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.

Extended Analysis

Buddy Rich & His Buddies: Playtime

by Joel Klauber
November 9, 2012

Buddy Rich & His BuddiesPlaytimeFresh Sound2012 More than 25 years after his death, the controversy about master drummer Buddy Rich rages on. Was he nothing more than an incredible drum technician of little sensitivity or flexibility? Or was he, as many history books contend, truly “the world's greatest drummer"?While it is ultimately up to the listener to decide, the record, literally and figuratively, speaks for itself. Though known as the ...

Album Review

Matteo Sabattini: Metamorpho

Read "Metamorpho" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
November 9, 2012

Saxophonist Matteo Sabattini's Dawning (Fresh Sound New Talent, 2011) delivered a potent shot of modernism in direct fashion, and though this followup occasionally finds him treading on similar ground, he does so in more expansive, low key and exploratory fashion. Sabattini has a tendency and willingness to look toward the horizon, work in the shadows and dial down the intensity here, which sets his music on a fascinating and winding course; in other words, the journey is far more interesting ...

Extended Analysis

Louis Armstrong & The All Stars: Satchmo At Symphony Hall - The Complete Performances

by Skip Heller
November 9, 2012

Louis Armstrong & The All StarsSatchmo At Symphony Hall: 65th Anniversary The Complete PerformancesVerve 2012 Writing about trumpeter and singer Louis Armstrong is difficult. In the most literal sense, he is the watershed of jazz. He was neither the first acknowledged genius of the music (soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet was) nor its inventor, but in his wake, jazz was made in his image. The best of it still is, even as the ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With Jaiman Crunk

by AAJ Staff
November 9, 2012

Meet Jaiman Crunk: Jaiman was born into a musical family in the San Francisco Bay Area. His great grandparents were vaudeville performers-one grandfather was a singer and the other one was a guitarist. He was given his first guitar at the age of five. He remembers his grandfather playing and teaching him many other songs of his era as a child.He also remembers his grandfather taking him to hear the fabulous Duke Ellington Orchestra, (with Johnny ...

Album Review

Seval: 2

by Eyal Hareuveni
November 9, 2012

The second release of the Swedish-American quintet Seval is as surprising as its debut, I Know You (482 Music, 2011). The eight songs, all penned by American cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, are still framed within a lyrical, acoustic- chamber setting. But now the quintet sounds as a working band comprised of equal partners, benefiting from few years of mutual experiences and many gigs around Europe, not as a one-off project led by the dominant Holm. The shared experiences ...

Album Review

Curved Air: Live Atmosphere

Read "Live Atmosphere" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
November 9, 2012

Upon its inception in 1970, Curved Air became a prominent exponent of British progressive rock, fronted by vocalist Sonja Kristina. Superb musicianship was a forté, spawning notables such as keyboardist Francis Monkman, keyboardist/violinist Eddie Jobson and violinist Darryl Way. Fast-forward several decades and Kristina and original band drummer Florian Pilkington-Miksa reorganize the unit with a new faces, yet sustain the core group sound and tradition via this impacting live CD/DVD release, culled from its 2010/2011 Live Atmosphere tour.

Album Review

Bobby Bradford / Frode Gjerstad / Ingebrigt Haker Flaten / Paal Nilssen-Love: Kampen

by John Sharpe
November 8, 2012

If Kampen sounds like old friends settling down to chew the fat, then that's because that's exactly what's happening. Norwegian reedman Frode Gjerstad has waxed ten discs in the company of veteran American cornetist Bobby Bradford since they first met on tour with drummer John Stevens in England in 1986. However, this 46-minute live LP stands as one of their best since Through The Woods (CIMP, 1997). All four cuts are spontaneous compositions, the product of collective listening and playing ...

Live Review

Beishan International Jazz Festival, China, 19-20 October 2012

by Ian Patterson
November 8, 2012

Beishan International Jazz FestivalBeishan TheaterNanping Town, Zhuhai, China10-20 October, 2012Jazz festivals occupy some fairly far-flung, diverse, and oftentimes dramatic settings; from the Polar North to the volcanic mountains of East Java, from medieval European towns to the great urban metropolises of North America, from tropical Thai islands to luxury cruise ships, from Borneo to Central America and all places in between. But a jazz festival in a 200-year-old Chinese theatre and temple complex dating from ...

Album Review

Lars Jansson Trio: Koan

by James Pearse
November 8, 2012

The second Lars Jansson Trio recording of 2012, after the outing with Ensemble MidtVest on Worship Of Self (Prophone, 2012), is a deep and reflective one. Koan not only remembers the victims of the 2011 tsunami, but also pays homage to the people of Japan and their unique culture.Lars Jansson Trio is something of a permanent fixture on the contemporary Swedish jazz scene. Past members have included bassist Anders Jormin (later replaced by Lars Danielsson and Christian Spering), ...

Extended Analysis

Mel Powell: Four Classic Albums Plus

by David Rickert
November 8, 2012

Mel PowellFour Classic Albums PlusAvid Records2012 Mel Powell replaced Teddy Wilson in the piano chair in the Benny Goodman band, took over the Glenn Miller Orchestra after the leader's demise, and followed both gigs with a career in the studios as a pianist and arranger. Then in the 1950s, he made the bold move to give up his career to study composition with Paul Hindemith and emerged five years later with a ...