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.

Year in Review

Mark F. Turner's Best Releases of 2012

by Mark F. Turner
January 5, 2013

2012 was a year of stimulating music made all of the more relevant by artists who poured out their hearts and souls in diverse and compelling ways. Younger voices emerged like pianist Robert Glasper and drummer Henry Cole to deliver contemporary visions through fresh personal and cultural influences . Esteemed trumpeter/composer Wadada Leo Smith brought his monumental four-disc project to life, inspired from events centered around America's tumultuous past within the Civil Rights Movement. Another creative exploit included the convergence ...

Album Review

Leonel Kaplan/Christof Kurzmann/Eden Carrasco: Casa Corp

by John Eyles
January 5, 2013

Casa Corp is the second release by the Buenos Aires-based trio of Argentine trumpeter Leonel Kaplan, Chilean alto saxophonist Edén Carrasco, and Austrian vocalist Christof Kurzmann. It follows Una Casa / Observatorio (2011), on Kaplan's own Three Chairs Recordings label. Kaplan and Carrasco were also on the Dromos label's first release in 2009, Moments of Falling Petals, in a trio completed by guitarist Tetuzi Akiyama. In common with all releases on Dromos, Casa Corp is released in a limited edition, ...

Album Review

Emy Tseng: Sonho

by Dan Bilawsky
January 5, 2013

Washington, DC-based vocalist Emy Tseng always had music in her life, but it took awhile for her to settle into the role of “Brazilian-based seductress" or “jazz singer." She started on the piano at age four, branched out into singing in high school and continued to explore the vocal arts while knee-deep in academia at Brown University, studying math and physics, and MIT, where she attended graduate school. All the while, Tseng kept on singing, but her focus was on ...

Book Review

Walter Kolosky: Power, Beauty and Passion - The Story of the Legendary Mahavishnu Orchestra

by Ian Patterson
January 5, 2013

Power, Passion and Beauty: The Story of the Legendary Mahavishnu Orchestra Walter Kolosky Pages: 325 ISBN:978-0-9761016-8-0 Self-published e-book 2012 Walter Kolosky's Power, Passion and Beauty: The Story of the Legendary Mahavishnu Orchestra (Abstract Logix Books, 2005) now finds its way into e-book format, which is good news for trees as well as for die-hard Mahavishnu Orchestra fans. In the interval since publication of the original book, Kolosky has conducted further interviews with ...

Album Review

Larry Young: Into Somethin'

Read "Into Somethin'" reviewed by Greg Simmons

by Greg Simmons
January 5, 2013

Organist Larry Young's Into Somethin' is full of relaxed grooves, great melodies and strong performances from tenor saxophonist Sam Rivers and 1960s stalwarts Elvin Jones (drums) and Grant Green (guitar). Originally released in 1964, this record has been remastered and released on 45 RPM vinyl by Ron Rambach at Music Matters. Soul Jazz? Groove Jazz? Whatever. It's good jazz and that's what matters. On the opening “Tyrone," Young plays deep blues at a straightforward, un-showy pace that gets ...

Year in Review

2012: The Year in Jazz

by Ken Franckling
January 5, 2013

The world of jazz officially went global in 2012, kicked the Grammy Awards in the shins, dealt with economic issues and Mother Nature, and found new ways to innovate in this social media and Internet-savvy age. There were ups and there were downs for both longstanding clubs and festivals, too. Here's a look at significant happenings across the jazz world over the past 12 months: International Jazz Day Jazz everywhere now has an official ...

Album Review

Omar Sosa: Eggun

by Dan Bilawsky
January 4, 2013

A tribute to trumpet legend Miles Davis' Kind Of Blue (Columbia, 1959), without a single song from the record? The answer: an emphatic “Yes!" In 2009, piano wizard Omar Sosa received a commission from the Barcelona Jazz Festival to “compose and produce a tribute performance to Miles Davis' classic recording, Kind Of Blue, on the occasion of its 50th anniversary." The keyword there is “tribute"; not “facsimile" or “rewrite." Even if they had asked Sosa for such a thing, they ...

Multiple Reviews

Bill Frisell: Live Download Series #14-17

by John Kelman
January 4, 2013

DS#001-013 | DS#014-017 In a previous All About Jazz article, the first thirteen installments of guitarist Bill Frisell's remarkable Live Download Series were reviewed. Beginning in 2009, Frisell and Songline/Tonefield Productions began making available high quality, download-only (but in formats including 320K MP3 and lossless FLAC) live performances dating as far back as 1989, when the guitarist was on the road to support his Elektra/Musician debut, Before We Were Born, released the same year. What has made this ...

Album Review

Rez Abbasi Trio: Continuous Beat

Read "Continuous Beat" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
January 4, 2013

Guitarist Rez Abbasi is one of the more prolific modern-era guitarists, calling New York City home but often adhering to his Pakistani roots through the looking-glass of jazz. Other than his impressive chops, he often amalgamates--to varying degrees--an Indo-jazz vibe into his solo outings and session gigs. However, on this plugged-in trio date, Abbasi instills a quasi, jazz-fusion vibe while adding minimal doses of distortion into the grand schema. With a formidable rhythm section supplying a loose but ...

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Multiple Reviews

Bill Frisell: Live Download Series #1-13

by John Kelman
January 4, 2013

DS#001-013 | DS#014-017One of the biggest problems facing contemporary jazz musicians is that they often have far more projects on the go than could ever be recorded and released commercially by conventional record labels--even small and relatively responsive indie labels. Special projects abound, or personnel changes for a tour are forced when members of a regular group are unavailable, the plight of the 21st century working musician being how to remain viable and available. Of course, it's not ...