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

CLAZZ Ensemble & Frank Carlberg: Federico on Broadway

Read "Federico on Broadway" reviewed by Dave Wayne

by Dave Wayne
November 21, 2012

Pianist/composer Frank Carlberg teams up with the Netherlands-based Clazz Ensemble for some truly off-kilter and wryly humorous musical mayhem on Federico on Broadway. Like Willem Breuker and Carla Bley, Carlberg's music has roots in the avant- garde but has gravitated slowly towards the tonal. Like Bley and Breuker, Carlberg has a humorous streak, and he's fond of incorporating odd bits of non-jazz influences into his long-form compositions. To that end, Federico on Broadway finds Carlberg proudly wearing his musical obsessions ...

Extended Analysis

Skip Heller: Fakebook II - That’s Entertainment

by C. Michael Bailey
November 21, 2012

Skip HellerFakebook II: That's EntertainmentWeatherbird Records2012 Fred Steven “Skip" Heller is one of those musicians with a gravity great enough to create his own universe. He is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger, bandleader, producer and writer with an all-encompassing musical knowledge, interest and vision that is readily witnessed in his All About Jazz column Hardly Strictly Jazz. He is a stylistic moving target playing guitar- organ trio before moving on to Americana ...

Live Review

Jazzfest Berlin 2012: Berlin, Germany, November 1-4, 2012

by Henning Bolte
November 21, 2012

Jazzfest Berlin 2012Berlin, GermanyNovember 1-4, 2012In 1964, famous pioneering jazz aficionado and impresario Joachim E. Behrendt founded the legendary Berlin Jazztage. The event, nowadays named Jazzfest Berlin, with its tumultuous history and multitude of faces, has since worked with a variety of different artistic directors. This year was the beginning of a new four-year term and the first edition of new director Bert Noglik, from Leipzig. As a critic, writer and journalist, Noglik has played a prominent ...

Album Review

RJ Spangler Trio: This Is What We Do

Read "This Is What We Do" reviewed by Steve Bryant

by Steve Bryant
November 21, 2012

Detroit has always been a home for a multitude of jazz traditions. From big band to swing, from hard bop to the avant-garde, any jazz style can be heard in a given week. The city has especially embraced the organ trio, that staple of neighborhood joints found throughout the urban landscape. Veteran drummer and bandleader RJ Spangler has made that ubiquitous instrument his bread and butter for quite a while. Spangler (who, incidentally, is the nephew of the legendary San ...

Album Review

Danny Green: A Thousand Ways Home

Read "A Thousand Ways Home" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
November 21, 2012

Danny Green delivers his second album as leader with A Thousand Ways Home mirroring the same design he employed for his impressive debut With You In Mind (Alante, 2008). With a strong affinity for Brazilian, classical and jazz music, the San Diego pianist touched upon each of the genres in his first recording and continues his love affair here by incorporating elements from all and, as he states, “blending them together in my own way." A gifted composer, as well ...

Album Review

Devin Gray: Dirigo Rataplan

Read "Dirigo Rataplan" reviewed by Dave Wayne

by Dave Wayne
November 20, 2012

In today's crowded jazz market, it's an achievement to come up with a signature group sound. And yet, this is just one of the wonderful things immediately apparent on Devin Gray's Dirigo Rataplan. An amazing percussionist, Gray's stunningly detailed playing sounds like a cross between Fritz Hauser and Roy Haynes.He flashes some serious compositional chops as well. Dirigo Rataplan is comprised of eight bright, restless originals that are complex and intimate, brainy and engaging, and occasionally a bit ...

Interview

Christoph Stiefel: Isorhythms and Circus Clowns

by Bruce Lindsay
November 20, 2012

It's the end of a lengthy but enjoyable telephone interview with Christoph Stiefel and things are drawing to a close. Then the pianist asks if he can add one more comment: “This is my year. This is a really happening year for me: it's incredible. I've developed my style solo and with my Inner Language Trio for eight, maybe 10 years. I've always had plans to incorporate my ideas into other projects: with a dancer, a bigger band and a ...

Album Review

Jana Herzen: Passion Of A Lonely Heart

Read "Passion Of A Lonely Heart" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
November 20, 2012

Numerous artists, both famous and relatively obscure, have found a recording home on the Motéma Music imprint. Every musician on the roster, from pianist extraordinaire Monty Alexander and veteran bassist Rufus Reid to newcomer-turned-vocal star Gregory Porter, has benefited from head honcho Jana Herzen's attention to detail, tireless promotional efforts and label largesse; every artist, that is, except for Herzen herself. Motéma was initially born as an outlet for Herzen's own music, but she had to hang up her guitar ...

Live Review

OCT-LOFT Jazz Festival: Shenzhen, China, October 8-23, 2012

by Ian Patterson
November 20, 2012

OCT-LOFT Jazz FestivalShenzhen, ChinaOctober 8-23, 2012The OCT-LOFT Jazz Festival, in Shenzhen, Gaungdong Province, is one of the youngest jazz festivals in China, yet in just two editions it has already established itself as one of the best. Financially, it can't compete with the Shanghai Jazz Festival, which for its 2012 edition attracted renowned jazz artists such as bassist Ron Carter, saxophonist Chris Potter and the Yellow Jackets. Nevertheless, the quality of the music at the OLJF is ...

Album Review

Jason Robinson: Tiresian Symmetry

Read "Tiresian Symmetry" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
November 20, 2012

Composer and reed player Jason Robinson tends to weave his musical projects with multiple and overlapping narrative layers, and Tiresian Symmetry is no different. It is more ambitious than his previous large ensemble project, The Two Faces of Janus (Cuneiform, 2010), but still draws inspiration from Greek mythology. This time he was inspired by the mythical story of ancient soothsayer Tiresias, who lived seven lifetimes and, after a fateful series of encounters with copulating snakes, switched genders and then back ...