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.

Extended Analysis

Anthony Braxton: Tentet (Wesleyan) 1999

by John Sharpe
March 20, 2013

Even though his output suggests that saxophonist/composer/educator Anthony Braxton has never wanted for outlets for his music, he hasn't always had the control he desired. All that changed with the launch in 2011 of the New Braxton House imprint, which issues a new digital download each month drawn from his voluminous archives. This initiative has allowed the gaps in his back catalogue to be filled, and edges ever closer to the goal of documenting all the master's works. On the ...

Album Review

Eleni Karaindrou: Concert in Athens

Read "Concert in Athens" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
March 20, 2013

For more than two decades, Eleni Karaindrou has been composing film scores for Theo Angelopoulos and releasing soundtracks on ECM, including Ulysses' Gaze (1995), with violist Kim Kashkashian, and Music for Films, where Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek performs music from the Greek film director's The Beekeeper (1986). Concert in Athens isn't Karaindrou's first live recording; 2006's Elegy of the Uprooting takes that honor, a two-CD retrospective culled from eleven Angelopoulos films and Karaindrou's 2002 theater score for Trojan Women. Concert ...

Album Review

Tony Malaby/ Per-Oscar Nilsson / Johnny Aman / Peter Nilsson: 9 Stygn

Read "9 Stygn" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
March 20, 2013

The sophomore release of Swedish guitarist Per-Oscar Nilsson strengthens his ties with American jazz. His debut, Now! (Connective, 2010), with his own group, featured saxophonist Marcus Strickland. 9 Stygn, recorded a year later, features Nilsson as the main composer for a quartet comprised of saxophonist Tony Malaby and fellow Malmö bassist Johnny Åman, who collaborated with Nilsson on his debut, and experienced drummer Peter Nilsson. Per-Oscar Nilsson's compositions are structured with clear melodic lines, careful, linear progressions ...

Album Review

Ligro: Dictionary 2

Read "Dictionary 2" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
March 20, 2013

Moonjune Records has performed a service for progressive-rock and jazz-fusion aficionados by propagating an influx of stellar albums by Indonesian artists and bands that morph Western traditionalism into a distinct sound spectrum. One such ensemble is the power trio Ligro that, in Indonesian lingo, translates to “crazy people." Formed in 2004, its second release, Dictionary 2 is a propulsive exposition, sparked by unanticipated shifts in direction, demanding time signatures, metallic grooves and more. Guitarist and band founder Agam ...

Meet the Staff

Meet Edward Blanco

by AAJ Staff
March 20, 2013

I currently live in: Miami, FL. I joined All About Jazz in: 2005 What made you decide to contribute to All About Jazz? The desire to participate in some small way, in helping to promote and become a part of the jazz music I love. AAJ is the top jazz resource on the internet and it provides me an opportunity to get published and read by a wider audience than any other site could provide.

Album Review

Reut Regev's R*Time: Exploring the Vibe

Read "Exploring the Vibe" reviewed by Troy Collins

by Troy Collins
March 19, 2013

Exploring the Vibe is the dynamic follow-up to This is R Time (Ropeadope, 2009), the critically acclaimed debut of R*Time, a mutable ensemble led by Israeli-born trombonist Reut Regev. A versatile instrumentalist, Regev has been involved in a number of eclectic projects since moving to New York City in 1998, including musical experiments in Radical Jewish Culture with Frank London, as well as contributing to the avant-garde excursions of composer Anthony Braxton. Regev's defiance of stylistic limitations carries over into ...

Interview

Chris Bigg: I Always See Music in Colors

by Nenad Georgievski
March 19, 2013

Long considered to be one of the most innovative areas of graphic design, record sleeve art has a history of introducing complex imagery to the mass market. Popular music s, as it is known, is a form of youth culture closely connected to visual culture. Record sleeves have never been only a packaging. In a way, they are objects that reflect the desires of the audiences in a fundamental way.Graphic designer Chris Bigg has spent three decades creating ...

Extended Analysis

Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers: Moanin'

by Mike Oppenheim
March 19, 2013

Throughout its history, jazz has constantly evolved, developing from and reacting against its earlier incarnations. The mid-1940s saw bebop reinvent jazz as an artist's genre, distinct from the swing style that was the popular music throughout the 1930s and '40s. Bebop was music for listening, not dancing, and the emphasis became virtuosic improvised solos instead of memorable tunes and arrangements. However, the advent of bebop itself led to further reactions and developments within jazz during the 1950s. The newer genre ...

Album Review

Iva Bittova: Iva Bittova

Read "Iva Bittova" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
March 19, 2013

In its four-plus decade career, ECM Records has done more to blur, stretch and dissolve musical boundaries than any other label on the planet. With the world becoming a smaller place it's also become a fertile breeding ground for cross-cultural, cross-genre cross-pollination, with ECM on the vanguard of the inevitable consequences, having released countless examples of a fearless rejection of anything but the idea that music is simply music. Yes, there are delineations, but only for the purposes of trying ...

Album Review

Tommy Flanagan / Jaki Byard: The Magic of 2

Read "The Magic of 2" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
March 19, 2013

One of San Francisco's most famous jazz venues, Keystone Korner, closed in 1983. It was a favorite venue of the top jazz players of the day, and several landmark live albums by pianists Bill Evans and McCoy Tyner, and saxophonists Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Stan Getz, resulted from shows taped inside its hallowed hall.The Magic of 2 showcases the piano talents of Tommy Flanagan (1930-2001) and Jaki Byard (1922-1999), live at the Keystone Korner in 1982, mixing duets ...