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.

Mr. P.C.'s Guide to Jazz Etiquette and Bandstand Decorum

May 2013

by Mr. P.C.
April 29, 2013

Dear Mr. P.C.:I bought an acoustic bass guitar that you can also plug in and my son and I have been playing a lot of pop songs together taking turns on the bass and guitar. I know this is a stereotype that upsets bassists and I'm sure it's hard to play really well, but... it does seem pretty f'ing easy to play the root or maybe a little more and sound okay. It's also very fun. Andrew

Album Review

SVIN: Secretly We Are Gay

Read "Secretly We Are Gay" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
April 29, 2013

The Danish quartet SVIN sees its mission to “create a greater genre diversity in a world where the music industry's cash register sets the agenda." In its rebellious musical universe this band find inspiration in the manic aggression of Sonic Youth, mixing it with the fragile, celestial compositions of Arvo Pärt and spicing it with African polyrhytmics. Svin was founded in 2008, released its debut, Heimat in 2010 and 2012 recorded its sophomore album, a limited edition ...

Album Review

Soft Machine Legacy: Burden of Proof

Read "Burden of Proof" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
April 29, 2013

Subsequent to its psychedelic late 60s existence, Soft Machine redeployed its musicality into a hybrid form of British prog-rock meets avant-garde jazz and jazz fusion schema. The band invoked a signature sound, partly due to keyboardist Mike Ratlledge's fuzz-toned Lowry organ performances and other prominent factors. A chief proponent of Britain's fabled Canterbury music scene, many aficionados and music historians often cite Soft Machine as one of the founding fathers of progressive, jazz- rock. In 2010 SONY Music's Legacy division ...

Album Review

Antonio Adolfo: Finas Misturas

Read "Finas Misturas" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
April 29, 2013

Pianist, composer and educator Antonio Adolfo's second instrumental release as a leader, on his own AAM label, is entitled Finas Misturas (in English, “fine mixtures"). The name refers to the fusion of jazz elements with the rhythms and sensibilities of Adolfo's native Brazil. The result is a pleasing batch of six covers and four originals.A laid-back, summery ambience dominates this carefully orchestrated album. Even the pieces associated with bop and post-bop pioneers are transformed into serene, pastel landscapes ...

Album Review

The Green Violinist: More Thrill & Never Ending Blessings

Read "More Thrill & Never Ending Blessings" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
April 29, 2013

This Belgian progressive-rock outfit's debut frames its moniker on the title of artist Marc Chagall's The Green Violinist. Lead vocalist Vincent Dufresne derived inspiration from the painting after wading through some personal issues in 2003. The artist states that upon hearing the Canadian punk/post-rock band Silver Mount Zion's “13 Angels Standing Guard 'Round the Side of Your Bed," coupled with his initial viewing of the Chagall piece, ..."created a moment of pure delight." Otherwise, many of these works are built ...

Interview

Kendrick Scott: Conviction of a Jazz Oracle

by Esther Berlanga-Ryan
April 29, 2013

Kendrick Scott, considered by many as one of the most gifted drummers of his generation and trusted on stage by peers such as trumpeter Terence Blanchard, is ready to take the spotlight as a bandleader once more with his third studio project. This is a record about a true desire to act as an instrument of peace and a heart full of faith and realizations; a jazz musician telling his own story as he perceives it--and as his band members ...

Profile

Eric Harland's Voyager: Going Places

by Zach Hindin
April 28, 2013

Where most debut acts aim to make a statement, Eric Harland's first lead project, Voyager, is decidedly conversational. Harland, arguably the consummate jazz drummer of his generation, has staffed his quintet with a potent if precocious musical brain trust. The year after pianist Taylor Eigsti first played with pianist Dave Brubeck (he was 12 at the time), guitarist Julian Lage became the subject of the 1997 Academy Award-nominated documentary Jules at Eight (Lage began performing publicly when he was six). ...

Album Review

Judy Dyble: Talking With Strangers

Read "Talking With Strangers" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
April 28, 2013

British vocalist Judy Dyble is one of the founding members of the celebrated folk-rock ensemble Fairport Convention. After leaving the band, she became involved in transitory but critically successful musical endeavors, and eventually retired from the music scene to raise a family. Four decades later she reinvented her career with this album, originally issued throughout Europe in 2009 and now available for the first time in the USA. The program also marks the first time guitarist Robert Fripp and reedman ...

Film Review

The Peter Brotzmann Chicago Tentet: Concert For Fukushima Wels 2011

by Eyal Hareuveni
April 28, 2013

The Peter Brötzmann Chicago TentetConcert For Fukushima Wels 2011PanRec/Trost Records2013 In 2011 the Music Unlimited Festival in Wels, Austria, celebrated Peter Brötzmann's 70th birthday (as well as the festival's 25th year edition), under the title Long Story Short. Brötzmann was asked to curate the program and after two years of preparation he ended with 40 musicians, in new and not-so-new formations, who gathered to celebrate over four packed days what Brötzmann ...

Album Review

Deborah Latz: Fig Tree

Read "Fig Tree" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
April 28, 2013

West Coast/East Coast vocalist Deborah Latz has release two well- received CDs to date: 2004's Toward Love and 2008's Lifeline (both on June Moon Productions). Coming from a stage background, Latz has no problem instilling drama into her interpretations and does so without sounding like she is trying too hard, a pitfall of many of her contemporaries. Latz has a probing and brilliant alto voice that can achieve several ends at the same time. She can readily conquer the sharp ...