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

Paul Lytton / Nate Wooley / Ikue Mori / Ken Vandermark: The Nows

Read "The Nows" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
November 2, 2012

Consider the great duos of the cinema, Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson and so on-what each successful duo has in common, is a chemistry, an attraction or spark between them. Such is the case with the musical duo of percussionist Paul Lytton and trumpeter Nate Wooley.What each of those film stars also has, is individual talent capable of starring in a lead role sans partner. Likewise, Lytton ...

Album Review

Shu Nakamura: A Day of Dreams

Read "A Day of Dreams" reviewed by Mark Redlefsen

by Mark Redlefsen
November 2, 2012

Hailing from Nagoya, Japan, Brooklyn, New York-based Shu Nakamura plays guitars, keyboards and percussion on A Day of Dreams. Shu also displays his ability to compose, arrange and sing. Through learning, working, and teaching a variety of different kinds of music from his youth in Japan, Shu is more of a world musician than one existing in any single genre. A Day of Dreams features an eclectic, aurally expansive mix of music ranging from the celestial ambience of Sigur Rós ...

Extended Analysis

John Dankworth: What The Dickens! / Off Duty!

by Duncan Heining
November 1, 2012

John DankworthWhat The Dickens! / Off Duty!Dutton Vocalion2012 (1963/1969)This reissue contains two very different prospects. Off Duty!is really Dankworth-lite. What The Dickens!, by contrast, is the real thing and one of four fine suites the orchestra recorded in the '60s-that's counting wife Cleo Laine's Shakespeare and All That Jazz(Fontana, 1964) here as well. Dankworth's work often invites admiration in critics first and only pleasure and deeper satisfactions later. Perhaps to some, he ...

Mr. P.C.'s Guide to Jazz Etiquette and Bandstand Decorum

November 2012

by Mr. P.C.
November 1, 2012

Dear Mr. P.C.:My mom won't let me play jazz. She says all jazz musicians are seedy. Is it true? class="f-right">- Gottagroove

Dear Gottagroove:If by “seedy" your mother is referring to drug and alcohol abuse, she's being ridiculous! Let's take a look:Louis Armstrong was famously a pothead. Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Chet Baker were all heroin addicts. Stan Getz and Zoot Sims were serious alcoholics. My own piano teacher, a ...

Album Review

Donny McCaslin: Casting For Gravity

Read "Casting For Gravity" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
November 1, 2012

If saxophonist Donny McCaslin stuck a toe into the ocean of electric jazz with his previous album Perpetual Motion (Greenleaf, 2010), then with Casting For Gravity he dives headfirst into the sea. But don't worry, with his musical dexterity and adeptness on horn, he is in no danger of sinking. In fact, he takes to these waters like a thirsty horse.The saxophonist of choice for the band leaders including trumpeter Dave Douglas, singer Kate McGarry, and composers/arrangers Ryan ...

Album Review

Monday Michiru: Soulception

Read "Soulception" reviewed by Mark F. Turner

by Mark F. Turner
November 1, 2012

Matters of the spirit are examined in Soulception, the compelling release from Monday Michiru--a multitalented Japanese American singer, composer, and actress, who has released over a dozen successful albums in Asia, Europe, Australia, and South America. An avid producer influenced by diverse sources, she's got that certain crossover appeal that is fluent in urban R&B, contemporary jazz, rock and infectious Brazilian rhythms, resulting in music that's not easily categorized, yet is thoroughly engaging. With the expert assistance ...

Album Review

Akua Allrich: Live! Uniquely Standard

Read " Live! Uniquely Standard" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
November 1, 2012

The jazz vocals standard repertoire has a quantum mechanics of its own. Artists seem attracted to certain dense loci within the repertoire and orbit there. Then there are some artists that do this while accumulating other pieces outside of this loci to make their own. This is what Washington, DC native Akua Allrich does and displays on Live!: Uniquely Standard. Allrich's set list, from two performances in DC between February and April 2012, reveals a special reverence for incomparable singers ...

Album Review

Devin Gray: Dirigo Rataplan

Read "Dirigo Rataplan" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
November 1, 2012

Devin Gray is only 28 years old but, in his case, age does not mean much. Already, in his debut as a leader, this Brooklyn-based drummer proves himself a mature and resourceful composer and promising band leader, one who can lead any outfit with the energy and colors produced from his drum set, as the Latin-French title of this album suggests. And he knows to how to enlist perfect collaborators to realize his musical vision--masterful, experienced leaders in their own ...

Album Review

Bobo Stenson Trio: Indicum

by John Kelman
November 1, 2012

With Cantando (ECM, 2008), Swedish pianist Bobo Stenson finally documented the significant renewal of his quarter-century trio with bassist Anders Jormin. The pair had been playing with Jon Fält since the departure of drummer Jon Christensen in the early 2000s. But if Fält was already touring with Stenson when Goodbye (ECM, 2005) was released, its curious--and less than completely successful--decision to record with the late Paul Motian meant that only those fortunate enough to have heard the trio live knew ...

Extended Analysis

Harold McNair: Harold McNair / Flute & Nut

by Duncan Heining
November 1, 2012

Harold McNair Harold McNair / Flute & Nut Dutton Vocalion 2012 (1968/1969)The story of Jamaican saxophonist/flautist Harold McNair is one of the great “what-might've-beens" of British jazz. He was, by all accounts, a charming, well-mannered guy with a beautiful sound on tenor, alto and, in particular, on flute, and the music just flowed through him. McNair did a lot of session work, toured with Donovan-that's him on the troubadour's In Concert (Pye) album from ...