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

Secret Keeper (Stephan Crump & Mary Halvorson): Super 8

Read "Super 8" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
April 26, 2013

Bassist Stephan Crump and guitarist Mary Halvorson kindled the fire in 2011 during their initial encounter, leading to these sessions recorded in Brooklyn, N.Y. Of course, the respective artists are highly revered within modern jazz schemas and the outside realm, spanning a global presence as first-call session artists, paralleling their solo ventures. Hence, the duo crafts an organic-electric presence. Halvorson's unorthodox and rather beguiling technique sets her apart from many contemporaries. Her liquefying phraseology tenders a weirdly contagious musicality coupled ...

Album Review

Renee Yoxon and Mark Ferguson: Here We Go Again

Read "Here We Go Again" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
April 26, 2013

Here We Go Again is Canadian singer/songwriter Renee Yoxon's follow-up to 2010's Let's Call It A Day (Self Produced). She teams with pianist/trombonist Mark Ferguson for a dozen original compositions that are refreshingly familiar, meaning they all have a traditional form and mainstream sensibility that softens the blow to even the most stalwart traditionalist deaf to any material composed after 1960. But new material, this is. From afar, this is a collection of slow- and medium-tempo ballads ...

Meet the Staff

Meet Dan Bilawsky

by AAJ Staff
April 25, 2013

I currently live in: Northport, NY I joined All About Jazz in: 2010 What made you decide to contribute to All About Jazz? I started writing for Jazz Improv/Jazz Inside Magazine in 2005 and continued writing for that publication until the summer of 2009. At that point, I took some time off from writing but continued to stay abreast of all the latest news/music under the jazz heading. My primary sources of information at that time ...

Extended Analysis

John Butcher: Winter Gardens

by John Eyles
April 25, 2013

Just as they say about London buses, you wait ages for one to come along and then two arrive at once. Hot on the heels of Bell Trove Spools, comes another John Butcher solo album, Winter Gardens. The main difference between them is that this one is a vinyl LP release rather than a CD. Otherwise, there are considerable similarities; like its predecessor, Winter Gardens features concert recordings from two separate locations, Vogel Hall, Milwaukee, Wisconsin in October 2011 and ...

Album Review

Cliff Hines: Wanderlust

Read "Wanderlust" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
April 25, 2013

Colleague Dan Bilawsky's razor review of Wanderlust noted that: “Guitarist/vocalist/composer Cliff Hines is a product of this environment [New Orleans], but he's also a man of his own time. He mixes, merges and melds many a style into his musical cauldron but, most importantly, he captures the zeitgeist of 2013." Listening to a bootlegged performance of Traffic at San Francisco's Winterland 01/26/1973 confused the issue when it melded into Hines' opening piece, “Brothers." Searching ...

Album Review

Swingadelic: Toussaintville

Read "Toussaintville" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
April 25, 2013

It's tempting to say that the great Allen Toussaint is a musical phoenix who rose out of the ashes of a Katrina-ravaged New Orleans, but that's not really true. Toussaint wasn't reborn when his city was in ruins; people just started to wake up and take notice of him again in the wake of that tragedy. Participation in benefit concerts, a well-publicized collaboration with Elvis Costello--The River In Reverse (Verve Forecast, 2006)--and a Joe Henry-produced jazz album--The Bright Mississippi (Nonesuch, ...

Live Review

Jazzablanca Festival 2013: Casablanca, Morocco, March 30 - April 4, 2013

by Mehdi El Mouden
April 25, 2013

Jazzablanca Festival 2013Casablanca, MoroccoMarch 30--April 4,2013A chronological scan through the list of artists who have played in jazzablanca Festival for the last seven years reveals a strong wish to improve and position the event as a leading jazz festival in Morocco, beside Tanjazz in Tangiers and jazz au Chellah in Rabat. Indeed, each year has been marked by the appearance of a great jazz figure: guitarist Al Di Meola, guitarist/vocalist Keziah Jones, pianist/singer Peter Cincotti, pianist Chick ...

Album Review

Marbin: Last Chapter of Dreaming

Read "Last Chapter of Dreaming" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
April 25, 2013

Dani Rabin is a burgeoning guitar hero and could shred with the best of them, evidenced by this first-class band's third release, featuring guest spots by drummer Paul Wertico (Pat Metheny) and percussionist Jamey Haddad (Herbie Hancock, Joe Lovano). Marked by a diverse track mix and genre-busting compositional frameworks, the artists cross that imaginary boundary, where enviable technical acumen coalesces with tuneful motifs, equating to a highly listenable form-factor. Nonetheless, the meticulously sculpted production, yields gratifying qualities as the band ...

Dan's Den

Inside the 5th NEA Jazz Masters Awards

by Dan Morgenstern
April 25, 2013

The 32nd class of National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters was formally inducted on January 14, 2013. Numbering just four, this was the smallest class since the threesome of 2003. The following year, new NEA Chairman Dana Gioia upped the ante to six and added the new category of the A. B. Spellman Jazz Advocacy Award, which writer Nat Hentoff was the first to receive. For each of the next three years there were seven, for 2008 ...

Live Review

Kate McGarry/Keith Ganz Duo Palooza: New York, NY, April 20, 2013

by Dan Bilawsky
April 24, 2013

Kate McGarry and Keith Ganz Duo55 BarNew York, NYApril 20, 2013 Informality and high art don't typically walk hand-in-hand but, every now and then, when the stars align, these two ideals find a happy marriage. Such was the case when vocalist Kate McGarry and guitarist Keith Ganz came into town to play a gig at 55 Bar. This unassuming basement nightspot plays host to some of the finest musicians around, yet it remains one ...