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

Kathryn Farmer: Moondance

Read "Moondance" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
February 23, 2013

Vocalist Kathryn Farmer brings a very contemporary vision to her jazz singing, one equally informed from the popular and R&B idioms. Her debut, Moondance, offers a spectrum of music treated to her uniquely informed interpretations. Farmer fearlessly re-harmonizes songs for her own visionary purposes, rendering compelling, if not provocative, performances. Strict constructionists who less-than approve of tampering with Van Morrison's masterpiece...beware. Farmer does a considerable reconstruction, lending a densely abstract momentum to the song's natural swing. Her ...

Album Review

Hardcoretet: Do It Live

Read "Do It Live" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
February 23, 2013

The opening minute of Do It Live seems like a bait-and-switch scenario; with a band name like Hardcoretet, wit and power would seem to be requisite ingredients in the group's work, but only sunshine and rainbows appear at first. Fortunately, these sounds are merely a gateway into the music of this Seattle-based foursome. As this opening track develops, and as this 30-minute session progresses, it becomes clearer and clearer that Hardcoretet is worthy of the winning name it possesses.

Wide Open Jazz and Beyond

Ode to Jef Lee Johnson: The Promise of Lovolution

by Charles Blass
February 22, 2013

“When the music's happening, life is happening.... Why must we only join hands after the storm?... How true are you? Nothing else even matters." --Jef Lee JohnsonJef Lee Johnson, prolific, virtuosic, humble, was in some ways not made for this world. “I'm over the world," he sang. He was certainly made for music though.Time to tell the truth about Jef Lee Johnson. For too many, it's better late than never. His brilliance was evident enough, however ...

Album Review

Mark Lockheart: Ellington in Anticipation

Read "Ellington in Anticipation" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
February 22, 2013

Ellington in Anticipation isn't Mark Lockheart's first album to employ an expanded lineup; the Polar Bear/Blue Touch Paper saxophonist collaborated with Germany's WDR Big Band on 2010's Days Like These (Fuzzy Moon) and first cut his teeth in Loose Tubes, the now-legendary large UK collective of then-up-and-comers that included pianist Django Bates, saxophonist Iain Ballamy and guitarist John Parricelli, amongst other notables. But Ellington in Anticipation--whose septet's complexion is defined by the incorporation of violin alongside a three-horn frontline--is Lockheart's ...

Live Review

Latin Jazz All Stars: Golden, Colorado, January 24, 2013

by Geoff Anderson
February 22, 2013

Latin Jazz All StarsMt. Vernon Country ClubGolden, COJanuary 24, 2013Latin jazz is as diverse as Latin America itself. While it comes in many different flavors and colors, a constant is the rhythm. Jazz is a rhythmic-centric music to begin with, but the Latin tinge adds a turbo charger to the project.Thursday night's version of Latin jazz was of the all-star variety. The band claimed to be egalitarian with no official “leader." But, similar ...

Album Review

Maucha Adnet & Helio Alves: Milagre

by Dan Bilawsky
February 22, 2013

Vocalist Maucha Adnet and pianist Helio Alves have been collaborating in various settings for two decades, but Milagre marks their first full-length recording as a twosome. Adnet, who's best known for her decade-long tenure with the great Antonio Carlos Jobim, and Alves, a first call pianist who's worked with everyone from saxophonist Joe Henderson to cellist Yo-Yo Ma, are both part of a group of close-knit veterans that breath Brazilian air into the jazz atmosphere of Manhattan. This Brazilian jazz ...

New York Beat

Nilson Matta and Leny Andrade at Dizzy's

by Nick Catalano
February 22, 2013

Celebrating the release of Black Orpheus (Motéma, 2013), bassist Nilson Matta brought his band into Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola on February 13, 2013. Along with pianist Klaus Mueller, percussionist Fernando Saci, drummer Alex Kautz and saxophonist Steve Wilson the show featured legendary singer Leny Andrade, who also performs on the CD.Although Brazilian music has enthralled American audiences for decades, they rarely encounter the pioneering authenticity that Matta brings to a performance. The producers at Dizzy's have, in recent months, ...

Album Review

Tine Bruhn: Nearness

Read "Nearness" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
February 22, 2013

With the rapid evolution of jazz in the past generation, a simple performance approach offers the benefit of showing from where we have come. Denmark-cum-New York City native vocalist Tine Bruhn joins pianist Johnny O'Neal (late of drummer Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and vibraphonist Milt Jackson's band) and saxophonist Stacy Dillard for a collection of ten tried-and-true standards, simply and elegantly presented within the intimate confines of the duo-trio format. Part of understanding how jazz got where it is today ...

Album Review

Mats/Morgan Band: Live

by Dave Wayne
February 22, 2013

Keyboardist Mats Öberg and drummer Morgen Ågren--known as much for their musical brilliance as they are for their devotion to the music of Frank Zappa--are at their hyperactive best on this remastered recording from Stockholm's Club Fasching in 1999. Six pieces by Ågren and five by Öberg comprise this all-original set that shows quite a bit more variety and showmanship than might be expected from a pair of former child prodigies immersed in the world of strange and difficult music.

Album Review

New York Voices: Live with the WDR Big Band Cologne

Read "Live with the WDR Big Band Cologne" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
February 21, 2013

New York Voices celebrates its Silver Anniversary with the release of the jazz vocal quartet's first completely live recording, Live with the WDR Big Band Cologne, recorded at the Kölner Philharmonie in May, 2008. Sharing a jazz ensemble field with Manhattan Transfer and the Uptown Vocal Jazz Quartet has in no way dampened the group's efforts to carve out its place. In fact, New York Voices has done a very effective job, doing so with authority; the group displays a ...