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

Elise Caron / Edward Perraud: Bitter Sweets

Read "Bitter Sweets" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
October 25, 2012

The musical meeting of French vocalist Elise Caron and fellow countryman, drummer Edward Perraud, is a match made in heaven. Both are energetic free spirits, boundless in their sonic articulations, inventive and adventurous. Caron, with an infinite vocal range, dresses her voice in whatever character that comes to her mind--spoiled diva, hyperactive child, conspiring geisha, tempting goddess and many wild variations in between. Prolific Perraud is a master colorist, as evident from his solo album Préhistoire(s) (Quark, 2010), and uses ...

Album Review

Medeski, Martin & Wood: Free Magic: Live

Read "Free Magic: Live" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
October 25, 2012

Free Magic: Live is the first release of by trio Medeski Martin & Wood from its third decade of existence. Maybe I should repeat that. This disc is by a jazz band that has remained intact for more than 21 years. Like a family, the trio has born musical genres, specifically the infamous jamband phenomena, matured, and branched out from electric to eclectic.Perhaps MMW's greatest contribution to modern jazz was its DIY touring philosophy. Like punk bands of ...

Album Review

Lua Hadar with Twist: Like A Bridge

Read "Like A Bridge" reviewed by Geannine Reid

by Geannine Reid
October 25, 2012

Singer Lua Hadar her band Twist have aptly come up with Like a Bridge, a bold, worldly musical venture with multiple lingual selections and styles. Hadar's grasp of various languages and vernaculars is vast, singing in English, French, Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese, Italian and Malagasy. What is more impressive is her command of each of the seven dialects' dictions and supple inflections within the musical selections, and her phrasing of each melodic line.“Bridge over Troubled Water" begins with Larry ...

Album Review

Ed Cherry: It's All Good

Read "It's All Good" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
October 24, 2012

Guitarist Ed Cherry is best known for his lengthy, decade-plus tenure with trumpet titan Dizzy Gillespie, but his work with another heavyweight of a different ilk--organist Big John Patton--is a more obvious influence on It's All Good. Cherry played the important role of Patton's guitar-playing foil during some of the legend's '90s comeback sessions and he acquired a deep understanding of the organ group dynamic through osmosis during this period. Patton's '90s work dealt with some outlying ...

Catching Up With

Stan Sulzmann: Neon Quartet

by Chris May
October 24, 2012

Stan Sulzmann is among the most singular saxophonists in the UK, with an instantly recognizable, lush but rough-edged sound, and a distinguished track record as a composer and arranger for large and small bands.Born in London in 1948, Sulzmann is approaching veteran status and is a source of inspiration to many of Britain's emerging younger musicians, three of whom-vibraphonist Jim Hart, keyboardist Kit Downes and drummer Tim Giles-play alongside him in Neon Quartet. The group's second album, Subjekt ...

Album Review

Barb Jungr: Stockport to Memphis

Read "Stockport to Memphis" reviewed by John Eyles

by John Eyles
October 24, 2012

Since her breakthrough Chanson: The Space in Between (Linn, 2000), vocalist Barb Jungr has mainly released albums of songs by other people. Several have focused on the work of one performer, notably Every Grain of Sand (Linn, 2002), consisting of Bob Dylan songs, the Elvis Presley tribute Love Me Tender (Linn, 2005) and Just Like a Woman--A Hymn to Nina... Barb Jungr Sings Nina Simone (Linn, 2008). Others, such as The Men I Love: The New American Songbook (Naim, 2010), ...

Live Review

Live From Old York: Krar Collective, Big Boy Bloater, Jason & The Scorchers & Walter Trout

by Martin Longley
October 24, 2012

Krar Collective National Centre For Early Music York, England October 5, 2012 Despite the increasing interest in Ethiopian music,-growing from retro appreciation to present day innovations-opportunities to catch live performances of these sounds are still reasonably scarce. The London-based Krar Collective set out to remedy this situation in October with an extensive UK tour, hotly chasing the release of their album Ethiopia Super Krar (Riverboat, 2012). What's all ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With Antonio Marrone

by AAJ Staff
October 24, 2012

Meet Antonio Marrone: Jazz bass guitarist, composer, educator, Antonio Marrone studied with many artists, including Paul Bollenback, Jeff Richman, John Stowell, Roy Patterson, Jamie Findlay, Royce Campbell, Scott Henderson, David Friesen, Vic Juris, Jimmy Bruno, Bob Ferrazza. In 2012, he released his first album, Solemn, and has written a bass method book, Symmetric Pentatonic Scale, for educational purposes.Instrument(s): Bass guitar.Teachers and/or influences? My biggest influence are: John Coltrane, Jaco Pastorius, ...

Album Review

Julian Vaughn: Breakthough

Read "Breakthough" reviewed by Jeff Winbush

by Jeff Winbush
October 24, 2012

Within the first 30 seconds of the stomping “On Your Feet," the lead-off track on Breakthrough, it's hard not to think, “Darned if this guy doesn't sound just like Wayman Tisdale." Hopefully Julian Vaughn will take the comparison as a compliment because his “lead bass" playing style is eerily reminiscent of Tisdale, who passed away in 2009.The publicity notes for Vaughn's third album say he “doesn't try to be any other bassist than who he is." That's nice ...

Album Review

Claudio Scolari: Synthesis

Read "Synthesis" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
October 24, 2012

Synthesis unites two Italian drummers-the leader, Claudio Scolari, an educator whose background is in classical music, and the younger Daniele Cavalca. Both complement many other instruments, including Scolari's son, trumpeter Simone Scolari, for a musical journey that seeks to find new melodic textures. This project continues the work of the trio that began on Colors of Red Island (Principal, 2010), but with new instruments and sounds. All the compositions were written by the two drummers in a ...