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

All Included: Reincarnation of a Free Bird

Read "Reincarnation of a Free Bird" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
November 17, 2012

The title of All Included's debut refers to one of immortal compositions of bassist Charles Mingus, “Reincarnation of a Lovebird." Following Mingus' legacy, this Swedish-Norwegian quintet's music is based on the American, politically committed, fiery free jazz that originated in the sixties; still, it is unmistakably contemporary. All compositions are well-crafted, wisely arranged and performed passionately. The strength of this quintet is based on prior collaborations of its musicians. Prolific Swedish saxophonist Martin Küchen towers as the ...

Album Review

Acid Mothers Temple and Melting Paraiso UFO: Son of a Bitches Brew

Read "Son of a Bitches Brew" reviewed by Dave Wayne

by Dave Wayne
November 17, 2012

One would have to be living in a cave not to know that trumpeter Miles Davis' electric music has become a bit of a cause célèbre amongst forward-thinking jazz artists. Love it or hate it, Davis' radical experiments with funk, acid rock, and Stockhausen-inspired sound painting has quickly gone from much-maligned to iconic over the past decade, with tribute recordings pouring in from all quarters. If parody is a valid form of tribute, Japan's avant-garde space-rock Acid Mothers Temple honors ...

Album Review

The Whammies: Play the Music of Steve Lacy

Read "Play the Music of Steve Lacy" reviewed by Troy Collins

by Troy Collins
November 16, 2012

The rich legacy left by Steve Lacy has been the source of numerous tributes since his untimely passing in 2004. Among the most devoted interpreters are Ideal Bread--a New York-based quartet led by baritone saxophonist Josh Sinton, who worked with the iconic soprano saxophonist, and The Rent--a Canadian ensemble founded by trombonist Scott Thompson, who took lessons with Lacy's old foil, trombonist Roswell Rudd. Add to this shortlist of personally connected Lacy repertory bands, The Whammies (named after an old ...

Big Band Report

Did Stan Kenton Swing? You Bet Your Walkin' Shoes He Did...

by Jack Bowers
November 16, 2012

I've been listening to a lot of Stan Kenton's music recently while coming to grips with the age-old question, did the Kenton orchestra really swing? The answer, to me, is a no-brainer: Yes, Kenton swung. Liberally and often. [Note: This of course depends on how “swinging" is defined; opinions may vary]. In his own way--although he'd have been loath to admit it--Kenton's series of orchestras swung as hard as anyone, even Basie, Herman or Rich. For assurance, one need look ...

Album Review

Maroney / Ilgenfritz / Niescier / Drury: Mind Games

Read "Mind Games" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
November 16, 2012

This quartet blurs the borders between orthodox and unorthodox forms of playing, between cerebral, intriguing music making and playful, harmonic articulations, and between sonic explorations of timbral variations, colors and shades, and organic, fluid textures. All these contradictions are blended into a mysterious kaleidoscope of nuanced details, a musical universe of a unique quartet with a highly distinctive voice and identity. The four musicians are known for their left-off-center attitudes and expanded musical lexicons. Pianist Denman Maroney ...

Extended Analysis

Nicole Mitchell: Arc Of O

by John Sharpe
November 16, 2012

Nicole MitchellArc Of ORogue Art2012Subtitled “for improvisers, chamber orchestra and electronics," flutist Nicole Mitchell's genre-busting Arc Of O resonates a little with the almost forgotten Third Stream. Coined by composer/educator Gunther Schuller as a term for a synthesis of classical music and jazz at the end of the 1950s, the label has been subsumed within the jazz world's ever increasing eclecticism which sees all cultures as fair game. Some of the first ...

Album Review

Vivian Buczek: Live At The Palladium

Read "Live At The Palladium" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
November 16, 2012

Swedish vocalist Vivian Buczek has been on the Scandinavian jazz scene for over a decade, releasing her first album, Can't We Be Friends (Skandia Music) in 2003. Live At The Palladium is her fourth solo album, though she's also recorded with the Artistry Jazz Group. The Palladium in question isn't the world- renowned London theatre, it's the one in Buczek's home town of Malmö, but this concert sparkles with such energy and vivacity that it could readily have graced the ...

Album Review

Angelica Sanchez Quintet: Wires & Moss

Read "Wires & Moss" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
November 16, 2012

Perceptive composer and cunning improviser, educator/keyboardist Angelica Sanchez has risen to the A-list of modern stylists and innovators. As history dictates, she largely summons the crème-de-la-crème of like-minded artists for her solo endeavors. Indeed, Sanchez's burgeoning discography for Clean-Feed records bears witness to her resourceful persona. On Wires & Moss, she traverses a route initiated upon evocative moods and jarring tone poems. “Soaring Piasa" is an 11-minute opus designed with guitarist Marc Ducret's angular and creaky extended notes ...

Album Review

Deborah Shulman / Larry Zalkind: Lost In The Stars: The Music Of Bernstein, Weill & Sondheim

Read "Lost In The Stars: The Music Of Bernstein, Weill & Sondheim" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
November 15, 2012

The respective output from compositional icons Leonard Bernstein, Kurt Weill and, to a lesser extent, Stephen Sondheim has frequently been putty in jazz musicians' and arrangers' hands, proving that malleability is a sine qua non for long-range success in writing; genius-level composing skills, of course, also tend to help. While the actual act of interpreting the work of these three men is hardly original at this point, the fashion by which vocalist Deborah Shulman, trombonist Larry Zalkind ...

On and Off the Grid

Goodbye Borah

by Dom Minasi
November 15, 2012

Up until eleven years ago I had never heard of Borah Bergman. Priding myself on being aware of many of the avant players and being a devout fan of pianist Cecil Taylor, I should have known about Borah, but I didn't.Many of my early public performing years were devoted to playing straight-ahead and then to an inside-out approach, and when I thought it was time, I went headfirst into the avant-garde. Although many of my musical friends knew ...