccante
September 21, 2013

The Royal Southern Brotherhood B.B. King's Blues Club & Grill New York, NY September 4, 2013 The Royal Southern Brotherhood is well-named. It is exactly what it should be: an all-star group of virtuoso musicians with roots in the south who play an amalgam of blues, soul, funk and southern- influenced rock. The band is part Neville, part Allman and all supergroup. It was formed during the summer of 2010, when Cyril Neville (percussion and ...

Album Review

Kjetil Husebø: Sources

Read "Sources" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
September 21, 2013

Norwegian pianist and live sampling master Kjetil Husebø continues to develop his highly personal sonic language on his sophomore solo release after last year's solo debut Contradictions (Optical Substance, 2012). Husebø explores the grand piano as a sound source--acoustic or enhanced with live sampling and electronics. Both treatments of the piano sound organic even in its most abstract moments, and all blur the distinctions between jazz improvisation, contemporary music, acoustic ambiance, and electronic textures. All ten pieces ...

Album Review

Christy Doran's New Bag: Mesmerized

Read "Mesmerized" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
September 21, 2013

Celebrated Swiss guitarist Christy Doran assets pertain to his indefatigable creative sparks, evidenced by his work in jazz-rock, avant-garde jazz improvisation or when tackling world music. And from a fundamental shedding perspective, he could hold his own with most if not all of the present guitar heroes. New Bag was created in 1997, but Swiss vocalist Sarah Buechi joined the ranks in 2012. Her presence is somewhat multifaceted as she harmonizes, scats, and often steers the melodies in ...

Album Review

Chris Thile: Chris Thile: Bach - Sonatas & Partitas

Read "Chris Thile: Bach - Sonatas & Partitas" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
September 20, 2013

At first blush, Bach's Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin played on the humble mandolin might be akin to making a Rusty Nail with single-malt scotch. A successful performance will require, at the very least, great virtuosity and vision: both of which Chris Thile possesses in impressive amounts. Banjoist Bela Fleck's superb 2001 recording Perpetual Motion (Sony) demonstrated that in the hands of a superior musician, Baroque fare shines like a new dime (Fleck even covers Bach's “Prelude" from Partita ...