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

Dan Phillips BKK Trio: Bangkok Edge

Read "Bangkok Edge" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
February 8, 2013

Thailand isn't exactly known the world over as a jazz mecca, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have its fair share of talent in this department; one need look no further than the back cover of guitarist Dan Phillips' Bangok Edge to discover the names of some of the movers and shakers on the Thai jazz scene. Phillips, who hails from America but lives in Thailand and serves on the music faculty at Silpakorn University, put together ...

Album Review

Jeremy Woolhouse: The Persistence of Dreaming

Read "The Persistence of Dreaming" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
February 8, 2013

The translation of melancholy into music can be a beautiful thing in any genre. Jazz, with its focus, on improvisation (to varying degrees), allows an artist to explore the nuances of mood. A framework that gives way to in-the-moment rumination or flights of fancy can make for the most evocative of sounds.Melbourne, Australia-based pianist Jeremy Woolhouse goes solo on The Persistence of Dreaming, presenting a suite-like set of original tunes remarkable for their brooding cohesion and memorable lyricism. ...

Live Review

Rudresh Mahanthappa: Buffalo, NY, January 27, 2013

by Chuck Schultz
February 8, 2013

Rudresh MahanthappaAlbright Knox Art GalleryBuffalo, NYJanuary, 27 2013It is no secret that modern jazz musicians often draw upon multiple cultures when creating their art.In saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa's case, he begins by meshing traditional music from India along with influences ranging from the Middle East to the East Village, from blues, progressive rock to funk and just about anything else you might care to name.The results are stunning in their sonic diversity, ...

Album Review

Luis Muñoz: Luz

by James Nadal
February 8, 2013

Akin to wind and rain, music can no longer be confined or characterized by geography; it knows no borders and wanders free. In the case of Latin America, music has gone full circle in that jazz musicians initially sought inspiration and ideas from the United States, but are now realizing that their own regional cultures can be an encouraging source from which to to draw. Costa Rican-born Luis Muñoz--an award winning drummer, arranger, composer, and producer--is one that has never ...

Album Review

Emy Tseng: Sonho

Read "Sonho" reviewed by Nicholas F. Mondello

by Nicholas F. Mondello
February 8, 2013

Fifty-plus years after saxophonist Stan Getz and singer/guitarist Astrud Gilberto captured composer Antonio Carlos Jobim and served up bossa nova for popular consumption, musicians continue to eagerly return to Brazilian classics. Logically, the integration of attractive bossa textures with the Great American Songbook has been another phenomenon. Thus, the bossa nova resource has been incredibly robust and long-lived.With Sonho, her debut CD, Washington, DC-based vocalist Emy Tseng shrewdly embraces and expands the genre by selecting gorgeous material from ...

Jazz Near Me

John Coltrane: There Was No End To The Music

by Rob Armstrong
February 8, 2013

[Editor's Note: All About Jazz, Hidden City Philadelphia, and the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia have collaborated to present a series of articles on the local jazz scene that John Coltrane inhabited, developed in, and ultimately transcended between 1943 and 1958, when he called the city home.] When 18 year old John Coltrane moved to Philadelphia, in 1943 the nation's third largest city, he entered a fundamentally different world from his hometown of High Point, N.C. Like many ...

Mr. P.C.'s Guide to Jazz Etiquette and Bandstand Decorum

February 2013

by Mr. P.C.
February 7, 2013

Dear Mr. P.C.:My teacher told me to practice with a metronome, but then I was getting ahead of it sometimes, and behind it sometimes. Where can I get a metronome that works? Beats Me

Dear Beats:Don't be so quick to blame your metronome--you may have accidentally hit its “jazz" setting. That deliberately miscalibrates the time in order to simulate working with an actual jazz drummer.Unfortunately, the “classical" setting is no better. To ...

Album Review

Ehud Asherie and Harry Allen: Lower East Side

Read "Lower East Side" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
February 7, 2013

Pianist Ehud Asherie and tenor saxophonist Harry Allen are established musical partners with a shared fondness for a time when songwriting giants like Irving Berlin and Richard Rodgers were at their creative zeniths. Lower East Side is the pair's second duo outing, following on from Upper West Side (Posi-Tone, 2012), and once again the two demonstrate how this fondness for a bygone era can still produce fresh and joyous music.The journey from Upper West Side to Lower East ...

Live From Philadelphia

January 2013: Larry McKenna Quartet

by RJ Johnson
February 7, 2013

Larry McKenna QuartetJanuary 17, 2012Arch Street Meeting HousePhiladelphia, PAThe Philadelphia jazz scene is well known for its reverence of jazz tradition. Compared to the constantly shifting modern scene of New York City, and the experimental projects produced by the current European scene, Philadelphia musicians are often seen as living examples of the preservation of jazz tradition. No one embodies this principal more meticulously than saxophonist Larry McKenna.McKenna is perhaps the ...

Album Review

WA: Cross The Center

Read "Cross The Center" reviewed by Dave Wayne

by Dave Wayne
February 7, 2013

On its surface, Cross The Center may seem like a guitar/drums free jazz freakout. This perplexingly named group from the Pacific Northwest, like their homies Dylan Carlson, SUNN)))000, and The Melvins, proves convincingly that it is possible to freak out with great intelligence, wit and skill. Sure, the electric guitars of Simon Henneman and C. J. Stout are predominantly distorted, detuned, and otherwise abused in order to make those otherworldly sounds. Behind this phalanx of plugged-in madness, Gregg Keplinger thrashes ...