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

Boi Akih: Circles in a Square Society

Read "Circles in a Square Society" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
October 4, 2012

The soul of Boi Akih--a duo, sextet, and all configurations in between-- is Monica Akihary's soulful voice and guitarist Niels Brouwer's jazz/world-inflected acoustic guitar. Boi Akih has always experimented; Lagu Lagu (Bromo, 2005)--an exquisite meeting between jazz, blues and Indonesian folk--was sung in the almost extinct Haruku language of Akihary's ancestors. With Indian percussionist Sandip Bhattcharya, Boi Akih roars and sighs like a little Shakti. Innovation and adventure defines--and inspires--Boi Akih, but an album of interpretations of the alternative pop/folk ...

Album Review

Jeff Coffin Mu'tet: Into the Air

Read "Into the Air" reviewed by Mark F. Turner

by Mark F. Turner
October 4, 2012

Emmy Award-winning saxophonist Jeff Coffin is a venerable road warrior who's probably more recognized for his work in the high profile bands of banjoist Béla Fleck and singer/songwriter Dave Matthews , playing to stadiums of 30,000 screaming fans. But he's also at home performing in venues that hold 300 appreciative enthusiasts with his Mu'tet--a longtime ensemble that espouses Coffin's philosophy that music must change and mutate in order to evolve. Into the Air continues Coffin's evolution of progressive music . ...

Bailey's Bundles

Fred Hersch and The Village Vanguard

by C. Michael Bailey
October 4, 2012

If pianist Bill Evans came after Bud Powell and Art Tatum, who came after Bill Evans? Fred Hersch did. It was from Hersch that Brad Mehldau and Ethan Iverson came as his students. Evans' language captivated jazz pianism for decades and needed evolutionary stimuli to further develop. That stimuli was provided by Hersch, who has quietly been part of almost 50 recordings performed in an array of formats since 1991 as both a pianist and composer. Were he to do ...

Album Review

Igor Lumpert Trio: Innertextures Live

Read "Innertextures Live" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
October 4, 2012

Slovenia-reared tenor saxophonist Igor Lumpert hurdles and leaps onto the progressive jazz radar with his inaugural solo effort for Portugal's highly respected and progressive record label, Clean Feed Records. This live release, featuring a prominent New York City-based rhythm section, highlights the leader's sophisticated outgrowths via the bustling frameworks, often designed with ascending cadences, brisk bop vamps, subtle explorations and linear progressions. With all-universe drummer Nasheet Waits and bassist Christopher Tordini often providing volcanic support, Lumpert gets a lot of ...

Album Review

Harris Eisenstadt: Canada Day III

Read "Canada Day III" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
October 3, 2012

The third installment in drummer Harris Eisenstadt's Canada Day adventure follows the same winning formula as established by Canada Day (Clean Feed, 2008) and Canada Day II (Songlines, 2011),carving out a distinctive niche on the contemporary jazz borderlands, with a nod to the '60s Blue Note territory of pianist Andrew Hill and reedmen Sam Rivers and Eric Dolphy. Recorded after touring, the band has thoroughly internalized the program, which has a harder edge than its predecessors, achieving a perfect balance ...

Album Review

Franz von Chossy Quintet: When The World Comes Home

Read "When The World Comes Home" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
October 3, 2012

If there is one big story that can genuinely be said to have made the front pages since the dawn of time, it's the story of Adam and Eve's expulsion from Eden. Artists, poets, novelists, dramatists and composers have all sought to put their own perspectives on the tale. The latest in a line that stretches back into antiquity is German pianist/composer Franz von Chossy, who takes the story as the subject for a nine-part suite, When The World Comes ...

Live Review

The Necks: Philadelphia, PA, September 22, 2012

by Kurt Gottschalk
October 3, 2012

The NecksPerforming to Food CourtLive Arts Festival + Philly FringeKimmel Center for the Performing ArtsPhiladelphia, PASeptember 22, 2012The prospect of Australian trio the Necks providing a live soundtrack for a theatrical production would seem to be either a perfect idea or an absolutely flummoxing mistake. The longstanding group is known for long, slowly-developing improvisations, owing a bit to trumpeter Miles Davis, a bit of something else to minimalist composer Steve Reich, ...

Album Review

Tia Fuller: Angelic Warrior

Read "Angelic Warrior" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
October 3, 2012

The title of saxophonist Tia Fuller's third album for the Mack Avenue imprint is a bit of an oxymoron, yet it fits her sound so well. Fuller's saxophone work exhibits a bright tone, but her soloing is often full of dark thoughts and her oft-agreeable and positive musical persona belies the fact that she has razor sharp chops that can dig into the auditory canal in powerful and pleasurable ways. Fuller is constantly at work, but her ...

Interview

Don Byron: Music Wikipedia

by George Colligan
October 3, 2012

[ Editor's Note: The following interview is reprinted from George Colligan's blog, Jazztruth ]I got my Bachelor's in Music Ed and Trumpet from Peabody Conservatory. I got my Master's in Jazz from Queens College. But I did my real graduate work playing with clarinetist Don Byron. My first gigs with Byron were playing Stravinsky and Raymond Scott. We also played Duke Ellington, Earth Wind and Fire, Herb Alpert, Klezmer music, the music of Junior Walker, and we even ...

Live Review

Ultima Festival: Oslo, Norway, September 10-15, 2012

by John Kelman
October 3, 2012

Ultima Festival Oslo, Norway September 15, 2012In a country that has called its “pathology" of over 600 music festivals per year “festival inflation," it's hard for any festival to stand out amongst the others, and yet so many of the events in Norway do. From Kristiansand's Live Remix festival, Punkt, to the superbly programmed Molde Jazz Festival, Norway is a country that, year after year, seems to create more and more great contexts for getting people out ...