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

Jonas Holgersson: 4003

by Chris Mosey
February 15, 2013

Four young Swedish musicians and one expat Englishman attempt to reverently recreate hard bop from the 1950s and '60s. The title, 4003, was the catalogue number for Art Blakey's Moanin' (Blue Note, 1958). The album features 12 numbers, most of them considered classics, by the likes of saxophonists Hank Mobley and Clifford Jordan, guitarist Grant Green, trumpeters Blue Mitchell and Kenny Dorham, and pianist Herbie Hancock--plus, curiously, pianist Duke Ellington's “Sonnet for Caesar," from Such Sweet Thunder (Columbia, 1957) and ...

Album Review

Lajos Dudas Trio: Live at Porgy & Bess

Read "Live at Porgy & Bess" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
February 14, 2013

Hungarian-German clarinetist Lajos Dudas has quite the résumé in Europe, with about 50 recordings to his credit. He has been around long enough to have had clarinetist Artie Shaw remark on his talent, but do not mistake his longevity with a marriage to the traditional mainstream of jazz; it is anything but. Dudas has adventurous spirit that seeks to probe the same sonic areas as Jimmy Giuffre's 1960s trio, albeit in a somewhat more behaved fashion. The present live outing, ...

Extended Analysis

Tetsu Saitoh: Strings & The Moon

by Eyal Hareuveni
February 14, 2013

Japanese double bass master Testsu Saitoh is relatively unknown outside Japan. Most of his discography was released by small Japanese labels, including his own, Travessia, and naturally most of his collaborations are with East Asian musicians. Though he played and recorded with Western musicians, including fellow double bass players, as on the double bass quartet tribute to the late Peter Kowald, After You Gone (Victo, 2004), with Barre Phillips, Joëlle Léandre and William Parker. Saitoh approach to ...

Album Review

Verneri Pohjola & Black Motor: Rubidium

Read "Rubidium" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
February 14, 2013

Just going by the name, for those unfamiliar with the thriving Scandinavian jazz scene, a group calling itself Black Motor might be mistaken for a heavy metal rock band--a smash-and-crash set of drums, a blasting three-chord guitar and a wall-shaking bass wrapped around bellowed lyrics. But the real Black Motor, a drums/bass/saxophone outfit--joined on Rubidium by trumpeter Verneri Pohjola--is a Finish improvising jazz unit of the first order.When a quartet consisting of two horns, bass and drums, with ...

Album Review

Cristina Pato: Migrations

Read "Migrations" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
February 14, 2013

Galicia is a province in northwestern Spain, bordered on the south by Portugal, whose people pride themselves in having unique and distinct cultural traits with strong Celtic connections, predominantly in its music and the popular gaita, or Galician bagpipe. Cristina Pato is a native Galician, and acknowledged virtuoso of the gaita. She has taken the instrument to a whole new level on Migrations, her fourth album as a soloist and leader. Blending a life of classical training with her folkloric ...

Afrobeat Diaries

EMEFE: Good Future

by Chris May
February 14, 2013

For a glorious week and a half in November, London seemed like the epicenter of Afrobeat. Antibalas played Islington Town Hall. Dele Sosimi's Afrobeat Orchestra played Hackney's New Empowering Church. Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 played Kentish Town Forum. If only every month could be like that. For most of each year, London's hardcore Afrobeat community lives from one of Sosimi's bimonthly Afrobeat Vibration all-nighters to the next. The event, now in its fifth year, is as close ...

Album Review

Tim Green Saxophone: Songs From This Season

Read "Songs From This Season" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
February 14, 2013

Saxophonists Eric Alexander, Chris Potter, Jimmy Greene, John Ellis and Marcus Strickland all have at least one thing in common: they were all second or third place finishers in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition who went on to become leading lights in the world of jazz. Alto saxophonist Tim Green may very well join this unofficial fraternity sometime in the near future. Green, who was the first runner-up to saxophone mad man Jon Irabagon in ...

Live Review

Take Five Europe: January 28-February 2, 2013

by John Kelman
February 13, 2013

Take Five EuropeBore PlaceSevenoaks Weald, Kent, UKJanuary 28-February 3, 2013While solid jazz education for aspiring musicians is increasingly accessible, few programs tackle the harsh realities facing the emerging musician of the 21st century. With the dissolution of major labels, and a shift in revenue that often makes having a publicist and/or manager a luxury few can afford, today's jazz musicians are truly being forced to become small business owners, with their product being their music. ...

Album Review

NYConnection: Party Of Four

Read "Party Of Four" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
February 13, 2013

The genesis of Party Of Four can be traced back to 2007, when a friendship of two was solidified. Finnish drummer Jaska Lukkarinen and Israeli pianist Roy Assaf found each other at that fateful point in their respective careers and, shortly thereafter, NYConnection was born. While the band took its maiden voyage as a piano trio in the spring of that same year, it's evolved over time, becoming a worldly quartet with a diverse outlook on jazz. ...

Live Review

Panama Jazz Festival: Panama City, January 14-19, 2013

by Josef Woodard
February 13, 2013

Panama Jazz FestivalPanama City, PanamaJanuary 14-19, 2013Taking in the dense, ambitious and unusually large-spirited phenomenon that is the Panama Jazz Festival, which rounded the corner to its milestone tenth anniversary in this year's mid-January edition, the question of how this institution came to pass lurked in the periphery. How was it that this rare, serious jazz festival in the region, with a strong and integrated education component, has flourished and gradually, steadily grown and deepened with the ...