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

Papo Vazquez: San Francisco, CA, March 22, 2013

by Ken Vermes
April 4, 2013

Papo Vazquez's Pirates and Troubadours SFJAZZ Center San Francisco, CA March 22, 2013On Friday, March 22, 2013, jazz lovers at the new SFJAZZ Center were in for a very special experience. As part of the series of concerts curated by a jazz artist, conguero John Santos unleashed what can only described as a force of nature. By the conclusion of trombonist Papo Vazquez's performance, the crowd was dancing in the aisles, crying in ...

Album Review

Anders Jormin: Between Always And Never

Read "Between Always And Never" reviewed by Chris Mosey

by Chris Mosey
April 4, 2013

Anders Jormin leads a remarkably busy life. Bassist with pianist Bobo Stenson's Trio, he has also played with the likes of saxophonists Lee Konitz, Joe Henderson, Charles Lloyd and Joe Lovano, as well as drummers Elvin Jones and Jack DeJohnette. He records under his own name, composes works for symphony orchestras, studies ethnic music in Cuba and Mozambique, teaches double bass and improvisation at Gothenburg University and writes poems in Latin. It's amazing that he finds time ...

Album Review

Lela Kaplowitz: Lela & Joe Kaplowitz - With Every Breath

Read "Lela & Joe Kaplowitz - With Every Breath" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
April 3, 2013

Croatian singer Lela Kaplowitz sings con brio and gleeful abandon. Eastern Europe has always been a hotbed terrain for big band music, with creativity exploding after the end of the Cold War. Kaplowitz and her husband/pianist/arranger Joe Kaplowitz emerge fully formed and swinging on With Every Breath. The pair employ the wares of the Croatian Radio-Television Jazz Orchestra (think an Eastern WDR) and spin out ten finely crafted big band pieces. Joe Kaplowitz proves more than capable as arranger for ...

Bailey's Bundles

Fiddlers on the Roof: Aisslinn Nosky and Julia Wedman

by C. Michael Bailey
April 3, 2013

Violinist Lara St. John is not the only noted fiddler from the friendly climes of Canada. The past few years have seen the emergence of two exceptional violinists, Aisslinn Nosky and Julia Wedman, who intersect one another in multiple places, including: Tafelmusik, the Eybler String Quartet and the Baroque chamber group, I Furiosi. Outside of Tafelmusik, Aisslinn Nosky serves as concertmaster for Boston's Handel and Haydn Society, while Julia Wedman has released a provocative performance of Biber's Mystery Sonatas (Sono ...

Album Review

Chris Massey & The NJP: Whosoever

Read "Whosoever" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
April 3, 2013

Drummer Chris Massey's debut--Vibrainium (Self Produced, 2011)--was an Art Blakey-influenced quintet date that put a modern slant on the hard bop tradition; this follow-up follows the same guidelines, but puts a greater emphasis on the modern. Massey tips his cap to those who came before him by including an always-in-style standard ("Old Devil Moon"), a high energy original ("Whosoever") that balances Blakey-esque ideals with McCoy Tyner-ish tendencies, and choice covers from past masters like saxophonists John Coltrane ...

Album Review

Alberto Pinton: Nascent

Read "Nascent" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
April 3, 2013

Italian-born, Stockholm-based sax and woodwinds player Alberto Pinton new quartet Nascent = 14719 brings the best of him. Pinton is an experienced and varied musician who honed his art in dozens of recordings as a leader, co-leader-- in his own former quartet and quintet, Dog Out quartet with saxophonist Fredrik Nordström and another collaborative quartet with saxophonist Jonas Kullhammar or as a sideman; a clever composer who is well versed with the rich jazz legacy but does not feel bound ...

Album Review

Hiromi: Move

by Glenn Astarita
April 3, 2013

Keyboardist Hiromi once again reaps the benefits of her superstar rhythmic section, drummer Simon Phillips (The Who, Toto, David Gilmour) and contrabassist Anthony Jackson (Paul Simon, Chick Corea, Steely Dan). A largely acoustic set, she yields an action-packed schema, teeming with intricately designed arrangements while zooming in for the kill on many occasions. However, Hiromi's breadth of scope is rather monolithic, since her arrangements are of the whirlwind variety, where nuance, tonal shadings and ballad-like intricacies complement and contrast her ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With Lisa Hilton

by AAJ Staff
April 3, 2013

Meet Lisa Hilton: Lisa Hilton is considered one of the most distinctive composers and pianists in jazz today. Trained as a classical pianist but with a degree in art, she has created her evocative, individualistic and impressionistic “sound paintings" for over a decade as a leader. In the book, The New Face of Jazz, Hilton was “compared to some of the best pianists in history," her imagistic compositions drawing deeply on classical traditions, twentieth century modernists, and the avant-garde as ...

Extended Analysis

Live in Europe 1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 2

by Chris M. Slawecki
April 3, 2013

Volume 2 in Legacy's Bootleg Series features Miles Davis' “great lost band" with saxophonist Wayne Shorter, keyboardist Chick Corea, bassist Dave Holland and drummer Jack DeJohnette, recorded in July and November 1969. This band, sometimes called Davis' “third great quintet," never recorded as a standalone ensemble, although it served as the core of the larger group that consolidated around the trumpeter's landmark Bitches Brew sessions in August '69. While preparing Miles: The Autobiography, Davis told biographer Quincy Troupe: ...

Big Band Report

In Tune or Not in Tune... That Is the Question

by Jack Bowers
April 2, 2013

Suppose a month goes by, you have a column to publish, but nothing has happened that's worth writing about. What do you do then? Read on, as the question is about to be answered. A while back there was a discussion at a Stan Kenton web site (Kentonia) about musicians or groups of musicians (more specifically, soprano saxophonists) playing out of tune, either occasionally or frequently. My response (entirely personal) was as follows: “Well, ...