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.

Interview

Mats Gustafsson: Share The Moment

by John Sharpe
October 29, 2012

Reedman Mats Gustafsson resides at the center of a hurricane of activity: relentlessly touring, curating festivals and begetting record labels. He boasts one of most distinctive sounds in free jazz, combining the extremes of scalp prickling howls with adventurous exploration of minimalist tone and timbre. Although he's come a long way since his early days in a punk rock band in Sweden's Lapland, that anarchic energy is never far away, revealed in collaborations with luminaries from both the Old and ...

Album Review

Tianna Hall and the Mexico City Jazz Trio: Two for the Road

Read "Two for the Road" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
October 28, 2012

Tianna Hall's fifth recording, Two For The Road, and her first since Never Let Me Go (Blue Bamboo, 2011), continues to document the singer's evolution within the mainstream of jazz vocals. Thoroughly trained in the vocal arts at the University of Houston, Hall has progressively refined her smart and sexy delivery with each recording. Hall has achieved a vocal facility that is the equivalent of Lauren Bacall telling Humphrey Bogart how to whistle in the 1944 film To Have and ...

Book Review

Marc Myers: Why Jazz Happened

by Ian Patterson
October 28, 2012

Why Jazz HappenedMarc Myers266 pagesISBN 9780520268784University of California Press2012Jazz's timeline and the iconic figures of each of its successive stylistic movements are well known to aficionados. Less well understood, however, are the underlying conditions that created these changes. Advances in recording technologies, social trends, radio, the incursion of pop and rock, and socio-political factors all played major roles in shaping the evolution of jazz, says music journalist and ...

Album Review

Elina Duni Quartet: Matane Malit

Read "Matane Malit" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
October 28, 2012

There was a time when jazz musicians were commonly recruited to play on pop records, because their purview was so broad that they could mold themselves into any context. Elina Duni's music may not be jazz by conventional definition, but its improvisational spirit clearly occupies the broader “jazz state of mind" to which the Albanian-born/raised and now Swiss-resident singer refers to in the press sheet to Matanë Malit, her third release as a leader, and first for ECM.Her ...

Jazz Poetry

Birds with Long Red Tails

by Adriana Carcu
October 28, 2012

[Written during guitarist Stian Westerhus' solo show, June 4, 2012 at Green Hours Jazz Fest, Bucharest.]I see things, scary things,wars and ghosts,planes and meadows.I hear my pulse and the bloodrushing through my veins,I see an old clock on a marble mantelpieceand I see the time falling apartin seconds I have already forgotten.The city traffic stops at the crossroadsto listen to ...

Album Review

Matthew Silberman: Questionable Creatures

Read "Questionable Creatures" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
October 28, 2012

The concept of straight-line status quo and normalcy powers plenty of artists along their journey of creation, but saxophonist/composer Matthew Silberman prefers the not-so-normal. The Salvador Dali-esque artwork that accompanies his album, and the population of questionable musical creatures that inhabit his world, are easy-to-read signs that point to a surrealist streak in Silberman's work. But, he isn't an abstract thinker; his music is rooted in rational ideals that just happen to fall outside the boundaries of everyday jazz.

Live Review

Lewis Nash All-Star Quintet: Phoenix, AZ, October 3, 2012

by Patricia Myers
October 28, 2012

Lewis Nash All-Star QuintetThe NashPhoenix, AZOctober 3, 2012Drummer Lewis Nash led a quintet of New York-based musicians in two concerts to mark the grand opening of The Nash, a new jazz educational and performance center in Phoenix, Arizona, operated by Jazz in Arizona Inc. and named for the city's native son, who has become internationally renowned.Nash's all-star combo featured Cedar Walton on piano, Houston Person on tenor sax, Russell Malone on guitar and ...

Album Review

The Opposite: In Action

Read "In Action" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
October 28, 2012

The Opposite investigates improvisation and interplay through a collective group sound and open approach, assimilating elements of rock and Indian, African and Cuban musical traditions. In Sction documents this Swedish sextet live on a Swedish club tour in 2011. The live setting enable The Opposite to emphasize its formative influences, including early fusion bands like Weather Report, trumpeter Miles Davis' '70s groups--even keyboardist Sun Ra's eccentric Arkestras, through expanded improvisations. The main composers are guitarist Samuel Hällkvist ...

Album Review

Alex Cuba: Ruido en El Sistema

Read "Ruido en El Sistema" reviewed by Ernest Barteldes

by Ernest Barteldes
October 28, 2012

This Cuban-born singer/songwriter and accomplished guitarist has been slowly establishing himself as a crossover Latin alternative artist able to tackle various genres without compromising his signature sound. Cuba borrows from his native rumba and adapts it into a more contemporary format, evoking funk, neo-soul and blues with a rich melodic structure.On his fourth release (which translates as “Static in the System"), he borrows even more from the sounds of his native island, adding horns and percussion to some ...

Album Review

Trevor Rabin: Jacaranda

Read "Jacaranda" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
October 27, 2012

It's been 23 years since Can't Look Away (Elektra Records, 1989), guitarist Trevor Rabin's previous solo album of original material, and 18 years since his departure from Yes. Rabin's relatively low profile since reflects his immersion in composing almost 40 film soundtracks. Jacaranda is a dazzling offering that showcases Rabin's virtuosity in numerous styles, drawing from bluegrass, metal, classical and the progressive rock/pop which effectively launched Yes' multi-platinum comeback in '83. There's much to marvel at and it begs the ...