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

Shane Cooper: Oscillations

Read "Oscillations" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
August 4, 2013

"South African Jazz" means different things to different people; to some, it's music that's smooth and pacifying, produced by artists like guitarist Jonathan Butler; to others, it's the music of icons like pianist Abdullah Ibrahim and trumpeter Hugh Masekela, both of whom became symbols of freedom during the apartheid era; and to a third group, that term represents a more open-and-modernistic slant on jazz. The list of musicians that fall into that last category include pianist Kyle Shepherd, guitarist Reza ...

Multiple Reviews

George Thorogood Taught Me To Play Guitar

by C. Michael Bailey
August 4, 2013

Rounder Records has reissued George Thorogood and the Destroyers' first two recordings, George Thorogood And The Destroyers and Move It On Over. Like many white, middle-class kids, it was through the likes of Eric Burdon and the Animals, John Mayall, Joe Cocker, Eric Clapton and, indeed, George Thorogood that I learned the African-American tradition of the blues (what about Elvis? That was rock and roll, though he sang plenty of blues). As accomplished as these artists were, they were the ...

Album Review

Lorraine Feather: Attachments

Read "Attachments" reviewed by Dr. Judith Schlesinger

by Dr. Judith Schlesinger
August 4, 2013

As expertly-crafted and enjoyable as all of her other recordings, Lorraine Feather's Attachments is her most raw and intimate CD to date. Here, she applies her famously incisive perception, sweet voice, and stunning lyrical gifts to a frank exploration of life's major emotional ties, describing how they can soothe, stretch, and break as they wind through our days on earth.Naturally these include romantic connections--whether missed, fulfilled, or simply imagined--but as usual, Feather vaults over the tired moon/June/spoon territory ...

Extended Analysis

Kanye West: Yeezus

by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
August 4, 2013

Ben Jonson said of his dead child, my sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy. We too easily take what the poets write as figures of speech, as pretty images, as strings of bons mots. Sometimes perhaps they speak the truth. --Margaret Drabble, The Millstone (1965).Every time I write these words they become a taboo Making sure my punctuation curve, every letter is true Living my life in the margin ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With UroSoule

by AAJ Staff
August 4, 2013

Meet UroSoule:UroSoule is an infectious jazz/soul duo by Chicago based artists Paul Scherer and Agnieszka Iwanska. Their album, Colors, is a collection of sultry and sophisticated compositions co-written and produced by Paul Scherer. Scherer has assembled a collection of top sessions musicians from Philadelphia to Los Angeles in order to create a addictive blend of understated works that pulse with attitude and style. Teachers and/or influences?Musicians who have influenced our style are Maysa, Chaka ...

Album Review

ZZ Quartet: Beyond the Lines

Read "Beyond the Lines" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
August 4, 2013

The group is called the ZZ Quartet, and no, it is not an expansion of the famed blues rock trio from Texas, ZZ Top. Beyond the Lines is the brainchild of the leaders--the Zs of the ZZ Quartet--accordion master Simone Zanchini and guitarist Ratko Zjaca. And their music isn't rock, though elements of the genre surface, in Zjaca's oft-imes snappy guitar licks, or when Zanchini addresses the “ah-look-at-all-the-lonely-people" bit of the Beatles' melody on the tranquil “River Spirit."Anytime ...

Album Review

Billy Bang: Da Bang!

Read "Da Bang!" reviewed by Troy Collins

by Troy Collins
August 4, 2013

Da Bang! is the last studio album recorded by violinist Billy Bang, made just two months before he passed away on April 11, 2011. Diagnosed with lung cancer in 2009, Bang spoke about the healing power of music during these sessions and how he wanted to give something back to those who inspired and supported him. Considering the bulk of the record consists of covers, this final effort can be interpreted as the innovative violinist's elegy to the artists and ...

Album Review

The Jason Klobnak Quintet: Mountain, Move

Read "Mountain, Move" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
August 3, 2013

"The Jazz Mainstream" is a sub-genre that has, by necessity, changed with the music's evolution. During the 1910s and '20s, New Orleans and Chicago ruled the mainstream, while the '30s and '40s belonged to big band swing. With the twilight of the big bands, combos shrunk to quartet and quintet size and bebop burned brightly in the late '40s and early '50s, maybe not becoming the mainstream, but setting it up by sparking the cool movement and hard bop of ...

Multiple Reviews

Leslie Lewis: Midnight Sun / Keeper of the Flame

by Jack Bowers
August 3, 2013

Leslie Lewis is a singer who has found steady work on the West Coast and elsewhere, and for good reason--she's personable, easy on the eyes, and more to the point, has a pleasant mid-range voice, sings squarely on key, and knows how to sell a lyric. Keeper of the Flame and Midnight Sun are Lewis' second and third recordings (Of Two Minds, released in 2008, was the first), all of them with the splendid Gerard Hagen Trio and special guests. ...

Album Review

Joe McPhee: Sonic Elements

Read "Sonic Elements" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
August 3, 2013

Ernest Hemingway might have said it best: “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know." For musician Joe McPhee, delivering that one true sentence has been his motivation since the 1960s.An in-demand improviser, he can be heard in multiple settings including the bands of Peter Brötzmann and Ken Vandermark, as a guest of the Deep Listening Band, Trespass Trio and Decoy, and with the rock band, Cato Salsa Experience. ...