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.

Interview

Alexander Hawkins: Retaining The Sense of Discovery

by John Sharpe
January 15, 2013

One of the fastest-rising stars of the UK jazz scene, pianist Alexander Hawkins is remarkable in that he shines equally in both the further reaches of free improvisation and the creation of ingeniously crafted charts. Indeed, Hawkins' particular talent might be in bringing the two so close that it's hard to distinguish between them. At times on his two acclaimed Ensemble releases, No Now is So (FMR, 2009) and All There, Ever Out (Babel Label, 2012), there seems to be ...

Album Review

Aaron Neville: My True Story

Read "My True Story" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
January 14, 2013

Singer Aaron Neville cut his teeth on doo-wop--a prominent sound of black urban American from the late 1940s through the start of the 1960s--as a teenager in New Orleans. Fashions change, and Neville went on to make his name in funk and soul. In 1985, he made a brief doo-wop touchdown with the EP Orchid In The Storm, since rereleased on Hyena Records. On My True Story, Neville's Blue Note debut, co-produced by label president Don Was and Rolling Stones ...

Album Review

Mats Gustafsson: Stones

by John Eyles
January 14, 2013

Stones is a recording of the very first meeting of two remarkable saxophonists--legendary Swedish baritone and tenor player Mats Gustafsson and Montreal-based American Colin Stetson, a member of Arcade Fire's touring band as well as bass saxophonist of choice for an impressive list of musicians including Laurie Anderson, David Byrne and Tom Waits. The album's four tracks--some thirty-five minutes of music--were recorded live onstage at the Vancouver Jazz Festival in 2011 and feature the two saxophonists alone together.

Album Review

Paul Winter Sextet: Count Me In

Read "Count Me In" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
January 14, 2013

The Paul Winter Sextet was a short-lived group from the 1960s, leaving little in terms of an imprint or legacy in jazz but for one distinguishing fact: it was the very first jazz group to perform in concert at The White House. After a grueling six-month State Department-sponsored tour of 23 Latin American countries, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy invited the group to perform in the East Room of The White House in November, 1962. Count Me In celebrates the 50th ...

African Jazz

Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba: Jama Ko

by Chris May
January 14, 2013

Malian ngoni player Bassekou Kouyate and his band, Ngoni Ba's third album continues the increasingly outward-looking trajectory of its predecessors. The debut, the lovely Segu Blue (Out/Here, 2007), was unadorned roots music. Its follow-up, the more visceral I Speak Fula (Out/Here, 2010), wove amplification into what was still basically an acoustic sound and, on two tracks, featured Vieux Farka Toure, son of Ali Farka Toure, on electric guitar. On Jama Ko--as with his performances as part of the travelling package ...

Multiple Reviews

Close Encounters Of The Skronky Kind

by Eyal Hareuveni
January 13, 2013

Paal Nilssen-Love is one of the hardest-working musicians in the European free jazz and free improvisation scenes. Amongst his near-countless activities, the Norwegian drummer collaborates on a regular basis with Chicago reed multi-instrumentalist Ken Vandermark, in their ongoing duo, in the Double Cement trio and Lean Left quartet, as a member of Peter Brötzmann's Hairy Bones quartet and Roma Trio, and the now-defunct Chicago Tentet. He's also a member of the Swedish-Norwegian power trio The Thing and Atomic quintet, and ...

Album Review

Coreto: Aljamia

Read "Aljamia" reviewed by Jeff Dayton-Johnson

by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
January 13, 2013

Coreto is an eleven-piece jazz ensemble from the Portuguese city of Porto. Aljamia, its début release, is also among the first albums to emerge from Porta-Jazz, an association of Porto jazz musicians.Leader and alto saxophonist/flautist João Pedro Brandão is a student of the multilayered musical traditions of the Mediterranean. The region is a remarkably rich amalgam of ancient and modern, European and African and Arabic ingredients. The learned quality of Brandão's six compositions for Aljamia bears witness to ...

Album Review

Vo-Duo: Nou La

by James Nadal
January 13, 2013

Haitian musical culture is intrinsically connected to the religious practice of Vodou, with millions of active practitioners and followers. The origins of Haitian Vodou were the ritualistic beliefs of the enslaved West African communities blending with Catholicism, imposed on them by the European rulers. Apart from French, Haiti also has its own inherent language of Kreyol; it is written phonetically, as it is pronounced. The fundamental music sung in Kreyol is mizik rasin, which mutated into the singer/poet movement of ...

Film Review

Artistry Jazz Group: Live For The First Time

by Chris Mosey
January 13, 2013

Artistry Jazz GroupLive For The First TimeVolenza2012This DVD records a big day in the small world of Scandinavian jazz: after two first class studio albums, Artistry Jazz Group performing live for the first time. And it does so in Södra Teatern, Stockholm's oldest theater, built in 1859 on the heights of Mosebacke where, exactly 20 years later, August Strindberg would set his classic novel The Red Room. The theater's ...

Album Review

Jeff Davis: Leaf House

Read "Leaf House" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
January 13, 2013

Experimental drummer Jeff Davis leads a formidable piano trio that goes against the grain, as it gels to diametric pulses and opposing metrics. Abetted by pianist Russ Lossing's hammering block chords and off-center rhythmic improvisations, Davis elevates, prods and generates cyclonic intensity, yet shades or tempers the momentum during the album's introspective moments. His holistic approach to the kit yields numerous residuals, reengineering the rhythmic panorama via swirling cadenzas, fractured blues and free jazz jaunts, or winding matters down to ...