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 Allman Brothers Band at Nassau Coliseum

by Doug Collette
August 11, 2013

With a new independent licensing agreement now in place, and the 40th anniversary package(s) of Brothers and Sisters (Capricorn, 1973) giving that title its proper due, the Allman Brothers Band may be fundamentally rethinking its approach to its recorded archive. With revelatory recordings of the original lineup limited due in large measure to a relatively finite repertoire, comparably essential titles within the iconic Southern band's legacy deserve due attention, in particular Nassau Coliseum Uniondale, NY 5-1-73. Dickey Betts ...

Live Review

Pennsylvania Blues Festival 2013

by Wade Luquet
August 10, 2013

22nd Pennsylvania Blues Festival Blue Mountain Ski ResortPalmerton, PAJuly 26-28, 2013For the past 22 years, veteran festival producer Michael Cloeren has thrown a weekend party in the Pocono mountains, playing host to fifteen of his favorite blues musician friends and their bands and inviting a few thousand avid fans of the genre to pull up a camp chair and join the fun. Or, at least, that's how it feels to attend one of the most ...

Album Review

Alex Sipiagin: From Reality And Back

Read "From Reality And Back" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
August 10, 2013

From Reality And Back comes off as notable before a note of music ever reaches the ears. In fact, this album presents itself as a bit of a jazz PR dream: bassist Dave Holland makes a rare sideman appearance here, guitarist Pat Metheny contributed an original written strictly for this project ("Son, Uvedeny Posle"), and the rest of the band is rounded out by A-listers like pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, whose label--5passion--serves as the record's home. After hearing all of that, ...

Album Review

Gustavo Cortiñas: Snapshot

Read "Snapshot" reviewed by Jeff Dayton-Johnson

by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
August 10, 2013

With Snapshot, drummer Gustavo Cortiñas emerges from that challenging rite of passage: the début album. Following years of training (with saxophonist Victor Goines, among others, who is on the record) and sideman duty (on a record with saxophonist Roy McGrath, who also shows up for this date), a young artist seeks to craft a meaningful and representative musical statement and calling card.The musician has in the short span of the début record's length to establish him or herself ...

Film Review

Bob Dylan and The Band: Down in the Flood

by Doug Collette
August 10, 2013

Bob Dylan and The BandDown in the Flood: Associations and CollaborationsChrome Dreams2012Unless the man himself and the remaining survivors of The Hawks reveal their recollections, the work and play in which Bob Dylan and the Band engaged in Woodstock New York late in 1966 and 1967 will forever be swathed in mystery. This despite the best efforts of the filmmakers who created Down in the Flood, covering (almost) exhaustively the cycle of ...

Live Review

Enildo Rasua at the The Jazz Standard

by Ernest Barteldes
August 10, 2013

Enildo RasúaNew Dimensions In Latin Jazz: Cuban Drum SeriesThe Jazz StandardNew York, NYAugust 6, 2013For his U.S. debut, Cuban drummer/percussionist and composer Enildo Rasúa kicked off the evening's early set with a snippet of Ernesto Lecuona's “La Comparsa," and then quickly moved into “12 de La Noche," a composition by his brother, Isel Rasúa. The tune began as just a duet between the bandleader and pianist Ben Winkelman, but a few bars later ...

Album Review

Spocks Beard: Brief Nocturnes and Dreamless Sleep

Read "Brief Nocturnes and Dreamless Sleep" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
August 10, 2013

Spanning two decades as one of the premier latter-day progressive rock outfits, this two-CD set features new members, vocalist Ted Leonard (Enchant, Thought Chamber), and drummer Jimmy Keegan (Santana), who has performed with the band during its live performances over the years. Sporting a big sound, integrated with the ensemble's agility and vibrant improvisational segments, the program imparts a few nods to the glory days of prog, amid the obvious modern era overhauls, with reverence to pop and storyboard-like theme-building ...

Album Review

Phil Meadows Group: Engines Of Creation

Read "Engines Of Creation" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
August 9, 2013

Good things happen on Engines Of Creation: things like imagination, inventive writing, great playing, a sense of humor, an awareness of economy. It's a heartening combination, especially as it arises from a group of young players who have only recently emerged onto the professional jazz scene.Saxophonist Phil Meadows leads the ensemble and writes the tunes. Although he completed post-graduate studies at London's Trinity Laban he grew up in the north of England where he became aware of the ...

Live Review

Azar Lawrence Quartet at the RG Club

by Chuck Koton
August 9, 2013

Azar Lawrence Quartet and Special GuestsRG ClubVenice, CANovember 2, 2012-July 21, 2013Venetians like to consider themselves among the hipper denizens of the Los Angeles area, yet remarkably, there hasn't been a Venice jazz club in over 20 years. And any neighborhood that aspires to “hipness" better be able to boast of a cool and swingin' space to dig jazz. Sadly, not since the '80s, when the late Comeback Inn hosted jazz greats like Frank Morgan, ...

Live Review

Oliver Mtukudzi at Yoshi's San Francisco

by Harry S. Pariser
August 9, 2013

Oliver Mtukudzi & the Black SpiritsYoshi's Jazz Club San FranciscoJuly 21, 2013“Where we come from," the guitarist Oliver Mtukudzi tells the audience at Yoshi's in San Francisco, “music is like food. You can have it for breakfast, lunch and supper. Where we come from, you don't have to sing a song when you have nothing to say." He might well have added “Where we come from, music is a good time groove, but it also ...