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

Samo Salamon: Eleven Stories

Read "Eleven Stories" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
October 31, 2012

Slovenian guitarist Samo Šalamon has earned many accolades throughout his decade-long recording career; listening to Eleven Stories it is quite clear why. A fearless explorer of sonic landscapes, Šalamon and his trio of the past six years presents an exhilarating program of eleven elegiac tracks, each one a gem in its own right. The somewhat whimsical “Cold Feet" is an intelligent, almost surreal, conversation among the three musicians, during which Šalamon's cool and edgy guitar lines contrast ...

Catching Up With

Fred Tackett: Coming Home

by C. Michael Bailey
October 31, 2012

In his book The Dog Of The South (The Overlook Press, 1979), Arkansas author Charles Portis, through his protagonist Ray Midge notes that:“A lot of people leave Arkansas and most of them come back sooner or later. They can't quite achieve escape velocity."This has been true, if only temporarily, for the many famous musicians from Arkansas: Louis Jordan, Johnny Cash, Glen Campbell, Levon Helm and Bob Dorough, all of whom escaped Hillbilly gravity to make their ...

Album Review

No Reduce: Jaywalkin'

Read "Jaywalkin'" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
October 31, 2012

When a trio of young Swiss jazz musicians visited New York in 2011, they weren't content just to follow the tourist trail or soak up the atmosphere in the Big Apple clubs. Before they left the city, saxophonist Christoph Irniger, guitarist Dave Gisler, and bassist Raffaele Bossard joined forces with drummer Nasheet Waits to record an album. The result is the debut of No Reduce, with its atmospheric set of original tunes, Jaywalkin'.The tunes were all inspired by ...

Extended Analysis

Oregon: Family Tree

by John Kelman
October 31, 2012

OregonFamily TreeCam Jazz2012Some things change; some things stay the same. As Oregon celebrates its 42nd year of existence with the release of Family Tree, it also reaches another milestone: its longest period of stability. Of course, the group already trumps any other contemporary jazz group, with three of its four members--guitarist/pianist Ralph Towner, woodwind/reed multi-instrumentalist Paul McCandless and bassist Glen Moore--dating back to Oregon's official start in 1970. Oregon would, in fact, ...

Album Review

Makaya McCraven: Split Decision

Read "Split Decision" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
October 31, 2012

Drummer Makaya McCraven supposedly “thinks about rhythm last" when composing, yet his music is all about rhythmic perspicacity. McCraven, who was born in Paris, spent his formative years in Massachusetts and eventually uprooted himself to move to Chicago, uses rhythm as a thickening agent, call to arms, catalyst and continual game changer, throughout this engaging debut. McCraven put together a piano trio for his first leader date, but he doesn't make the same old piano trio music. ...

Album Review

Darren Jay and the Delta Souls: Drink My Wine

Read "Drink My Wine" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
October 31, 2012

On any given weekend there are young musicians who are out to make their bones performing at local venues that will give them an opportunity to play their music. The genre of choice for the drinking crowd is usually blues-drenched covers, so that the audience can relate to and enjoy the show. Out of this scenario occasionally surfaces a talented individual who rises above the ruckus and is taken seriously. Guitarist Darren Jay is such a musician and, with his ...

Album Review

Kalle Kalima & K-18: Out To Lynch

Read "Out To Lynch" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
October 31, 2012

Finnish guitarist Kalle Kalima uses the cinema as a platform for riding a wave of abstract impressionism. As this album title intimates, the premise is based on eccentric film director David Lynch's body of work. The band pulls quite a few punches on a per-track basis, spanning cantankerous minimalism, free jazz, and levitating sub-themes amid some abrupt crash-and-burn breakouts. The quartet seldom allows anyone to attain a comfort zone, but this isn't to say that the program is unfocused or ...

Album Review

Van Morrison: Born to Sing - No Plan B

Read "Born to Sing - No Plan B" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
October 30, 2012

When Ray Charles died in 2004, he left only one artist (two if you count Willie Nelson) with a comparable musical vision and depth and breadth of creative reach: Van Morrison. For 40 years, Morrison has surveyed the spectrum of American music, just as Charles had. Morrison passed blues, soul, R&B, rock, country, jazz and folk of the New World through an emerald prism that imparted each with his personal Irish quintessence. On Born to Sing--No Plan B, Morrison's 39th ...

Album Review

Randy Klein's Two Duos: What's Next?

Read "What's Next?" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
October 30, 2012

Randy Klein launched his Two Duos series with Sunday Morning (Jazzheads, 2010), pairing the pianist up with trombonist Chris Washburne and tenor saxophonist Oleg Kireyev, but he leaves the horns behind for this follow-up. This time around, Klein turns to two different, but equally skilled string men. Guitarist Alex Skolnick, reborn as a jazz guitarist but best-known as a heavy metal icon thanks to his work with Testament, and bassist Boris Kozlov, who anchors the Mingus Big Band with his ...

Album Review

FAT: FAT

by John Kelman
October 30, 2012

Around for more than a decade, Alex Machacek's first record as a leader (renamed, with characteristically bone-dry wit, as Mc Hacek) was Featuring Ourselves (Next Generation, 1999), but it was when the Austrian-born/California-resident guitarist moved to Abstract Logix that more significant attention came, first with his stunning, year-besting [sic] (2006). Three more records followed, culminating in another year-topper, 24 Tales (2010), an equally staggering set where the guitarist repeated [sic]'s concept of “recomposing"-writing music around, in the case of [sic], ...