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.

Catching Up With

Mike Dillon: Rhythm Method

by Mike Chamberlain
August 12, 2013

Percussionist/vibraphonist/bandleader Mike Dillon's music defies easy categorization. It's been called “punk jazz," a term that describes working methods--do it yourself, find your own voice--more than actual sounds.Dillon sports a wide-ranging musical résumé. He has led or has been a member of outfits such as Critters Buggin, Les Claypool's Fancy Band, The Dead Kenny G's, Mike Dillon's Go-Go Jungle, and Garage a Trois. He led Billy Goat in Dallas, Malachy Papers in Kansas City, and Hairy Apes BMX in ...

Album Review

Endangered Blood: Work Your Magic

Read "Work Your Magic" reviewed by Troy Collins

by Troy Collins
August 12, 2013

Work Your Magic is the sophomore follow-up to Endangered Blood's self-titled 2011 Skirl Records debut. The acoustic quartet features an all-star lineup, with Human Feel's Chris Speed and Jim Black joined by fellow Skirl label mates Oscar Noriega and Trevor Dunn. First named The Benefit Band, the group was initially formed in 2008 to help Human Feel saxophonist Andrew D'Angelo pay for medical bills; D'Angelo eventually recovered and the band decided to stay together.Subtly expanding upon its previous ...

Album Review

Alban Darche: L’OrphiCube

Read "L’OrphiCube" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
August 12, 2013

French composer and saxophonist Alban Darche, leader of the big band Le Gros Cube and former member of the l'Orchestre National de Jazz, has worked before in many multidisciplinary formats, among them with choreographer and dancer Nasser Martin- Gusset, director Sylvain Maurice and writer Peter Curling. L'OrphiCube, named after the cubist art movement and a poem about Orpheus by poet Guillaume Apollinaire (who claimed to be the first model of a cubist painter; Apollinaire wrote extensively about cubism), in collaboration ...

Extended Analysis

Steve Lindeman with BYU Synthesis: The Day After Yesterday

by Jack Bowers
August 12, 2013

There are times when making music requires sacrifice. Few people should be more aware of this than composer / arranger Steve Lindeman who studied from 2008-11 at the BMI Jazz Composers Workshop in New York City--while he was living in Utah! The Workshop held meetings one to three times a month, and Lindeman simply commuted to them by air, rooming with a daughter who had an apartment in Brooklyn. “[W]hile racking up enough frequent flier miles to own half of ...

Genius Guide to Jazz

What Is Jazz

by Jeff Fitzgerald, Genius
August 12, 2013

Being the Dean of American Jazz Humorists®, I am often called upon to weigh in on a variety of important issues affecting the future of Jazz. For instance, I weighed in at 294 pounds on the topic of “Why Jazz Still Matters" and a relatively svelte 275 on the topic of “Where is the Next Generation of Jazz Coming From?" I won the first debate by fall in 2:35, and the second by a 8-1 majority decision. So, let's consider ...

Live Review

Steely Dan at Jacobs Pavilion

by C. Andrew Hovan
August 11, 2013

Steely DanJacobs Pavilion at NauticaCleveland, OhioJuly 23, 2013Time flies when you are having fun and it's hard to believe that Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, collectively known as Steely Dan, are well into that life niche known as the senior years. Fortunately, they still have a thing for the road, which means their iconic repertoire can be heard live in select cities once every few years. For Cleveland fans, it has been a long haul. ...

Album Review

Jon Davis: One Up Front

Read "One Up Front" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
August 11, 2013

It's tempting to say that pianist Jon Davis has been hiding in plain sight for the past few decades, but he hasn't really been hiding at all. He's actually been playing all over the place with a lot of top-tier musicians; he just doesn't put himself up front very often. Davis, who's worked with saxophonist Stan Getz, vibraphonist Milt Jackson, bassist Jaco Pastorius, and a long list of other jazz luminaries, is the consummate sideman, always adding support and substance ...

Album Review

Wayne Wallace: Latin Jazz Jazz Latin

Read "Latin Jazz Jazz Latin" reviewed by Jeff Dayton-Johnson

by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
August 11, 2013

Trombonist Wayne Wallace and his Latin Jazz Ensemble have a well-oiled record-making machine that seems incapable of turning out a subpar album.Therein lies the mystery. The ingredients that Wallace and his bandmates pour into the machine are eminently predictable--a studiously well-sampled array of Latin rhythms, didactically specified in the liner notes; a mixture of strong original compositions and Latin settings of jazz standards; tight ensemble playing by the quintet with plenty of space to breathe; a smattering of ...

Extended Analysis

DouBt: Mercy Pity Peace & Love

by Dave Wayne
August 11, 2013

Quick, name a jazz-rock trio fronted by a dazzling virtuoso keyboardist and a prodigiously talented electric guitarist that plays in a hyper-aggressive no-holds-barred style which combines edgy free improv with a heavy '70s rock sound. If you answered “the original Tony Williams' Lifetime" you aren't alone. One current trio actively probing the outer reaches of jazz and rock using the keys / guitar / drums format is the British / Belgian / American trio douBt. Though keyboardist Alex Maguire, unlike ...

Album Review

Cecile McLorin Salvant: WomanChild

Read "WomanChild" reviewed by Mark F. Turner

by Mark F. Turner
August 11, 2013

"You sound and act as if you've been here before," an elder might say to some precocious youngster who exhibited the traits of a much older person. That's a sentiment that could also be applied to the remarkable 24 year-old jazz singer Cecile McLorin Salvant, who sounds as if she was reincarnated from a different era. With a unique background, the winner of 2010's Thelonious Monk International Jazz Vocals Competition is a Miami native of Haitian and Guadeloupian descent who ...