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.

Take Five With...

Take Five With Nuevo Tango Ensamble

by AAJ Staff
March 7, 2013

Meet Nuevo Tango Ensamble:Bandoneonist Gianni Iorio, pianist Pasquale Stafano and bassist Pierluigi Balducci have pooled together the love they share for jazz and classical music and their devouring passion for tango and in particular for Astor Piazzolla's music, by setting up a by now well-experienced ensemble that performs all over Europe.Their particular and original sound is accompanied with a poetry, melody and great energy and the original compositions of the trio find a Mediterranean variation of ...

Album Review

Albert Braida/Giancarlo Locatelli: Nel Margine

Read "Nel Margine" reviewed by Jerry D'Souza

by Jerry D'Souza
March 7, 2013

Alberto Braida and Giancarlo Locatelli recorded this album as part of the concert series In Viaggio #9 bis at Sala Vallaperti in Melzo, Italy. The two have played together in the past and have developed an understanding and chemistry that elevates their music. Each is credited with five compositions on this record with “Del Margine" being improvised. The written note may be the signpost for their journeys, but the spark that lights their path is the undefined. Coming into play ...

Meet the Staff

Meet John Kelman

by AAJ Staff
March 7, 2013

I currently live in: Ottawa, Canada I joined All About Jazz in: 2004 What made you decide to contribute to All About Jazz? After deciding to start writing about music in about 2001, and starting at smaller websites, I was approached by All About Jazz in late 2003, with the question: “We've been following your writing and wondering why you're not writing for All About Jazz?" One look at the website and my answer ...

Multiple Reviews

Insubordinations: Mapping the Forefront of Sound

by Florence Wetzel
March 6, 2013

Electroacoustic improvisation is surely one of the most exciting fronts in twenty-first century music. Each time there's a digital innovation, this music innovates as well, which means that the changes are coming fast and thick. It's an explosion, really.For devotees of this music, as well as anyone who is curious about these new sounds, the Swiss netlabel Insubordinations is a veritable mother lode. To date the label has over 60 releases of improvised/electroacoustic music, featuring a wide-range of ...

Album Review

Anthony Braxton: Eight (+1) Tristano Compositions 1989 For Warne Marsh

Read "Eight (+1) Tristano Compositions 1989 For Warne Marsh" reviewed by Troy Collins

by Troy Collins
March 6, 2013

Long valued as an elusive, out of print collector's item, the recently reissued Eight (+1) Tristano Compositions 1989 For Warne Marsh offers listeners another opportunity to reevaluate composer Anthony Braxton's vibrant reinterpretation of the groundbreaking pianist's work. Dedicated to the tenor saxophonist most commonly associated with pianist Lennie Tristano's oeuvre, this 1989 session originally included versions of “How Deep is the Ocean" and “Time on My Hands," two Great American Songbook standards related to the genial duo's purview. Omitting those ...

Live Review

Keb' Mo' and Arizona Musicfest Orchestra: Scottsdale, AZ, February 22, 2013

by Patricia Myers
March 6, 2013

Keb' Mo' and Arizona Musicfest OrchestraArizona MusicfestPinnacle Presbyterian ChurchScottsdale, AZFeb. 22, 2013It was a bold step to book bluesman Keb' Mo' to perform with the Arizona Musicfest Orchestra, a performance that could have been constrained by the rigidity of orchestral charts. But Mo' and his trio stayed loose and true to his trademark style, sometimes appearing buoyed by having 52 side men and women under the baton of Robert Moody.During a ...

Album Review

Aquarium: Places

by Bruce Lindsay
March 6, 2013

Aquarium is a young British quartet with a melodic and accessible approach to jazz. Places follows the band's acclaimed self-titled debut (Babel Label, 2011) and features the same lineup of exciting new generation musicians. It finds the band exploring in more depth the melodic and at times very spiritual music which characterised its debut and enhances Aquarium's reputation for high quality music.The monochrome cover features a photograph of just one of Aquarium's members--Sam Leak. This emphasises Leak's key ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With Matthew Sheens

by AAJ Staff
March 6, 2013

Meet Matthew Sheens:Born in Bowral, Australia. Lived in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide before leaving for the US at 22 to complete my Masters at the New England Conservatory in Boston.Was the first Australian to win a Downbeat Magazine award (Best Soloist in 2009/2011), and has performed across Australia, USA, New Zealand, Japan, The Netherlands, at the Jazz Hoeilaart International Jazz Festival in Belgium, Montreux International Jazz Festival in Switzerland, Europafest in Romania, and at the International Panama ...

Album Review

Anthony Branker & Word Play: Uppity

Read "Uppity" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
March 6, 2013

On Uppity, Dr. Anthony Branker, Director of Jazz Studies at Princeton University, has created a life-affirming, sometimes funky, and straight-through beautiful set of sounds--an ode to the resiliency and basic goodness of the human spirit.Branker began his jazz journey as a trumpeter, but complications from a brain aneurysm in 1999 brought his trumpet playing days to an end. He is now the composer and musical director of his Ascent and Word Play modern jazz ensembles.Uppity opens ...

Album Review

Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra / Jo Ann Falletta: Duke Ellington: Black, Brown, and Beige

Read "Duke Ellington: Black, Brown, and Beige" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
March 6, 2013

Naxos Records' American Classics imprint was intended to highlight the domestic classical repertoire. This includes reaching from John Philip Sousa wind works and John Adams operas to Charles Ives songs and Leonard Bernstein Broadway shows. Jazz made a claim with the imprint, and the America Classics eventually included recordings of Scott Joplin rags, Art Tatum piano improvisations, George Gershwin extended concert pieces and William Grant Still symphonies. Oddly absent has been Edward Kennedy Duke" Ellington...until now. The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, ...