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

Roberto Magris: Sam Reed Meets Roberto Magris: Ready for Reed

Read "Sam Reed Meets Roberto Magris: Ready for Reed" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
August 31, 2013

Italian pianist Roberto Magris has become the hard bop keeper-of-the- flame with recent J-Mood releases including Mating Call (2010), Morgan Rewind: A Tribute to Lee Morgan Vol. 1 (2012) and One Night in With Hope and More...Vol. 1 (2012), volume designations making clear there is more to come. On Sam Reed Meets Roberto Magris: Ready For Reed, Magris reintroduces Philadelphia saxophonist Sam Reed, who, after a lifetime in music, took some time off but was ultimately rediscovered. ...

Extended Analysis

Vangelis: Blade Runner OST

by Nenad Georgievski
August 31, 2013

At its worst, the music of Greek composer and multi-instrumentalist Vangelis is full of sounds and furies that signify absolutely nothing. At its best, his recordings incorporate many types of sounds and beautiful and memorable melodies that nod in the direction of a number of different musical styles without destroying the overall mood of his records. Certainly, he is one of the great popularizers of the synthesizer, and the first to win an Oscar for his completely synthetisized score to ...

Album Review

FivePlay Jazz Quintet: Five And More

Read "Five And More" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
August 31, 2013

If the jazz world has room for two Avishai Cohens, and it can deal with the confusion of two different guys named Bill Evans that played with Miles Davis, it can certainly stand to have two bands called Five Play. The one on the East Coast is a breakout band extracted from the all-female Diva Jazz Orchestra; that's not the one under discussion here. The FivePlay Jazz Quintet, a group that's based in the San Francisco Bay Area, is the ...

Live Review

Todd Rundgren at the NYCB Theatre

by Mike Perciaccante
August 31, 2013

Todd Rundgren NYCB Theatre at Westbury Westbury, NY August 11, 2013Todd Rundgren has forged an enviable and lengthy career on the pop and rock landscape. The multi-instrumentalist's career with Nazz, Utopia and as a solo artist is as diverse as they come. Rundgren's influences can be very easily heard and identified when listening to his music. His songs feature elements of the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Cream, Pink Floyd, the Who, Broadway musicals and classic ...

Live Review

Ivete Sangalo at the Prudential Center

by Ernest Barteldes
August 31, 2013

Ivete SangaloPrudential CenterNewark, NJAugust 17, 2013On the final leg of her US Real Fantasia tour, Brazilian singer Ivete Sangalo made a stop at Newark's Prudential Center, backed by a massive band that included several percussionists (who she joined from time to time), guitar, bass, keyboards, brass, backup singers and dancers. From the first chord, Sangalo and the band went into Carnaval mode, belting out hits from her 20-year career. As she has stated ...

Album Review

Satoko Fujii Ma-Do: Time Stands Still

Read "Time Stands Still" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
August 31, 2013

Several months after this recording, bassist Norikatsu Koeyasu died of a heart-attack in-between tours. Pianist Satoko Fujii decided that the band could not continue without his presence, citing his vital role and “telepathic connection." Hence, Ma-Do's third album will be its last. It's an unfortunate occurrence but a testament to the musicians' realization that a replacement was not feasible. The quartet's unique method of seamlessly fusing rich melodic content with asymmetrical pulses and stewing developments, saddled within the freer realm, ...

Album Review

Tedeschi Trucks Band: Made Up Mind

Read "Made Up Mind" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
August 31, 2013

In so many ways, Tedeschi Trucks Band has bucked the odds: a band, on paper, doomed to fail and yet, here it is with its second studio recording, after the 2011 debut, Revelator and 2012 live album, Everybody's Talkin' (both, Sony Masterworks). In these days of escalating touring costs, the idea of an eleven-piece rock/soul/blues band being not just viable but successful would seem impossible. Then there's the decades-old unwritten rule: never date--or, worse, marry--one of your band mates.

Album Review

Alexis Cuadrado: A Lorca Soundscape

Read "A Lorca Soundscape" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
August 30, 2013

When times are tough, injustice is in the air, and something needs to be said, jazz always finds a way to do the talking. In times past, it was Billie Holiday singing “Strange Fruit" at Cafe Society, drummer Max Roach and vocalist Abbey Lincoln pouring their hearts out on We Insist! Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite (Candid, 1960), bassist Charles Mingus railing against injustice with soul stirring epics, and bassist Charlie Haden sermonizing with his Liberation Music Orchestra; today, it's ...

Scumbles

Ian Dury: "More Than Fair" Art Exhibition

by Sammy Stein
August 30, 2013

By the time Ian Dury had his first major hit, he was 35 years old. With frightening speed he and his band became household names and Dury remained a national treasure until his death at the age of 57 in 2000.However, before the Kilburns, the Blockheads or the Music Students, before he was bewitched by the overpowering enchantment of fame, sex, drugs or rock and roll, Dury had a different life. He was an artist, a teacher and ...

Album Review

Terje Rypdal: Melodic Warrior

Read "Melodic Warrior" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
August 30, 2013

Some albums are worth the wait, even if that wait is a full decade. The lion's share of guitarist Terje Rypdal's Melodic Warrior is devoted to the nine-movement title suite, a 2003 recording with the Bruckner Orchester Linz and, most importantly, the Hilliard Ensemble, the vocal ensemble that leapt to greater fame with Officium (ECM, 1993), the first of three recordings with Rypdal's fellow countryman, Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek. The four-movement “And the Sky was Coloured with Waterfalls and Angels," ...