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.

Interview

New York Voices: Keeping the Vocal Jazz Flame Burning

by R.J. DeLuke
May 13, 2013

Kim Nazarian went to college in upstate New York for acting, with dreams of the Broadway stage. Some 25 years later, she's enjoying a career that has taken her to stages around the globe--but as a singer. Not just a singer, but one of four that makes up New York Voices, a group that has won Grammy Awards and performed with many jazz luminaries during its illustrious run.It's not something Nazarian would have imagined at Ithaca College, but ...

Multiple Reviews

Mike Pride: From Cradle to Grave

by Troy Collins
May 12, 2013

Since the turn of the millennium, drummer, composer and bandleader Mike Pride has established a strong presence in the fertile Brooklyn scene. Pride's diverse interests include a wide range of styles; his myriad projects run the gamut from avant-garde jazz and indie rock to neo-classical chamber music and performance art. Encompassing key aspects of all these genres, the simultaneously issued Birthing Days and Drummer's Corpse are Pride's most personal endeavors to date--a fascinating pair of recordings that stand in diametrical ...

Album Review

Nathan Haines: The Poet's Embrace

Read "The Poet's Embrace" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
May 12, 2013

The spiritual jazz path is not noted for being an easy option, but over the years it's proved to be one of the most rewarding choices, for both musician and listener. Much of the music on The Poet's Embrace suggests that tenor saxophonist Nathan Haines has traveled at least some way along that path in creating this album and the results of that journey are impressive. In a career that began in the '80s as a teenager in ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With Mike Skory

by AAJ Staff
May 12, 2013

Meet Mike Skory:I play Hammond/piano for the regional soul/blues/original band, Root Doctor Featuring Freddie Cunningham. I also have a unique rock trio call Suzi & the Love Brothers. Both acts are out of Lansing, MI. Instrument(s):Piano, Hammond organ.Teachers and/or influences?The two musicians who helped me in jazz are Ron Newman, Michigan State University College of Jazz, and vocalist Lisa Smith, Okemos, Michigan. Influences primarily blues, boogie and swing pianist like ...

Album Review

Monty Alexander: Uplift 2: Higher

Read "Uplift 2: Higher" reviewed by Dr. Judith Schlesinger

by Dr. Judith Schlesinger
May 12, 2013

This blazing CD is the official follow-up to the splendid Uplift, which in 2011 was one of the first releases from John Lee's fledgling label, Jazz Legacy Productions. Blending Alexander's past and present compadres--referred to here as “two timeless trios"--Higher features seven tracks with the peerless John Clayton on bass and Jeff Hamilton on drums, and four with the excellent Hassan Shakur and Frits Landesbergen in those respective roles.As with every other Alexander CD--about 70 to date--this one ...

Album Review

Dawes: Stories Don't End

Read "Stories Don't End" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
May 12, 2013

Wrapped in funereal black graphics inside and out, the music of Dawes' third studio album radiates an ambivalence that undermines its ambition.Choosing to record Stories Don't End on the east coast and enlisting the production assistance of Jacquire King (Tom Waits, Norah Jones, Kings of Leon, among others), Dawes has taken great pains to address erroneous preconceptions as the standard-bearers of a nouveau California rock milieu. At the same time, the group has gone to some lengths to ...

Album Review

Infinita: Time Continuum

Read "Time Continuum" reviewed by Anthony Shaw

by Anthony Shaw
May 12, 2013

The opening 30 seconds of “Wild," the appropriately named first track on this exploration of the Time Continuum, belies the melody and the meter of the music that follows. The album consists of 10 more pieces, mainly from the pen of pianist Sid Hille and more than ably assisted by this thoroughly seamless Italo-Finnish foursome. Hille's credentials have been accumulated during a 30-year career that has taken him all around the shores of northern Europe and beyond. ...

Extended Analysis

Michael Thieke & Olivier Toulemonde, Lucio Capece & Jamie Drouin: The Berlin Series no. 1

by John Eyles
May 11, 2013

The most gratifying thing about The Berlin Series no. 1 is that it seems to be the first of many Another Timbre releases featuring musicians based in Berlin. Given the vibrancy of the city's music scene, it has become a magnet for improvising musicians from across the world. As one of them, French sound artist Olivier Toulemonde has observed, “Berlin is a jungle of improvised music... I would recommend Berlin to anyone who wants to meet a new musician every ...

Album Review

Matteo Sabattini: Metamorpho

Read "Metamorpho" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
May 11, 2013

Jazz can broadly be divided into that which mines the past for inspiration and that which doesn't. Alto saxophonist Matteo Sabattini demonstrated on Dawning (Fresh Sound New Talent, 2011)--his debut as leader for the Catalan label--that he's an unabashed modernist. Sabattini and his New York Quintet take an unhurried approach to these ten compositions where melodic development defines the contours of the music. To be sure, there's fire in the playing on occasion, but as some of the titles perhaps ...

Tell Me More

Diana Krall: Rediscovering Vaudeville in Glad Rag Doll

by Belinda Ware
May 11, 2013

Diana Krall is more than just a jazz songstress. She established herself as a solid interpreter of standards with her rendition of the Dusty Springfield's classic, “The Look of Love," making her mark with notable acoustic arrangements coupled with openly sensuous vocals carrying the tune. Krall is one of the jazz world's uniquely eclectic artists who has built a respectable longevity with her career. She is consistent as a serious jazz artist, both in the recording studio as ...