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

International Jazz Day: Istanbul, Turkey April 30, 2013

by Josef Woodard
May 24, 2013

International Jazz DayIstanbul, TurkeyApril 30, 2013At a morning press conference opening the 10th annual Panama Jazz Festival in January, 2013, a long table was peopled by dignitaries and musical dignitaries. Festival highlight, saxophonist Wayne Shorter sat in the center (almost like Jesus in the Last Supper configuration), flanked by the ambitious and outspokenly idealistic festival founder, pianist Danilo Perez, singer Ruben Blades, and Shorter's longtime friend and ally, pianist Herbie Hancock. At some point, late in the ...

Album Review

Lars Andreas Haug Band: Conrairo

Read "Conrairo" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
May 24, 2013

The new generation of Norwegian tuba players keep challenging this under-rated instrument. Two years ago it was the trio of Martin Taxt, Kristoffer Lo and Robin Hayward who investigated the timbre characteristics of the tuba on microtub (Sofa Music, 2011) and last year Lo explored the tuba as a sound source for dark and intense soundscapes on Anomie (Gigafon, 2012). Now a less experimental yet highly creative tuba player, Lars Andreas Haug, on his third release as a leader, explores ...

Album Review

Eliane Elias: I Thought About You: A Tribute to Chet Baker

Read "I Thought About You: A Tribute to Chet Baker" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
May 23, 2013

It is tempting to consider Chet Baker hommages like Jeff Baker's excellent Baker Sings Chet (OA2, 2004) or John Proulx's sublime Baker's dozen: Remembering Chet Baker (MAXJAZZ, 2009) superior to the real item. So fractured is our picture of Baker that our full appreciation of him is clouded by his extra-musical proclivities. But it is not exactly that. Baker's vibratoless trumpet and vocals, as well as, his limited technical abilities are acquired tastes, but once acquired are generally rewarding to ...

Album Review

Terence Blanchard: Magnetic

Read "Magnetic" reviewed by Mark F. Turner

by Mark F. Turner
May 23, 2013

One of today's foremost jazz musicians and composers Terence Blanchard's achievements have soared since his formative days in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers to a trajectory of successful bands, recordings and award winning film scores such as 2007's A Tale of God's Will (A Requiem for Katrina) (Blue Note). He's still pursuing new challenges with the upcoming June 2013 premiere of his first opera-- entitled Champion, “An Opera In Jazz"-- based on the life of world champion boxer Emile Alphonse Griffith. ...

Bailey's Bundles

At the Corner: Ran Blake / Sara Serpa / Christine Correa

by C. Michael Bailey
May 23, 2013

The common element between Sara Serpa's Aurora and Christine Correa's Down Here Below is obviously pianist Ran Blake. Enigmatic to a fault, Blake has made a potent name for himself among improvised music enthusiasts. Blake is an intellectual amalgam of pianists Thelonious Monk and Martial Solal distilled to a dissonant essence. A long time professor at the New England Conservatory, Blake has taken many under his tutelage, specifically singers, beginning with Jeanne Lee on The Newest Sound ...

Album Review

FUSK: Super Kasper

Read "Super Kasper" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
May 23, 2013

How does a band introduce freedom to its music? Does the band play free jazz or, to paraphrase saxophonist Joe Lovano, does it play its jazz free? Danish Drummer and leader of the Danish-German quartet FUSK, Kasper Tom Christiansen's, answer to this question is simple: “Who cares?" FUSK defines its own freedom, between contrapuntal springboard melodies, sometimes bordering on serial techniques, and catchy themes that employ hard-swinging rhythms, joint improvisations and expressive deconstruction of patterns, all performed with passionate playfulness ...

Rhythm In Every Guise

Shelly Manne: The Three & The Two

by David A. Orthmann
May 23, 2013

"When I'm playing, I think along melodic lines. For instance, I can go up as the notes go up. I may not hit them on the head, but the drums are a very sympathetic instrument and I can sometimes sound like I'm playing the melody without being right in tune. Naturally, I don't have the whole keyboard at my fingertips. I've only got four drums to work with, so I do the best I can with them to point out ...

Album Review

Nigel Mooney: The Bohemian Mooney

Read "The Bohemian Mooney" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
May 22, 2013

The island of Ireland has a long and impressive history of great blues singers--Van Morrison, Rory Gallagher, Phil Lynott all brought a raw, bluesy, intensity to their performances. Singer and guitarist Nigel Mooney has been on the Irish blues scene since the '80s and his jazz-inflected take on the genre is shown to enjoyable effect on The Bohemian Mooney.Mooney may not have the rough-edged aggression of Lynott but the blues is still very definitely at the heart of ...

Catching Up With

Alisha Pattillo: Houston by Way of Singapore

by C. Michael Bailey
May 22, 2013

Reed multi-instrumentalist Alisha Pattillo has a ubiquitous presence in Houston Texas, appearing with her own groups, which take on a variety of formats: Alisha's Quartet, Alisha's Quartet + 1 and Alisha's Quartet - 1. She is also the reed player for the Ezra Charles Band and Steve Krase & The in Crowd. Pattillo has recently released her self-produced debut, Along for the Ride (2012), celebrating the spirits of saxophonists Eddie Harris and fellow Houstonian Wilton Felder. Her ...

We Travel the Spaceways

Art Strike!

by Mark Corroto
May 22, 2013

"Would you support an art strike?" That's the question I've been asking musicians for the past few months. “Will you agree to stop writing and performing music for one year?" In 1990 the London artists Stewart Home and Mark Pawson proposed that all artists cease to “make, exhibit, distribute, sell, or discuss their work" for three years. They also called upon galleries, museums, alternative spaces, clubs, and concert halls to cease operations for that period. Their goal was ...