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.

Take Five With...

Take Five With Mike Davis

by AAJ Staff
May 20, 2013

Meet Mike Davis:Mike Davis has lived several distinct musical lives. He has been a student, a serious student of performance and of theory and of composition and of art. He has been a gig warrior, playing multiple shows in multiple styles on different instruments at different venues with different bands on the same day numerous days per week, week after week after week. He has been a record producer, sitting in front of a computer and a rack ...

Album Review

Laszlo Gardony: Clarity

Read "Clarity" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
May 20, 2013

Pianist Laszlo Gardony's Clarity is a single, composed on the spot, piano sonata comprising ten movements. The contemplative and intimate music bears marks of his various life experiences, from his classical training in his native Budapest to his career as a jazz educator at Boston's Berklee College of Music.Recorded in a single sitting in October 2012 Clarity is a reflection on life on the anniversary of his parent's passing. Opening with the mournful “Settling Of A Racing Mind" ...

Album Review

Daniel Bennett Group: Clockhead Goes to Camp

Read "Clockhead Goes to Camp" reviewed by Mike Oppenheim

by Mike Oppenheim
May 20, 2013

Clockhead Goes to Camp, by the Daniel Bennett Group, is a refreshing album in its originality, positivity, and apparent simplicity. There are many ways in which this is not a typical jazz album. The instrumentation is one of them. Fronted by Daniel Bennett on saxophone and clarinet, a prominent percussion background, folk inspired guitar, and a rumbling upright bass--this album could easily be filed under any number of categories in the record store.Of the 13 tracks, all originals, ...

Interview

Arve Henriksen: The Trumpet is My Pen

by Nenad Georgievski
May 20, 2013

Norwegian trumpeter Arve Henriksen is one of a handful of creative upstarts, like trumpeters Nils Petter Molvær or Erik Truffaz, who are embracing electronics and the improvisational side of jazz in their music. Henriksen's music is an otherworldly amalgamation of different and sometimes opposing elements, with imaginative soundscapes built on the tradition that trumpeter Miles Davis began with his electronic explorations of four decades ago. His releases as a leader began with the debut, Sakuteiki (Rune Grammofon, 2001), and also ...

Album Review

Denis Fournier / Nicole Mitchell: Watershed

Read "Watershed" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
May 19, 2013

Flautist Nicole Mitchell has found a supportive outlet in the Paris-based Rogue Art imprint, with her past outings including Anaya (2009), Emerald Hills (2010), The Ethiopian Princess Meets The Tantric Priest (2012) and Arc Of O (2012), and she is the most well-known name on Watershed. However she sits second in the billing below French percussionist Denis Fournier who contributes three out of five originals on the 51-minute 2011 concert recording from Junas in southern France. A long-time aficionado of ...

Multiple Reviews

Rickie Lee Jones Sings the Most

by C. Michael Bailey
May 19, 2013

Scotch whiskey is an acquired taste; you must first be introduced and develop a relationship with it before this strong water reveals her charms. The same can be said for the singing of Rickie Lee Jones. A hipster in the late-1970s, Jones grew into a blind sage prophetess, showing how others' music could be experienced differently. Jones has recorded three “standards" (and I do use that word loosely) CDs over the past 20 years, each evolving into ...

Album Review

Noah Haidu: Momentum

Read "Momentum" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
May 19, 2013

A quick glance at the monochrome photo that adorns the cover of Momentum could lead to the impression that the pianist is George Gershwin. It isn't, of course, it's Noah Haidu and this is his second album as leader. Any similarities between Haidu and Gershwin end with the shadowy cover shot--Haidu most definitely looks to more contemporary influences for his inspiration.Haidu's debut album, Slipstream (Posi-Tone Records, 2011), was a quintet affair with trumpeter Jeremy Pelt and tenor saxophonist ...

Album Review

Matthew Sheens: Every Eight Seconds

Read "Every Eight Seconds" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
May 19, 2013

In 2009, pianist Matthew Sheens became the first Australian to win a Downbeat Magazine Student Award, but that's hardly the only honor that's been bestowed upon this gifted musician. Sheens has been racking up grants, scholarships and awards at a rapid pace, as he moved from the University of Adelaide, where he completed his undergraduate work in 2008, to the New England Conservatory of Music, to pursue a Masters in Jazz Performance, to New York City, where he has resided ...

Album Review

Rich Halley 4: Crossing the Passes

Read "Crossing the Passes" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
May 19, 2013

Saxophonist Rich Halley has always had a thick, brassy tone and a bold and daring improvisational approach. Over the years a certain contemplative wisdom has permeated his music enhancing its intellectual edge without tempering its fiery zeal. The result, as demonstrated on Crossing The Passes is a sublime balance of the cerebral and visceral.On “Traversing The Maze" for instance, Halley's raw and passionate tenor eloquently creates harmonically intricate ad-lib sonic structures. The dark and mystical piece also features ...

Scumbles

The People Band with Gina Southgate at The Vortex

by Sammy Stein
May 19, 2013

Gina Southgate and The People Band The Vortex London, UK May 11, 2013 On a Saturday evening in the heart of Dalston, East London, The People Band once again graced The Vortex with its free form and improvised style of jazz. As the group played, artist Gina Southgate, with the help of a very computer-literate assistant, created live paintings which were projected on a screen behind the musicians. The collaboration created a visual ...