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.

Live Review

John Jorgenson’s Gypsy Jazz Quintet at the Musical Instrument Museum

by Patricia Myers
July 7, 2013

John Jorgenson's Gypsy Jazz QuintetMusical Instrument MuseumPhoenix, AZJune 27, 2013 The swinging sound of gypsy jazz popularized by Django Reinhardt and the Quintet of the Hot Club of France was elegantly interpreted by John Jorgenson in a quintet setting that imbued the 1930s genre with modernistic verve.The program was a mix of soulful romance and gleeful flamboyance, plaintive sadness and rollicking celebration, with Jorgenson's fingers a blur that created avalanches of notes and ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With Barb Januszkiewicz

by AAJ Staff
July 7, 2013

Meet Barb Januszkiewicz: I am a painter who uses music in my work. I love jazz because it adds color to everything. I was first exposed to jazz by dad. I met Dave Liebman, and that everything changed for me because he showed me how we could mix jazz and art together—real fusion. He helped me look outside my art studio and to see jazz as part of my art. Jazz can be a blank canvas full of ...

Live Review

Marisa Monte: New York, June 26, 2013

by Ernest Barteldes
July 6, 2013

Marisa MonteBeacon TheaterNew York, NYJune 26, 2012On her first New York appearance in seven years, singer Marisa Monte began her set behind a see-through screen used to project various colorful images directly connected to her 2012 album, Tudo Que Voce Queria Saber de Verdade (Blue Note). She was backed by a seven-piece band that included members of Nação Zumbi and veteran guitarist Dadi (Novos Baianos, Caetano Veloso, Tribalistas). She started the set with the album's ...

Album Review

Colin Trusedell Trio: Some Of My Best Friends Are... Divas

Read "Some Of My Best Friends Are... Divas" reviewed by Chris Mosey

by Chris Mosey
July 6, 2013

Jazz as business? Colin Trusedell thinks it's possible. The former Navy Band bassist graduated from the University of Miami's Frost School of Music with a music business degree. He now lives in Colorado Springs where he has set up his own booking agency, MyShowsLive. This supplies musical acts for gala events, cocktail receptions and the like. Some Of My Best Friends Are... Divas forms a key part of his business plan. It features four of the acts ...

Film Review

The Rolling Stones: Crossfire Hurricane

by Doug Collette
July 6, 2013

Rolling StonesCrossfire HurricaneEagle Vision2012Crossfire Hurricane is not a definitive history of the Rolling Stones but, as filmmaker Brett Morgen admits, it's not intended to be. Whether or not the director knows the film is nevertheless an accurate reflection of the iconic group is arguable though. As it touches upon some, but not all, of the landmark moments during the Stones' fifty years together, it comes across just as the group so often ...

Album Review

Maud Hixson: Don't Let A Good Thing Get Away

Read "Don't Let A Good Thing Get Away" reviewed by David Bittinger

by David Bittinger
July 6, 2013

This collection of songs by veteran composer Michael Leonard has deep roots but contemporary character. It was laid down in New York's legendary Nola Recording Studio, whose clients have included Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie. The outstanding instrumentalists--cornetist Warren Vache, bassist Steve LaSpina, guitarist Gene Bertoncini, and pianist/arranger Tex Arnold--have worked with such luminaries as Benny Goodman and Stan Getz.In 2008, Twin Cities-based vocalist and music researcher Maud Hixson, working with Arnold, began reviewing the prolific work of ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With Jon Sheckler

by AAJ Staff
July 6, 2013

Meet Jon Sheckler: At a young age Jon Sheckler is already proving to be a well-versed musician and up-and-coming bandleader in the Seattle area. As a drummer, Jon has had the opportunity to play with some of today's leading players including trumpeter Clay Jenkins, award-winning vocalist Catherine Jensen-Hole, Chicago bluesman Al Rowe, and Seattle jazz luminaries Chad McCullough, Reuel Lubag, Mark Taylor, Jay Wienstien, Darrius Willrich, Jim Cutler, Todd DelGuidice, Ryan Keberle, Rob Tapper, Jonathan Pugh, Dan Keberle ...

Album Review

Giovanni Guidi Trio: City of Broken Dreams

Read "City of Broken Dreams" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
July 6, 2013

Italian pianist Giovanni Guidi's ECM Records leader debut, City of Broken Dreams, fits in as a very fine addition to the label's ongoing introduction of a new guard of the art of the piano trio, European style. Recent entries into that elite club include Benedikt Jahnel's Equilibrium (2012), Stefano Battaglia's The River of Anyder (2011), and Stefano Bollani's Stone in the Water (2009), and The Marcin Wasilewski Trio's Faithful (2011)--excellent examples all, of piano players of a reflective approach, with ...

Tell Me More

Molly Ringwald: Redefining Her Roots In Jazz

by Belinda Ware
July 6, 2013

Molly Ringwald currently stars in the role of Anne Juergens on The Secret Life of the American Teenager on the ABC Family Channel. Her role is a nice fit for the Golden Globe -nominated actress, who became a household name as a teen film actress referred to as “your favorite teenage crush."Her popularity attained to star status as the result of several memorable film roles starring as one of the “brat pack" stars alongside Judd Nelson, Emilio Estevez, ...

Live Review

Tedeschi Trucks Band / Grace Potter and the Nocturnals / JJ Grey and Mofro: Denver, June 15, 2013

by Geoff Anderson
July 5, 2013

Tedeschi Trucks Band / Grace Potter and the Nocturnals / JJ Grey and MofroRed Rocks AmphitheaterDenver, COJune 15, 2013When you walk into the venue and the stage is set up with three Hammond B-3 organs, each with its own Leslie speaker, you know you're in for something earthy and gritty. And what better place for earthiness and grittiness than Red Rocks Amphitheater, carved out of rock formations that are between 300 million and 1.7 billion ...