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

Caswell Sisters featuring Fred Hersch: Alive In The Singing Air

Read "Alive In The Singing Air" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
April 1, 2013

Sibling acts in jazz are fairly common, but sister acts are not. The Brothers Dorsey, Jones, Montgomery, Heath, Brecker, and Marsalis are familiar to any jazz fan with a passing knowledge of the music's history, but female counterparts are scarce. Thankfully, that trend is changing, proving that jazz is not a man's--or brother's--world. Today, we have brother-sister combos, like Anat, Avishai and Yuval Cohen, male-female cousin couplings, like violinist Regina Carter and saxophonist James Carter, and sister sets, like pianist ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With Paul Zaborac

by AAJ Staff
April 1, 2013

Meet Paul Zaborac:Paul Zaborac is a versatile saxophonist, composer, and educator. Born in Des Moines, Iowa in 1987, he began studying the saxophone at the age of 11. After receiving a bachelor degree in music education from Simpson College (2010), he proceeded to obtain a master of music degree in saxophone performance at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 2012, where he was the recipient of the prestigious Albert Scholarship for Postgraduates and served as a research assistant. ...

Album Review

NEXT Collective: Cover Art

Read "Cover Art" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki

by Chris M. Slawecki
April 1, 2013

Cover Art heralds the NEXT Collective: Seven musicians--Logan Richardson (flute and alto saxophone), Walter Smith III (bass clarinet and tenor saxophone), Matthew Stevens (guitar), Gerald Clayton (piano and Fender Rhodes), Kris Bowers (Fender Rhodes), Ben Williams (bass) and Jamire Williams (drums) --whose debut quite capably bears up under the heavy “young lions of jazz" mantle. Bassist Williams won the prestigious 2009 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition; drummer Williams has extensively recorded with trumpeter Christian Scott, who guests on several Cover ...

Album Review

Maurizio Minardi: The Cook, The Clown, The Monk And The Accordionist

Read "The Cook, The Clown, The Monk And The Accordionist" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
March 31, 2013

It's not the snappiest album title ever, but The Cook, The Clown, The Monk And The Accordionist, by the UK-based Italian musician Maurizio Minardi, is one snappy album. This is a standout recording, full of atmospheric music that combines immediately engaging hooks with sweeping narrative and emotional depth.Minardi's My Piano Trio (Belfagor Label, 2012) mixed jazz and European classical influences with great success. Minardi used two different trio lineups, one of which included bassist Nick Pini and drummer ...

Live Review

Poncho Sanchez Latin Jazz Band: Toronto, Canada, March 9, 2013

by Alain Londes
March 31, 2013

Poncho Sanchez Latin Jazz BandKoerner HallToronto, OntarioMarch 9, 2013After not playing in Toronto for quiet a few years, fans were finally able to enjoy the wonderful talent of master conguero Poncho Sanchez, together with his Latin Jazz Band and featuring, on this particular occasion, young lion {m: Christian Scott = 15401}} on trumpet. For the 2012-2013 season, the Royal Conservatory has programmed a series of performances, Devoted to Dizzy. This particular night was billed as ...

Album Review

Jonathan Suazo: Extracts of a Desire

Read "Extracts of a Desire" reviewed by Jeff Dayton-Johnson

by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
March 31, 2013

Albums by bassist Joan Torres ( Before, self-produced, 2012)) and guitarist Gabriel Vicens (Point in Time, self-produced, 2012) give every indication of a burgeoning jazz renaissance in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Marked by technical proficiency, these players have matter-of-factly eschewed New York and set about to build a scene in San Juan.Among the most satisfying aspects of the Torres and Vicéns records is the alto saxophone of Jonathan Suazo, who lent his fluid, swinging chops to both dates. ...

Album Review

Jeremy Woolhouse: The Persistence of Dreaming

Read "The Persistence of Dreaming" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
March 31, 2013

Dreams and reality have an odd relationship that's neither completely antagonistic nor complementary; either one can influence the other, as thoughts bleed across different worlds in obvious or subtle fashion, but they exist in separate realms. Minute-to-minute, real life actualities and imagined, in-the-mind occurrences are inextricably linked, yet permanently separated by an impassable divide, and this paradox is at the heart of The Persistence Of Dreaming. Australian pianist Jeremy Woolhouse takes a gentle journey through the recesses ...

Album Review

Verneri Pohjola & Black Motor: Rubidium

Read "Rubidium" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
March 31, 2013

Black Motor is Finland's leading trio of free jazz that began to gain a wider recognition outside Finland in recent years. Since its foundation around 2005, the central Finland, Tampere-based proletariat trio expanded its muscular, uncompromising post-Albert Ayler and Peter Brötzmann approach as it began to collaborate with fellow, innovative Finnish improvisers as saxophonist Juhani Aaltonen, guitarist Raoul Björkenheim and bassist Teppo Hauta-aho, as well as circus acts, dancers, poets , rap artists and DJ's. Helsinki-based trumpeter Verneri Pohjola, who ...

Extended Analysis

The Feelin's Good

by Greg Simmons
March 31, 2013

The mists of time have a way of obscuring the motives behind people's decisions. “What were they thinking?" and “It must have seemed like a good idea at the time" must be among the most universal human sentiments. In the music business, a session gets recorded, and often it gets released, but occasionally it doesn't. Sometimes a tape sits on a shelf collecting dust for fifty years, leaving later-day musical archeologists to ponder why. Maybe that session gets cut up, ...

Extended Analysis

The Pogues: The Very Best Of The Pogues

by Skip Heller
March 30, 2013

The hybrid of punk rock and world music is by now expected, and the Pogues are by now the known avatar. But in 1984, when the band's debut album, Red Roses For Me (Stiff), was released, it made no impression. It didn't sell, and it wasn't written about much. Their blend of Celtic folk and English punk rock was audacious, the songs sharp, and the audience nowhere to be found. The reasons for this range from that their label (Stiff) ...