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

Autumn in Augusta: Autumn in Augusta - Songs My Mama Would Like

Read "Autumn in Augusta - Songs My Mama Would Like" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
August 9, 2013

Autumn in August--Songs My Mama Would Like is a love letter in the form of a jazz combo. Vocalist Lucy Smith honors her mother with an extended-play disc, presented by the jazz trio plus singer.Chiming in at just short of 19 minutes over five songs, the collection is a simplicity scrubbed repertoire of Public Domain material, presented sincerely and authentically. This music is wholesome and clean, like Ivory soap. It is unadulterated in any way, completely honest and ...

Album Review

Resonance: Introductions

Read "Introductions" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
August 9, 2013

Offering a unique musical experience where the blend of jazz and classical instrumentation comes together quite nicely, Introductions is the sparkling debut of an unusual octet known as Resonance. There are not many groups that mix the standard sounds of the saxophone, drums and bass with string-oriented instruments like cello, viola, violin, and even piccolo. Resonance does exactly that in providing a host of new and exciting reads of jazz standards like Jimmy Heath's “Gemini" and Duke Ellington's classic “In ...

Multiple Reviews

Three New Another Timbre Releases

by John Eyles
August 9, 2013

As it approaches its sixth birthday, the Another Timbre label is into an exciting period of consolidation and development, building on the foundations laid down in its first five years. The label's latest releases are evidence of this, as all three of them feature musicians who have already made significant contributions to the Another Timbre catalogue. Together, these releases also demonstrate the label's drift away from free improvisation and towards more composed music, while still allowing a place for individual ...

What is Jazz?

Using The Jazz Trope For Assimilation

by Scott Krane
August 8, 2013

I read an interesting thing in the Harvard Gazette today. Hansung Ryu a cellist from Seoul who played a summer concert at Harvard said “If Harvard were an Aaron Copland song, it would be 'Hoe-Down'— difficult to play but very colorful and exciting." Ryu played selections from “Rodeo" at Harvard's Sanders Theater on August, 3. The Gazette quoted the cellist saying, “Whenever I play Copland, it makes me feel the way I do about America." Jazz is both ...

Catching Up With

Zach Brock: The New Meritocracy of Jazz

by George Colligan
August 8, 2013

[ Editor's Note: The following interview is reprinted from George Colligan's blog, Jazztruth]About a month or so ago, I had the pleasure of performing in a duo setting with violinist Zach Brock. I've known Brock for years; we met and played together a few times in New York City. However, this was our first time really playing in a creative, intimate setting. Brock is, in my humble opinion, one of the best--if not the best--jazz violinist out there ...

Album Review

Florian Ross Big Company: Ties & Loose Ends

Read "Ties & Loose Ends" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
August 8, 2013

The late pitcher Satchel Paige once offered this sound advice: “Never look over your shoulder; someone may be gaining on you." Nowadays, those who seem to be gaining the most ground when it comes to big-band jazz are Europeans and Asians who've been listening closely to and learning from their peers in the States and using that knowledge to build a better mouse trap, so to speak. Composer / arranger Florian Ross, based in Cologne, Germany, had been writing and ...

Jazzin' Around Europe

Messina Sea Jazz Festival 2013

by Francesco Martinelli
August 8, 2013

Messina Sea Jazz Festival 2013Messina, ItalyJuly 17-21, 2013Messina, the city on the Sicilian side of the Straits connecting the Thyrrenian and the Ionian seas--for the geographically challenged, that bit of sea on the point of the Italian boot--is not on the list of the most famous Italian or even Sicilian touristic locations. Overshadowed, in its own province, by Taormina--and by the cultural as well as environmental riches of other cities--it serves mainly as the ...

Album Review

Lyn Stanley: Lost In Romance

Read "Lost In Romance" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
August 8, 2013

Singer, dancer, ingenue, Lyn Stanley is a fully realized and mature talent exploding into her own. An award-winning ballroom dancer, Stanley melds that physical experience of movement with her performance of jazz standards, bringing the genre back to its dancing, kinetic roots. As executive producer, Stanley brings a Midas touch to the proceedings, producing in wholly urbane and sophisticated collection of the best the Great American Songbook has to offer. It takes a certain fortitude to record one more collection ...

Album Review

Glenn Cashman's Southland Nonet: Music Without Borders

Read "Music Without Borders" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
August 8, 2013

Tenor saxophonist Professor Dr. Glenn Cashman and composer, lyricist and voice teacher Eric Futterer have been friends and collaborators in music for more than a decade. Years ago, with the help of veteran west coast bassist Howard Rumsey (Lighthouse All-Stars), Futterer and Cashman collaborated on their biggest effort to date when they founded the Muckenthaler Jazz Festival, held annually at the historic Muckenthaler Cultural Center ("The Muck"), an eighteen-room villa on 8.5 acres in Fullerton, CA. Music Without Borders is ...

Extended Analysis

Wadada Leo Smith: Occupy the World

by Eyal Hareuveni
August 8, 2013

Great trumpeter and composer Wadada Leo Smith's five epic extended compositions collected on the double album Occupy The World mark him as a major American composer with a musical language and artistic vision that transcends the boundaries of the Afro-American heritage of jazz. Smith wrote complex orchestral works before, most notably on the masterful, extensive 4-discs Ten Freedom Summers (Cuneiform, 2012), that addressed political and historical issues still, the expanded and rearranged works represent a new musical triumph within the ...