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

AVC: Busk

by Karl Ackermann
June 24, 2013

The UK label Babel has been nurturing unique talent for the better part of twenty years, judiciously releasing only about a half-dozen albums in a given year. Many of their artists play on the fringes of jazz and some go way beyond the pale. AVC are hardly outliers but neither is the quintet a predictable, formulaic group as their second release Busk clearly demonstrates. AVC's debut outing--Fail In Wood (Jazzaction, 2010)--showed a raw potential that has been fully realized on ...

On and Off the Grid

All About Sonny

by Dom Minasi
June 24, 2013

I bet you thought I meant Sonny Rollins. When you hear the name Sonny, it's usually synonymous with Sonny Rollins, Sonny Stitt, Sonny Fortune or even Sonny Sharrock; all of them jazz heroes. But there is a Sonny you probably have never heard of before who is a super hero.Who is he? His name is Sonny LaRosa. He is an 87 year-old retired jazz trumpeter who lives in Florida and has done more for jazz than anyone I ...

Album Review

Bob Dorough: Duets

Read "Duets" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
June 24, 2013

Is vocalist/pianist/composer Bob Dorough the Mose Allison of Cherry Hill, Arkansas or is Mose Allison the Bob Dorough of Tippo, Mississippi? The two are famously linked by geographic origin: the country South, time period: '50s to the present, and vocation: singing, songwriting jazzmen. The two also share timeless voices, full of Southern dry dust and humus. Jason Isbell wrote in “Outfit": ..."don't worry about losing your accent, a southern man tells better jokes." And ...

Album Review

Michel Camilo: What's Up

Read "What's Up" reviewed by Larry Taylor

by Larry Taylor
June 24, 2013

Jazz piano virtuoso Michel Camilo is known for his bombastic technique. For example, after a set at the Monterey Jazz Festival a couple of years ago, I stuck around and talked to the piano-tuner hired to rejuvenate the strings. He stood shaking his head in dismay after Camilo's hard driving workout, which had been a crowd-pleaser. Camilo's What's Up takes, however, a different approach. This is his second solo effort in his nearly 30-year career, his first ...

Interview

Miguel Zenon: Celebrating the Music of La Isla

by Steve Bryant
June 24, 2013

For the last decade, saxophonist Miguel Zenón has distinguished himself as one of the most innovative and creative musicians in the modern jazz idiom. The Puerto Rican-born altoist accomplished this feat by reaching back to the musical and cultural traditions of his island. On groundbreaking recordings such as Jibaro (Marsalis Music, 2005) and Esta Plena (Marsalis Music, 2009), Zenón paid musical homage to the rich rhythms of Bomba and Plena. Alma Adentro (Marsalis Music, 2011) was a heartfelt tribute to ...

Album Review

Keith Tippett/ Giovanni Maier: Two For Joyce

Read "Two For Joyce" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
June 23, 2013

Two For Joyce, that's James Joyce the title is referring to. And the 'Two' is a reference to the two musicians, pianist Keith Tippett and bassist Giovanni Maier, because Two For Joyce is one long (50 minute) improvised recorded live performance.Captured May 2012, during the “Le Nuove Rotte del Jazz" (New Routes in Jazz) Jazz Festival in Trieste, a city Joyce once lived. The pair draw as much density as a Joyce novel, yet nothing is lost in ...

Live Review

Ahmad Jamal: San Francisco, CA, June 18, 2013

by Ken Vermes
June 23, 2013

Ahmad JamalSymphony HallSan Francisco, CAJune 18, 2013SFJAZZ has accomplished a lot of things as it approaches its first half-year in its new building. Amongst them is revealing dedicated audiences for specific areas of the jazz universe, including piano-led bands. On the face of things, little may appear to connect two masters of this format, Ahmad Jamal, who performed on June 13 at Symphony Hall, and Brad Mehldau, who performed from April 26 to 28 at ...

Album Review

Diego Barber/Hugo Cipres: 411

by Dan McClenaghan
June 23, 2013

The opening of the decidedly modern music on 411, the track entitled “Timanfaya," sounds like a spooky, welcome to a plugged-in netherworld. It begins with electric surges and wafflings, then glowing beeps punctuating electric washes before a shift into tune two, “all in," that sounds as if the late multiple reedman Eric Dolphy is hanging around the place, where he's hooked up with guitarist/composer Frank Zappa.The music is the brainchild of classical guitarist Diego Barber--who hails from the ...

Album Review

Gunnar Siljabloo Nilson: Gunnar Siljabloo Nilson

Read "Gunnar Siljabloo Nilson" reviewed by Chris Mosey

by Chris Mosey
June 23, 2013

Two sounds fought for the musical soul of Gunnar “Siljabloo" Nilson: one, Artie Shaw's smoothly swinging clarinet; the other, Slim Gaillard's crazed, frenetic vocals. When the battle grew too intense and he could stand it no longer, Nilson took to drink. Born in 1925 in the desolate far north of Sweden, young Gunnar fell in love with Shaw's playing on an old 78 rpm record and taught himself clarinet. He never did manage to sound like Shaw. ...

Hardly Strictly Jazz

Pryor Experiences

by Skip Heller
June 23, 2013

If it seems like everything is being anthologized into a box set these days, that's because it is. While on a trip to Amoeba Music (the enormous record store from where I live about a block), I took stock of all kinds of box sets. There was even one of the Mitch Miller Sing Along With stuff. Oh joy. The thought of being trapped in a room with someone who could get through even one disc of that... Horrors.