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

Beat Funktion: Moon Town

Read "Moon Town" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
June 6, 2013

"Swedish Vintage Jazz-Funk-Disco Band." That is the auspicious description of Beat Funktion, an inventive band of Scandinavians intent on teasing the worthwhile parts of disco away from the not-so-worthwhile parts. But disco is but a small part of the alchemy arranged on Moon Town. This is more funk-jazz updated to the contemporary. Heavily back-beat laden, driven by bass and electric piano. The band was formed in 2007 to present jazz in an environment that also catered to a young dancing ...

Album Review

The Rosenthals: Fly Away

Read "Fly Away" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
June 5, 2013

The continuing atomization and commingling of musical styles leads both to new styles and vibrant recapitulations of old ones. Either path, an evolution of the music. Father and son duo, Phil And Daniel Rosenthal, prove both directions of this observation on Fly Away, an assembly of fourteen mostly original compositions that is at once beautifully strange and deeply traditional. An immediate umbrella classification of this music could be “American Baroque." The presence of the elder Rosenthal's various ...

Live Review

Moers Festival: Moers, Germany, May 17-20, 2013

by Henning Bolte
June 5, 2013

Moers Festival 2013Moers, GermanyMay 17-19, 2013The internationally renowned Moers Festival again arrived at a turning point, with its 42nd edition. It was the last edition with the famous blue marquee in the vast Castle-park of the city of Moers. Next year, the festival will continue in a reconstructed solid hall, an old covered tennis court, situated nearby.Chapter IndexOrigins, OriginalityTransformationsMorning, Day and NightThree Days on the Main Stage

Album Review

The West Point Band's Jazz Knights: Turning Points

Read "Turning Points" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
June 5, 2013

Based at the United States Military Academy in upstate New York, the West Point Band's Jazz Knights just happens to be one of those unheralded big bands around. Performing at public events as part of its official duties, the Knights are rarely given the credit they are due as an uncommon and exceptional musical organization. Perhaps the production of the stellar Turning Points may be that secret weapon that defines this group as world-class in every way. A seventeen-piece big ...

Bailey's Bundles

RareNoises: Berserk! and Slobber Pup

by C. Michael Bailey
June 5, 2013

RareNoise is a British label specializing in those amorphous molecules of sound floating at the razor edge of experimental music. The label hosts names like Metallic Taste of Blood and Death Cube K, band names fashionable in the 1990s if not more so now. But among these Brainkillers and Method of Defiances, there also exists Animation, Tim Hagan's and Bob Belden's band responsible for the most excellent Asiento (2011) and Transparent Heart (2012). Judging by Berserk and Slobber Pup (names ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With Roswitha aka Rose Bartu

by AAJ Staff
June 5, 2013

Meet Roswitha aka Rose Bartu aka Queen Rose:Originally from Austria, Roswitha is a singer/songwriter, violinist, and producer. On her latest album, Destiny, the renowned jazz and classical artist lives her own dreams, making the bold move to step out as a singer/songwriter. Here, she embraces her total musicality and tastefully integrates her instrumental virtuosity within a musical style she describes as jazz-rock-pop. It's an elegantly eclectic blend of jazz, classical, R&B, hip-hop, rock, and pop that showcases her ...

Album Review

La Pieuvre and Circum Grand Orchestra: Feldspath

Read "Feldspath" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
June 5, 2013

is a French project, documented on a double album, that brings together two already large ensembles--the conducted improvisation ensemble La Pieuvre and the contemporary jazz ensemble Circum Grand Orchestra--32 musicians and all, conducted by composer Oliver Benoit. But this unique and rare project is not only about creating massive orchestral sounds. It is a bold attempt to keep the distinct sonic particularities and aesthetics of each ensemble and its improvisers and to challenge both entities to form one musical unity. ...

Interview

Kimmo Pohjonen: A Very Cool Instrument

by Nenad Georgievski
June 4, 2013

Certain instruments have yet to place themselves beyond how the public and most musicians perceive them, but that hasn't stopped some musicians from distinguishing themselves by taking a different path with them. As Jimi Hendrix is to the electric guitar, so is Finnish musician Kimmo Pohjonen to the accordion: a conceptualist and master improviser who has boldly taken his instrument beyond what has previously been thought possible.The use of electronics in any genre is potentially the most exciting ...

Album Review

Ray Russell: Now, More Than Ever

Read "Now, More Than Ever" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
June 4, 2013

English guitarist/composer Ray Russell has flown under the radar for most of his 45-year career, dividing his energies between his own projects, sessions for some of the biggest names in popular music and composing award-winning music for television and film. Russell's wide-ranging musical interests have meant that his own recordings have sometimes been separated by long gaps, and this is probably the main reason why he isn't better known. Seven years after Goodbye Svengali, Russell's tribute to composer Gil Evans, ...

Mr. P.C.'s Guide to Jazz Etiquette and Bandstand Decorum

June 2013

by Mr. P.C.
June 4, 2013

Dear Mr. P.C.:Is it really important to play fast on your solos? Michael T., St. Louis

Dear Michael:Actually, it's more important to look like you're playing fast. This is the video era, and the people who demand note athleticism are the same ones who'd rather watch music than listen to it.How can you look ultra-speedy? Break a sweat. Tap your foot spastically. If you're a horn player, turn bright red and gasp ...