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

2013 Tri-C JazzFest: Cleveland, OH, April 19 - 27, 2013

by Matt Marshall
May 8, 2013

34th Annual Tri-C JazzFest ClevelandCleveland, OHApril 19-April 27, 2013There was a determined effort by Tri-C JazzFest Managing Director Terri Pontremoli to give this year's event more of a festival atmosphere than it has perhaps enjoyed in years past. For starters, many of the outlying venues, such as the East Cleveland library, a regular festival haunt, were scrapped in order to concentrate events downtown, with most concerts staged either in the grand theaters of Playhouse Square or on ...

Album Review

Alexi Tuomarila Trio: Seven Hills

Read "Seven Hills" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
May 8, 2013

While not entirely rare, it is relatively uncommon to find relationships forged so strongly that the musicians find themselves working together in multiple contexts, where the names remain the same, only the leader changes. Finnish pianist Alexi Tuomarila and drummer Olavi Louhivuori have been working together in a variety of contexts for the past several years, most notably with Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stańko's quintet responsible for Dark Eyes (ECM, 2010), but together with Mats Eilertsen, they've not only worked together ...

Multiple Reviews

Katsura Yamauchi Duets

by Eyal Hareuveni
May 8, 2013

Japanese saxophonist Katsura Yamaychi is a unique musician in the Japanese experimental and avant-garde scene. He comes from the industrial town Beppu, far from the traditional creative center around and in the bigger cities of Japan. He picked up the saxophone in the early seventies, but it took until 2012 for Yamaychi to quit his regular job and dedicate himself fully to music. Yamauchi has developed a highly original approach to his instrument, the alto saxophone. His ...

Album Review

Bobby McFerrin: spirityouall

Read "spirityouall" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
May 8, 2013

Bobby McFerrin, Al Jarreau and Jon Hendricks are the most innovative jazz voices of the past 50 years. Our current subject, McFerrin, took the technical capabilities of the human voice, remolding them into the fantastic and delightful forms we recognise as his genius today. spirityouall is McFerrin's celebration of both his father, Robert McFerrin, Sr., the first African-American to sign a contract with the Metropolitan Opera Company and the American musical vernacular called the Spiritual. McFerrin's father ...

Album Review

Laszlo Gardony: Clarity

Read "Clarity" reviewed by Franz A. Matzner

by Franz A. Matzner
May 8, 2013

It is never a good idea to judge a book by its cover and even less so a music album. However, in the case of Lazlo Gardony's solo release Clarity the cover image depicting the pianist sitting at the piano as a young boy, accompanied by his stuffed bear, pretty much says it all.Full of bright, affirming innocence, the album's ten compositions display their emotional colors like the face of a child, unfolding with simple openness. There are ...

Album Review

Ape Club: Ape Club

Read "Ape Club" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
May 8, 2013

Ape Club is a new Norwegian quartet that has been operating since 2009 and plays jazz at the crossroads of be-bop and early free jazz of the late fifties and early sixties. Its debut album blends inspirations of such great composers as Thelonious Monk, Ornette Coleman and Charles Mingus, spiced with modern pop song structures, folksy melodies and modern manners of improvisations. The quartet leader, bassist Julius Lind, wrapped the band tunes within catchy, melodic and energetic ...

Album Review

Stick Men: Deep

by Glenn Astarita
May 8, 2013

Interestingly enough, this production was funded by fans through the Pledge Music website. The positive outcome should instill delight and a sense of fulfillment for the band's patrons, perhaps one of the densest incarnations of a progressive-rock trio imaginable. Tony Levin's (King Crimson, Peter Gabriel) Chapman Stick work, coupled with Markus Reuter's (Tuner, Europa String Choir) Touch Guitar articulations communicate an intimidating presence. Otherwise, first-call session drummer Pat Mastelotto toured and recorded with Levin during their stints with latter-day King ...

Interview

John Etheridge: More Than a Legacy

by Bruce Lindsay
May 7, 2013

The home page of guitarist John Etheridge's website reveals that he's involved in seven current projects: nothing too unusual in the life of a contemporary jazz musician. Closer inspection quickly shows that the term “jazz musician" fails miserably to encompass the full range of Etheridge's work. There's his career as a solo performer; his duo with the classical guitarist John Williams; his duo with violinist Chris Garrick; Garrick and Etheridge's quartet Sweet Chorus, inspired by Stephane Grappelli; his trio with ...

Multiple Reviews

Le Boeuf Deux Fois: Pascal's Triangle and Le Boeuf Brothers Remixed

by Dan Bilawsky
May 7, 2013

The Le Boeuf Brothers--saxophonist Remy and pianist Pascal--don't box themselves into a jazz corner; or, perhaps it should be said that they don't box jazz into a corner, preferring instead to let it marinate in the juices of the present, where it can absorb new flavors and move in different directions. Both men are highly capable musicians who can throw down some serious straight ahead sounds, but they don't always feel the need to do so.

Album Review

The Live New Departures Jazz Poetry Septet: Blues For The Hitchhiking Dead

Read "Blues For The Hitchhiking Dead" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
May 7, 2013

It's not jazz, it's not poetry, it's jazzpoetry. At least, that's what Jerry Hooker called it in a review of the 12 March 1962 performance at Southampton University that is captured on Blues For The Hitchhiking Dead. Two of the UK's foremost poets combined with five of the country's finest jazz musicians to become The Live New Departures Jazz Poetry Septet, bringing this relatively newfangled combination of words and music if not to the masses then at least to an ...