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.

Live Review

Angel City Jazz Festival: Hollywood, CA, Oct. 5, 2012

by Chuck Koton
November 11, 2012

Angel City Jazz FestivalJohn Anson Ford AmphitheaterHollywood, CAOctober 7, 2012A bright, golden sun, cobalt sky and cool breeze welcomed Southland jazz lovers to the friendly confines of the John Anson Ford Amphitheater for the fifth annual Angel City Jazz Festival. Eagerly anticipated by serious and passionate jazz aficionados, the festival's founder, Rocco Somazzi and co-producers, the new LA jazz team of Ruth Price and Jeff Gauthier, presented four stellar bands organized around the theme of ...

New York Beat

John Coltrane's Music Gets New Life at Lincoln Center

by Nick Catalano
November 11, 2012

In jazz history, the often ignored contributions of the great arranger/orchestrators can never be overestimated. It was Jelly Roll Morton's orchestral writing that enabled “Black Bottom Stomp" to soar. In trumpeter Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain (Columbia, 1960), it was Gil Evans' pen that created the magic. At Town Hall, it was Hall Overton's arrangements that brought the audience into the soul of pianist Thelonious Monk. As the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra once again took up ...

Album Review

Svenska Kaputt: Svenska Kaputt

Read "Svenska Kaputt" reviewed by James Pearse

by James Pearse
November 10, 2012

Svenska Kaputt is a hybrid band comprising acclaimed musicians from Stockholm, Sweden's busy jazz and rock scenes. The debut recording, Svenska Kaputt, is a heady brew of jazz exploration (influenced by artists active in the late 1960s) with that of psychedelic and progressive rock (bands from the late 1960s and early 1970s).While saxophonist Jonas Kullhammar and bassist Torbjörn Zetterberg may be familiar to some All About Jazz readers, guitarist Reine Fiske (of Dungen and, more recently, a guest ...

Multiple Reviews

The Helping Hands Of Oz Noy

by Dan Bilawsky
November 10, 2012

Jazz Heaven rolled out its initial wave of instructional DVDs in 2011, entering the market with a slew of top-quality offerings that showcase modern-day monsters doling out their hard-earned wisdom for eager students willing to listen and learn. Each disc in that batch, which includes outstanding entries from drummer Ralph Peterson, saxophonist Jerry Bergonzi and several other notable figures, delivers something special and different, with each instructor putting their art and soul into their work. These musicians ...

Album Review

Heather Cairncross: At Last

Read "At Last" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
November 10, 2012

At Last is named for singer Heather Cairncross' cover version of Harry Warren and Matt Gordon's classic love song, but it may equally well serve as an exclamation of relief. This is an album that Cairncross has been thinking about making for some years. In 2011, everything came together and Cairncross was finally able to record her debut solo album, a collection of her favorite love songs. It has been worth the wait.Cairncross is a vastly experienced singer-a ...

Extended Analysis

Jimi Hendrix Experience: Live at Berkeley

by Doug Collette
November 10, 2012

Jimi Hendrix ExperienceLive at BerkeleySony-Legacy Music2012Released with virtually no fanfare, the compact disc of The Jimi Hendrix Experience Live at Berkley is nonetheless one of the most noteworthy of the seemingly innumerable archive titles that have come out since the rock icon's death. Though the graphics and design are virtually identical to a previously issued package, the sound, though apparently not remastered, is less trebly and more full, all the ...

Album Review

9Volt: Open Circuit

Read "Open Circuit" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
November 10, 2012

The career of Israeli guitarist Eyal Maoz, now based in New York, is a schizophrenic one. He releases albums on the Tzadik label with his Radical Jewish quartet Edom (the self-titled, 2005 debut and 2009'sa Hope and Destruction) and takes part in saxophonist John Zorn's ongoing Masada songbook, including 2012's Abraxas: The Book Of Angels, Volume 19, but surrenders to Zorn's aesthetics and is eclipsed by the guitar school of Zorn's musical partner, Marc Ribot. More interestingly, Maoz is a ...

Live Review

George Coleman Organ Trio: New York, NY, October 26, 2012

by Ernest Barteldes
November 10, 2012

The George Coleman Organ QuintetThe Jazz StandardNew York, NYOctober 26, 2012Nearing the end of a weeklong residency at New York's Jazz Standard, George Coleman and his Organ Quintet kicked off their sold-out first set on Friday night, October 26, with a New Orleans-like shuffle led by guitarist Russell Malone, allowing the saxophonist's supporting quartet the chance to warm up and stretch.As the band began a second number reminiscent of Carlos Santana's “Evil Ways," ...

Album Review

Leo Volskiy: Good News Blues

Read "Good News Blues" reviewed by Chris Mosey

by Chris Mosey
November 10, 2012

Saint Petersburg is Russia's jazz capital, home to Igor Butman-Bill Clinton's favorite living saxophonist, and chosen for his musical debut by none other than Vladimir “Fats" Putin. Pianist Leo Volskiy also hails from the city, but no longer lives there. After studying at the Mussorgsky College of Music and listening to local musicians at such clubs as the Jazz Philharmonic Hall and the Red Fox Jazz Cafe, Volskiy left in 2004 to live and work in Hamburg. From here he ...

Album Review

Jimmy Herring: Subject to Change without Notice

Read "Subject to Change without Notice" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
November 9, 2012

It's been four years since Lifeboat (Abstract Logix, 2008), guitarist Jimmy Herring's outstanding debut as leader. Herring hasn't been idle though, recording and touring with Widespread Panic. And given that it took several decades to make the first CD, four years isn't so long to wait for another-especially one this good. The emphasis is emphatically on melody, with tunes inspired, according to the guitarist, by the human voice. Herring's six-stringed voice is as sweet as a silver-tongued lark, but there's ...