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

Bray Jazz Festival 2013

by Ian Patterson
May 18, 2013

Bray Jazz FestivalBray, County WicklowIrelandMay 3-5, 2013 For many years, the picturesque town of Bray's main claim to fame has been that it's the oldest inhabited seaside town in Ireland. That is, it was the main claim to fame until Bray local lass Katie Taylor won boxing gold at the 2012 Olympic Games in the lightweight division, emptying the pubs of Guinness on that heady August day and forever putting Bray well and truly on ...

Album Review

Darcy James Argue's Secret Society: Brooklyn Babylon

Read "Brooklyn Babylon" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
May 18, 2013

Part of the audience engagement process in multimedia performance is the integral dynamic of conflict and resolution between forms. Take one of them away and you have a different sensory experience. So, having witnessed graphic artist Danijel Zezelj and Darcy James Argue's Secret Society create separate but integrated works of art in the live performance of Brooklyn Babylon, it's challenging to antedate expectations around what may seem to be one part of an equation. However, Argue's release of the suite ...

Live Review

Doc Severinsen and the San Miguel 5: Phoenix, AZ, May 1, 2013

by Patricia Myers
May 18, 2013

Doc Severinsen and the San Miguel 5Musical Instrument MuseumPhoenix, AZMay 1, 2013Octogenarian bandleader Doc Severinsen has somehow added new fire to his legendary power and vibrancy in a sizzling coalition that melds Latin gusto with jazz zest. The trumpeter, who will be 86 on July 7, 2013, delivered pyrotechnical proficiency and sustained ending-phrase notes as strongly as his younger horn players.The San Miguel 5 is Severinsen's second alliance with virtuoso Mexican guitarist Gil ...

Album Review

Hedvig Mollestad Trio: All of Them Witches

Read "All of Them Witches" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
May 18, 2013

It may well be sexist to suggest that there are few female heavy rock guitarists. Still, as society moves towards greater equity among the genders, there are thankfully a lot more talented and intrepid women transcending conventional expectations of their “place" in music--and few countries exemplifying this more than Norway. Sidsel Endresen may be a singer, but she's far from the norm; saxophonists like Frøy Aagre and Hanna Paulsberg are pushing their own jazz boundaries, as is trumpeter Gunhild Seim. ...

Album Review

Steve Heckman: Born to be Blue

Read "Born to be Blue" reviewed by Nicholas F. Mondello

by Nicholas F. Mondello
May 18, 2013

The Great American Standard is a nourishing Mother. No matter how far away one might stray, or who has mined there before, the Canon always welcomes further improvisatory exploration. The challenge, of course, is for the artist to honor the source appropriately.With Born to Be BlueBay Area saxophonist, Steve Heckman takes us on yet another tour of familiar GAS workhorses. In doing so, he displays a formidable ability to wring new juice from seasoned fruit. It's an enjoyable ...

Album Review

¡haUtUllin!: ¡haUtUllin!

Read "¡haUtUllin!" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
May 18, 2013

{¡haUtUllin!}} is a new Scandinavian duo-- Norwegian drummer Håkon Berre, residing in Copenhagen, and Finnish guitarist Markus Pesonen-- that aim to break away from the prevailing musical genres and common understanding of their instruments roles and usage. The duo is gifted with reckless energy, imaginary vocabulary and a rebellious, eccentric spirit. The live improvisations embrace all, from blues, alternative, psychedelic-jam rock and progressive rock, African rhythms to noise, guitar heroic blasts and free improvisations. The duo's unconventional sonic spectrum is ...

Extended Analysis

Edward Simon Trio: Live in New York at Jazz Standard

by John Kelman
May 17, 2013

Some artists maintain a busy release schedule, putting out an album a year--sometimes, in the case of musicians like guitarist Bill Frisell, even more frequently--while others, for a variety of reasons, are less prolific. Pianist Edward Simon has, in recent years, been issuing albums with broader distribution under his own name--which automatically discounts 2010's independently released but undeniably fine Danny Boy--about once every three years on labels ranging from The Netherlands' Criss Cross to Italy's Cam Jazz. Live in New ...

Album Review

Ken Fowser/Behn Gillece: Top Shelf

Read "Top Shelf" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
May 17, 2013

The team of tenor saxophonist Ken Fowser and vibraphonist Behn Gillece has been steadily releasing music of a similar nature on the Posi-Tone label since its 2009 debut, Full View, hit the shelves. With this, the duo's fourth album, Fowser and Gillece continue along the same path with nary a stylistic sharp turn, yet this one manages to stand out because of one important difference: a third man out front. The three previous recordings were leaders-and-rhythm dates but, with Top ...

Album Review

Nicholl and Farquharson: Della by Moonlight

Read "Della by Moonlight" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
May 17, 2013

Keyboardist Matthew Nicholl and bassist Michael Farquharson assemble an adult contemporary jazz suite on Della by Moonlight. To be clear, this is not smooth jazz, and while smooth jazz has its charms--accessibility and listening ease being two of them--Nicholl and Farquharson's music requires a little more than just passive listening. The additional attention is more than rewarded by the grace espoused by this music. Della by Moonlight opens with “Nine Toes," brimming with a Miles Davis Tutu ...

Multiple Reviews

Pablo Ziegler's Nuevo Tango Passion: Amsterdam Meets New Tango and Tango Nostalgias

by Dan Bilawsky
May 17, 2013

Astor Piazzolla invited jazz into the world of tango, birthing a hybridized form of music that's outlived its creator; jazz, proving equally hospitable, opened its doors to Piazzolla and nuevo tango. High-end artists like saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, vibraphonist Gary Burton, and guitarist Al Di Meola all collaborated with the legendary composer/bandoneon player, helping to raise his profile and that of nuevo tango music on the whole. Piazzolla had a notable influence on, in addition to all three of these musicians, ...