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

Cheryl Bentyne and Mark Winkler: West Coast Cool

by C. Michael Bailey
August 6, 2013

In 2010, jazz vocal specialists Cheryl Bentyne and Mark Winkler began a collaboration that resulted in a live show entitled West Coast Cool that they presented at different venues on the West Coast and beyond. Summit Records commits this show to digital with an album of the same title that is something special. While programming a recording is always a major production responsibility, that responsibility is lessened when the recital is one well practiced and part of a previously conceived ...

Album Review

Rob Hart Trio: 3000 Realms Of 10 Words

Read "3000 Realms Of 10 Words" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
August 6, 2013

Drummer/percussionist Rob Hart may be based in the San Francisco Bay Area, but his music knows no one particular home. On 3000 Realms Of 10 Worlds, Hart works from a world-wise vantage point, liberally utilizing, tweaking, and mixing the stylistic vocabulary and components endemic to various locales. In this respect, he creates something of a broad-minded statement that varies from track-to-track but doesn't feel disjointed; some artists look to create a cohesive-and-consistent sound when they make a record, but Hart ...

Album Review

David's Angels: What It Seems

Read "What It Seems" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
August 6, 2013

David's Angels creates stimulating sonic landscapes out of a unique fusion of various genres. Although electric bassist David Carlsson is the nominal leader of this innovative Danish-Swedish quartet and the producer of its second release, What It Seems, the album's signature sound is built around singer Sofie Norling's haunting delivery and incandescent tone. Norling not only penned all the lyrics, she also composed the music on this dark-hued paean to love's demise, together with keyboardist Maggi Olin.The melancholic ...

Profile

Django Bates: From Zero to Sixty in Five Days

by John Kelman
August 5, 2013

It's rare enough to get to catch the premiere of a brand new work in a location as removed as Luleå, Sweden—just 100 kilometers south of the Arctic circle and in late May already experiencing 22-hour days and temperatures between 20 and 25 Celsius. But to get to experience the birth of a commission and to arrive on the same day as the artist and enter the rehearsal room at the same time? An unexpected pleasure. The chance to follow ...

Album Review

Derrick Hodge: Live Today

Read "Live Today" reviewed by Mark F. Turner

by Mark F. Turner
August 5, 2013

It's no surprise that bassist Derrick Hodge's debut, Live Today, breathes fresh creativity. Whether swinging fervently on upright or laying down nasty funk riffs on electric bass, his versatility has been recruited by trumpet giant Terence Blanchard and served as a vital component of the Robert Glasper Experiment's Grammy-winning Black Radio (Blue Note, 2012). Hodge's talents are not, however, limited to any one musical genre, including work as musical director for R&B singing star Maxwell, and collaborations with rapper/actor Common ...

Album Review

Jim Blomfield Trio: Wave Forms And Sea Changes

Read "Wave Forms And Sea Changes" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
August 5, 2013

Wave Forms And Sea Changes is the Jim Blomfield Trio's debut, an acoustic piano trio from Bristol in the southwest of England. Pianist/composer Blomfield has been on the scene for some years. Bristol-based since 1991, he's worked with players such as Andy Hague, Kevin Figes and ECM recording artist Andy Sheppard. On this album he's joined by two younger players--bassist Roshan “Tosh" Wijetunge and drummer Mark Whitlam.Southwest England's popular music scene has always thrown a few surprises at ...

Extended Analysis

Chuck Owen and the Jazz Surge: River Runs

by Jack Bowers
August 5, 2013

On this powerful and ambitious “concerto for jazz guitar, saxophone and orchestra," composer Chuck Owen's Jazz Surge is bolstered by a thirty-four member reed, brass and string section that helps guide the listener on a picturesque journey along a number of rivers of various shapes, sizes and currents whose aim is to rekindle through musical portraiture the indwelling love of water in each of us as it heightens our awareness of and appreciation for one of nature's awe-inspiring and essential ...

Take Five With...

Take Five with Dan DeChellis

by AAJ Staff
August 5, 2013

Meet Dan DeChellis:Dan DeChellis' music consists of melody, emotion, energy, and spontaneous adventure. Born on classic rock, schooled in classical music, matured on jazz, and aged with ambient music, DeChellis is a fan of all music and styles. He has released over eight albums of purely improvised music on his own label, Sachimay Records. He is also a member of the Hassay/DeChellis/Nakatani Trio, which has released two records on the German label, Konnex Records. DeChellis is also a ...

Album Review

Rob Mosher: Polebridge

Read "Polebridge" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
August 5, 2013

Soundtrack music can complement a piece of cinema by adding suspense, describe the onscreen action or, in the case of a silent movie, provide the sounds of pratfalls and doorbells. The first spin of Rob Mosher's Polebridge could easily recall the soundtrack to a Buster Keaton silent film. The liner notes explain that the music is a soundtrack, there's just no movie. The story is all in the composer's head.The Canadian-born, now Brooklyn-resident saxophonist sets his chamber jazz ...

Album Review

SoCorpo: Inelement

Read "Inelement" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
August 5, 2013

The sophomore release of New York-based SoCorpo--the vocal duo of Sasha Bogdanowitsch and Sabrina Lastman, who released their self-produced On Becoming in 2009--is a conceptual work, drawing its inspiration from the ancient world's five essential elements: fire, water, air, earth and aether, or void. This conceptual set of compositions, all of which were written as an elaborate game of spontaneous improvisations of sonic vocal and instrumental elements--reflecting the natural, ancient elements--corresponds with a set of electronics enhancements. These enhancements process, ...