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 Dan Lehner

by AAJ Staff
May 7, 2013

Meet Daniel Lehner:Dan Lehner is a freelance trombonist, composer and educator in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. Born in Hamilton, New Jersey, Lehner briefly attended University of the Arts in Philadelphia before finishing his undergraduate degree in Jazz Studies at William Paterson University, studying under New York trombonists John Mosca and Tim Newman, as well as studying composition with Elliot Carter scholar John Link.Lehner has performed with a wide array of groups including Asiko (Afro-Beat) ...

Album Review

Rich Halley 4: Crossing the Passes

Read "Crossing the Passes" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
May 7, 2013

Tenor saxophonist Rich Halley kicked his recording career into high gear in 2001 with the flammable Coyotes in the City (Louie Records, 2001), a chunk of free jazz ferocious enough to scare off the feeble and the weak of heart. In a succession of CDs since then--a total of four at Louie Records before switching to his own Pine Eagle Records for five more--not much has changed. Halley is still a powerhouse sax man, in the mode of Sonny Rollins ...

Album Review

Ches Smith and These Arches: Hammered

Read "Hammered" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
May 7, 2013

Four progressive-jazz and improvising luminaries lend their expertise for New York City-based drummer Ches Smith's foray into a multi-purposed set, exploring and splitting the frontiers of avant-garde jazz, rock and other genres into asymmetrical components. Thus far, the artist has been in the thick of things, amassing an impressive discography, performing and recording with notables such as bassist Trevor Dunn, clarinetist Ben Goldberg and others. This album merges discordant free-form impressionism, micro-melodies, off-center jazz--and with accordionist Andrea Parkins onboard--the program ...

Album Review

Thisbe Vos: Under Your Spell

Read "Under Your Spell" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
May 7, 2013

A Southern California Girl with a love of standards and romantic music, Thisbe Vos is not your typical female vocalist performing Louis Prima/ Keely Smith duets in a jazz band. Born in the Netherlands, Vos began exploring music by playing the harp and doing musical theatre and only after joining the British swing band, The Jive Aces, did she begin to embrace the style of love songs, ballads and swing that are the focus of her music. Her debut album ...

Album Review

Joe Locke: Lay Down My Heart: Blues & Ballads Vol.1

Read "Lay Down My Heart: Blues & Ballads Vol.1" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
May 7, 2013

Vibraphonist Joe Locke doesn't seem to want to put his mallets down for very long. As soon as he arrived at Motéma Music, he released the modern-leaning Signing (Motéma Music, 2012) with the Joe Locke/Geoffrey Keezer Group, and partnered up with Lincoln's Symphony Orchestra for the somewhat serene Wish Upon A Star (Motéma Music, 2013). Now, less than six months after that symphony-enhanced songbook hit shelves, he delivers Lay Down My Heart, a collection of blues and ballads.

Catching Up With

Geri Allen: Apollo's Muse

by Bob Kenselaar
May 6, 2013

Pianist/composer Geri Allen is gearing up for her role as artistic director for an especially ambitious production of the 2013 Harlem Jazz Shrines Festival at the Apollo Theater. Presented as “Geri Allen & Friends Celebrate the Great Jazz Women of the Apollo," the program will offer two shows on May 11, 2013 that explore the legacy of such jazz greats as singers Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Sarah Vaughan, Betty Carter and Nancy Wilson, among others. One ...

Album Review

Ivo Perelman / Matthew Shipp / William Parker / Gerald Cleaver: Serendipity

Read "Serendipity" reviewed by Troy Collins

by Troy Collins
May 6, 2013

Currently in the midst of an unprecedented mid-career renaissance, wildly prolific tenor saxophonist Ivo Perelman has been recording for Leo Records at a frantic pace, typically issuing several new albums at a time. Released concurrently with The Edge and The Art of the Duet, Volume One is Serendipity, a title that bears out its namesake. Taped in the winter of 2011 during what was originally intended to be the session for The Foreign Legion, a bass-less trio date with Perelman's ...

Live Review

Dana Masters & The Masters of Jazz: Lisburn, N. Ireland, April 26, 2013

by Ian Patterson
May 6, 2013

Dana Masters & The Masters of JazzIsland Arts CenterLisburn, Northern IrelandApril 26, 2013 Lisburn isn't a name that rolls off the tongue in jazz circles, or most other circles for that matter. The small Northern Irish town of 71,000 souls was granted city status in 2002, when it may have enjoyed the unique distinction of being the only city in the world without a hotel. Times change, however, and now the city has quite a ...

Album Review

Steve Heckman Quartet / Quintet: Born To Be Blue

Read "Born To Be Blue" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
May 6, 2013

Saxophonist Steve Heckman often intentionally stands in the shadow of John Coltrane, as demonstrated on With John In Mind {World City Music, 2003) and Live At Yoshi's (World City Music, 2005), but he's no Coltrane clone. Heckman has absorbed bits and pieces of many masters, so a less exuberant, matte finished take on Sonny Rollins, a fondness for Zoot Sims ("I Remember Zoot") and a hint of Coleman Hawkins merge with the Trane influence to create something all together different, ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With Andrea Dutra

by AAJ Staff
May 6, 2013

Meet Andréa Dutra:Andréa Dutra is a Brazilian singer from Rio de Janeiro. Her most important influences are MPB (popular Brazilian music), samba and jazz. She has worked with many important Brazilian musicians like Tim Maia, Seu Jorge, Sandra de Sa, Danilo Caymmi and others, all over Brazil. Andrea was nominated for the most important music award in Brazil for her first album, Andréa Dutra, released by Niteréi Discos in 1993.Since 2001 Andrea sings in the samba ...