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.

Extended Analysis

The Jazz Professors: Live from the UCF-Orlando Jazz Festival / Do That Again

by Jack Bowers
August 30, 2013

The Jazz Professors aren't wearing any hats they don't own; the fact is, they really are Professors in the Jazz Studies program at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. Instead of letting the students have all the fun, however, the Professors have recorded three albums of their own, the second Live from UCF-Orlando Jazz Festival, the third and most recent Do That Again, this one in a studio. Lest anyone assume these are “vanity" enterprises, it should be noted ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With Axel Schultheiss

by AAJ Staff
August 30, 2013

Meet Axel Schultheiss: I started playing the guitar at 15 and soon got into finger-style guitar when I heard players like Leo Kottke. Shortly after this I started to compose my own music and played concerts. My sound began to emerge more and more once I started combing acoustic finger-style techniques with delay and loop pedals. I mainly play solo concerts but I also have some great duo and trio projects. Instrument(s):Electric and acoustic guitars.

Album Review

Bystrov/Bledsoe/Lapin: Triologue

Read "Triologue" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
August 30, 2013

American flautist and educator Helen Bledsoe resides in Cologne, Germany, and is a prominent improviser on the global circuit. She aligns with Russians, pianist Alexey Lapin and clarinetist Vlady Bystrov, for a soundscape that defies stringent categorizations but touches on avant-Chamber, free-jazz, and is embedded in dense montages, as they explore numerous possibilities and outcomes. Recorded in St. Petersburg, Russia, the trio's abstract manifestations are shadowed with melodic mini-themes and flirtatious exchanges via the omnipresent improvisational component. The ...

Album Review

Agachiko: Agachiko: Yes!

Read "Agachiko: Yes!" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
August 30, 2013

Agachiko is a band led by Boston-based vocalist Gabrielle Agachiko, bringing together an impressive array of musicians that includes saxophonist Russ Gershon of the Either/Orchestra, and Ken Field of the Revolutionary Snake Ensemble, both distilling their amply-endowed playing down to a bare essence where all that remains is the music to support an exceptional voice and vision. Largely an acoustic ensemble, Agachiko has a malleable ability to accomplish a variety of performance ends, sounding minimal and elegant, bluesy and brazen, ...

Album Review

Joe Henderson: Mode for Joe

Read "Mode for Joe" reviewed by Greg Simmons

by Greg Simmons
August 29, 2013

Recorded and released in 1966, Mode for Joe was Joe Henderson's last session as a leader for Blue Note Records until 1985's State of the Tenor.True to form for the period, the recording features a cast of legendary players in peak form. In this case Henderson shares front line duties with a fiery Lee Morgan on trumpet and a young Bobby Hutcherson on vibes. Curtis Fuller's trombone adds low-end heft to the melodic statements. Forget that ...

Reassessing

John Coltrane: Afro Blue Impressions

by C. Michael Bailey
August 29, 2013

John ColtraneAfro Blue ImpressionsOJC1963/2013 When considering the panoply of music living beneath the banner of Concord Music Group, there should be no problem understanding the company's reissue policy, which has been curious. Any wrinkles in such logic smooth out when anniversaries are celebrated. Concord recently acknowledged what is the first of several remastered groups of recordings celebrating Riverside Records 60th anniversary with the copious release of remastered albums of Julian Cannonball ...

Album Review

Bruno Heinen Sextet: Tierkreis

Read "Tierkreis" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
August 29, 2013

British pianist Bruno Heinen studied classical music at the Royal College of Music, and jazz with fellow countryman and renowned jazz pianist John Taylor. He comes from both sides of the fence so to speak, which is an aspect that translates rather well on these pieces composed by pioneering and influential classical composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. Heinen's articulate and imaginative arrangements of Tierkreis (the signs of the Zodiac) are framed on 12 melodies based on tone rows. And one of the ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With Pat Pratico

by AAJ Staff
August 29, 2013

Meet Pasquale J Pratico:I was born in Trenton in 1955 to an Italian-American family. My brothers and my younger sister were raised in a family restaurant business. I learned to cook and still cook most of the time with the help of my wife, Mary. My uncles Nate and Vince are professional musicians and they--along with the musicians my father hired to play in the restaurant-- inspired me. I started in a wedding band with my older brother ...

Extended Analysis

Fred Hersch and Julian Lage: Free Flying

by Victor L. Schermer
August 29, 2013

This album is the latest of several recordings in which pianist Fred Hersch solos or joins forces with some highly intelligent, advanced musicians to provide jazz renditions with a sophisticated, chamber music quality. Others are Hersch's Alone at the Vanguard (Palmetto, 2011); Leaves of Grass (Palmetto, 2005)--an ensemble composition based on Walt Whitman's poems--and two additional solo albums: Fred Hersch plays Jobim (Sunnyside, 2009) and In Amsterdam: Live at the Bimhuis (Palmetto, 2006). He also collaborated with trumpeter Ralph Alessi ...

Album Review

Monkey Plot: Lov og lette vimpler

Read "Lov og lette vimpler" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
August 29, 2013

The title of this debut album from young Norwegian trio Monkey Plot, Løv og lette vimpler ("leaves and light streamers" in Norwegian) suggests a glimpse into its impressive range. The musical vocabulary of these musicians--acoustic guitarist Christian Skår Winther, double bassist Magnus Skavhaug Nergaard (both members of the noisy, in-your-face punk-jazz trio Ich Bin N!ntendo) and drummer Jan Martin Gismervik (himself a member of the experimental duo PGA)--refuses to be defined by genres. It is associated with assorted inspirations such ...