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.

Album Review

Jacob Varmus: Terminal Stillness

Read "Terminal Stillness" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
May 3, 2013

Jazz is always caught up in the idea of looking forward or backwards, but whatever happened to the idea of looking around? Much ado about movement--toward the future, the past, the next chord in the progression or the next stage of a career--often gets in the way of the simple act of creation. The jazz community, by-and-large, prefers the time-lapse version of music, but that doesn't mean that some within this tight-knit club aren't fond of stills. Take trumpeter Jacob ...

Extended Analysis

Christopher O'Riley: O’Riley’s Lizst

by C. Michael Bailey
May 3, 2013

Hungarian pianist and composer Franz Liszt (1811-86) made a career as the consummate concert showoff. He fully learned to be a showoff from fiddler Nicolo Paganini (1782--1840), who, with Liszt, championed the idea of the “Artist as Hero." Previously, it had not been so fashionable for an artist to outshine the composer whose music he or she was playing. With Paganini, this was easy: he composed music that no one else could play and played it with a flair of ...

Album Review

Steve Heckman: Born to be Blue

Read "Born to be Blue" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
May 3, 2013

Much is made of the influence of John Coltrane on multi-reedist Steve Heckman. His third recording, Born to be Blue finds Heckman delving deeper into the standards territory, Coltrane's residual influence showing up in Heckman's slightly raspy, dry tone, but not anything as caustic as Coltrane's take-no-prisoner timbre. This is not Heckman's pass at Ballads (Impulse!, 1963) What this recording reduces to is a very pleasant mainstream exercise performed by professionals at the top of their game. ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With Andrei Covaciu-Pogorilowski

by AAJ Staff
May 3, 2013

Meet Andrei Covaciu-Pogorilowski:Andrei Pogorilowski was born in Bucharest, Romania, in February 1968. Starting with 1982, he studied music independently, helped by several private professors.In 1989 Andrei started to hear a strange yet beautiful music in his head that he was unable to notate. Short excerpts were presented on the piano to his musician friends, who confirmed that the temporal fabric of the music could not be rendered satisfactorily with help from the traditional, bar-rhythmical, semiography.

Album Review

Vole: The Hillside Mechanisms

Read "The Hillside Mechanisms" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
May 3, 2013

Youthful dynamism and a conglomerate of influences signify a few conspicuous attributes of this European trio's debut album. It's a semi-structured and highly improvised outing. And the musicians pool their resources to indulge in free-form slugfests amid transitory punk-rock grooves, bizarre progressive-rock stylizations and numerous flights into the avant-garde jazz strata. Nonetheless, the band is a lean and mean fighting machine. But the artists do communicate an organized methodology while multitasking via these live performances. “Rampicanti" is a ...

Album Review

Paul Hardcastle: VII

by Jeff Winbush
May 3, 2013

Paul Hardcastle's greatest strength? Consistency. Paul Hardcastle's greatest weakness? Also consistency. Before you applaud or boo Hardcastle you must admit this: the man knows what he does best and he is not about to stop doing it based on what critics say when his global audience tells him that's exactly the way they like it.There is essentially no difference between Hardcastle's solo and his Jazzmasters releases. The same musicians appear on both. The music is interchangeable as well. ...

Multiple Reviews

Alone Together: Charnett Moffett and Marc Cary on Motéma

by Dan Bilawsky
May 2, 2013

Motéma Music has a tremendous amount of material coming through the pipeline as the imprint celebrates its tenth anniversary in 2013. Drummer Jaimeo Brown's forward-thinking debut, vibraphonist Joe Locke's take on the mellow and bluesy, vocalist Rondi Charleston's most mature outing to date, and a trio release from pianist Eldar Djangirov are all hitting shelves around the same time, contributing to this unofficial celebration. Each one of those albums--and artists--has different merits that separate them from one another, but they ...

Album Review

Kendrick Scott Oracle: Conviction

Read "Conviction" reviewed by Mark F. Turner

by Mark F. Turner
May 2, 2013

From the selfless prayer in the opening track to the sampled words of wisdom from martial arts great Bruce Lee in the track “Be Water," drummer Kendrick Scott's Conviction is an extension of self-motivated and thoughtful music that was witnessed in his 2007 debut The Source on his fledgling World Culture Music label. There is a sense of purpose here that is demonstrated throughout the appropriately titled release. More than a sideman, Scott's fresh playing has heightened ...

Genius Guide to Jazz

On Facebook: April 20 - April 30, 2013

by Jeff Fitzgerald, Genius
May 2, 2013

April 30Happy International Jazz Day! To celebrate, we're going to drive our vintage 1979 International Harvester Scout to the International House of Pancakes while listening to Akira Jimbo's “Jimbo Gumbo." Afterwards, we will return to AAJ Headquarters and have some Maxwell House International Coffee.How do you plan on celebrating this global event?April 29We'd like to apologize to all our friends in Nepal who came out to AAJ's first Sherpa Nite at Club ...

Album Review

Liane Carroll: Ballads

Read "Ballads" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
May 2, 2013

Ballads is a great title for an album full of slow tempo, beautifully arranged, songs of love and romance. So it's a perfect choice as the title for British singer Liane Carroll's album. Except that it falls way short of communicating just what an achievement this album is.Carroll's previous album, Up And Down (Quiet Money, 2011), was a superb combination of upbeat, up-tempo numbers and emotionally intense takes on songs including “My Funny Valentine" and Tom Waits' “Take ...