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.

Jazz Emerges

Part 7: Sing Miller: This Little Light of Mine

by William Carter
June 9, 2013

Born in 1914, pianist/vocalist Sing Miller was active on the New Orleans scene from the late 1920s until his death in 1990. If Sing didn't like something, he'd let you know. “Man...that ball don't bounce," is a Sing-saying drummer Jeff Hamilton remembers.Early one winter morning in Iowa in 1984, when I was traveling as a photojournalist with the Percy Humphrey band, Sing sat alone in the lobby for most of an hour, staring glumly out at the blustery ...

One LP

Annie Ross: Billie Holiday, Lady in Satin

by William Ellis
June 9, 2013

She was my hero, she was my mentor, she was my idol. I got to know her very very well and I was very proud that I did, because she was a real buddy of mine. I think there's a whole life in this voice for her to sing the songs that she sings; I mean, you could cry listening to her and I just think she was like a beautiful ebony statue. Great songs.

Album Review

Noah Preminger: Haymaker

Read "Haymaker" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
June 9, 2013

Tenor saxophone phenomenon Noah Preminger's third release as a leader Haymaker is a uniformly engaging album with a strong poetic sense. The ten uncluttered compositions serve primarily as vehicles for Preminger's intelligent expressions of creative spontaneity as well as those of his highly sympathetic band-mates.On the title track Preminger's melodic and angular monologue evolves like free verse with intriguing flexibility of cadence while maintaining a mellifluous lilt. Together with guitarist Ben Monder's sparse and chiming notes and drummer ...

Album Review

Gabriel Reyes Trebol: Satori

by Mark Corroto
June 8, 2013

Finding a gem in the crowded jazz world is always a pleasure. When that jewel comes from the Southern hemisphere, due consideration must be made. Although the album's title is a Japanese Buddhist term Satori, the orator is Chilean and the language is modern jazz.Guitarist Gabriel Reyes from Santiago follows his debut quartet recording Trébol (Vertice Records, 2008) with this sextet session, adding trumpeter Derek Bittner and saxophonist Claudio Rubio to his Trébol band of Sergio Valenzuela (piano), ...

Live Review

George Benson & L'orchestre Symphonique Royal : Rabat, Morocco, May, 25, 2013

by Mehdi El Mouden
June 8, 2013

George Benson & L'orchestre Symphonique RoyalMohammed V TheatreMawazine Festival 2013Rabat, MoroccoMay 25, 2013If ever there was an ambassador of jazz love songs, it would definitely be George Benson. At age 70, the guitarist/vocalist is still driven with heated passion to sing love ballads. For his second visit to Morocco, Benson performed with the Ochestre Symphonique Royal, offering a memorable evening to an audience predisposed to reviving Nat King Cole's repertoire.Part of ...

Album Review

Teagan Taylor: Hello

Read "Hello" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
June 8, 2013

Teagan Taylor, San Diego's very talented up-and-coming vocalist/trumpeter/cornetist, has roots running deep in jazz. Her first album, I Can't Complain (Jazzomaniac Record, 2011) featured knock-out versions of the familiar standards, “Takin' A Chance On Love, “Bye Bye Blackbird, and Gershwin's “But Not For Me," and “Summertime." On the sophomore outing, Wonderland (Jazzomaniac Records, 2012), Taylor spread her songwriting wings, contributing eight very engaging original tunes--penned with her father, Tim Taylor, the trio's guitarist--augmented by a couple of time-tested Great American ...

Extended Analysis

Roy Harper: Recorded Live in Concert at Metropolis Studios, London

by Ian Patterson
June 8, 2013

For much of a career that began on the London folk scene in the mid-1960s, singer/songwriter and guitarist Roy Harper has been an underground cult figure and symbol of the counterculture, playing the length and breadth of England to fiercely loyal fans. Harper's best gigs have the intimacy of a confessional, the passion of a Speaker's Corner harangue and the madcap insights of a surrealist comedian--and that's just the banter between songs. Harper's love songs invite bittersweet tears and his ...

One LP

Al Jarreau: Les Double Six, Les Double Six

by William Ellis
June 8, 2013

Double Six--when I was in college in my first year, I formed a singing group patterned along the lines of Lambert, Hendricks & Ross--and Double Six. Double Six changed my life; I listened to them instead of going to class--I think they almost sent me home! Very important music to me, I became friends with Michel Legrand--his sister sang in the group then, and Mimi Perrin--thank you Mimi! we'll all see you soon. So ...

Album Review

SKRAP: K.O.

by Eyal Hareuveni
June 8, 2013

SKRAP ("scratch") was formed six years ago when tubaist Heida Karine Johannesdóttir Mobeck and analog synthesizer player Anja Lauvdal (also the pianist for Moskus, heard on the trio's 2012 Hubro debut, Salmesykkel), got locked together in a small room equipped with two bass amplifiers put up against each other. The Norwegian duo began experimenting with low frequency sound waves, looking for contrasts and similarities between their two distinct instruments. These nuanced and brief interactions within the sound ...

Album Review

Brian Simpson: Just What You Need

Read "Just What You Need" reviewed by Jeff Winbush

by Jeff Winbush
June 7, 2013

The raison d'être behind Brian Simpson's Just What You Need is not as audacious as to reshape jazz as we know it, but to provide some easy listening while we're waiting. The ambitions here are a bit more modest as Simpson, who is best known as Dave Koz's bandleader, brings together an accomplished crew of studio veterans in a setting where they can groove with each other. There are few surprises and fewer risks taken and while everything is certainly ...