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

Tohpati Bertiga: Riot

by Glenn Astarita
September 26, 2012

Indonesian guitarist Tohpati Bertiga spews lightning strikes across the studio, enamored by his slick-picking breakouts and shrewd use of space. He's a seasoned vet, noted by his prominent session duties and affiliation with the ultra-progressive jazz-rock band simakDialog. This energized trio date broadcasts a spirited kinship that translates to disc in exuberant fashion. A multifaceted mix, the artists gel with a conglomerate of funk, progressive-rock and groove-centric workouts, highlighted by the leader's technical wizardry and impassioned mode of ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With Andrea Brachfeld

by AAJ Staff
September 26, 2012

Meet Andrea Brachfeld: Flutist, composer, arranger, producer, educator, business owner, Andrea Brachfeld, is a graduate of The High School of Music and Art and the Manhattan School of Music. Study with Hubert Laws, Jimmy Heath, George Coleman and Mike Longo helped her develop her own improvisational style.Her breakthrough performance as the flutist for the popular Latin band Charanga '76 catapulted her into Salsa history and fame as the first female flutist to play this music in ...

Future Jazz

Jazz Education In The Century Of Change: Beyond The Music

by David Liebman
September 26, 2012

Question: What values does a jazz education offer beyond the music itself? \Artists have always had a supply and demand problem. Since time immemorial there have been more people with creative ideas than an audience to communicate them to, especially if the art demands more than a cursory attention span. In the current world of jazz education, the situation vis a vis graduating more and more of the most equipped musicians in history (every year more so) in stark contrast ...

Album Review

Sam Rivers / Dave Holland / Barry Altschul: Reunion: Live In New York

Read "Reunion: Live In New York" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
September 25, 2012

There will be no more opportunities to experience saxophonist Sam Rivers, who passed away in 2011, at 89. Then again, you probably hadn't caught him live in decades, since he chose to live in Florida from the early 1990s, although he did release several large ensemble sessions. His 1960s Blue Note Records and 70s Impulse! dates continue to be treasured classics. What ardent fans and collectors look for these days are his trio LPs with bassist Dave Holland and drummer ...

Album Review

Alan Broadbent Trio: Live At Giannelli Square: Vol. 2

Read "Live At Giannelli Square: Vol. 2" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
September 25, 2012

Promise of more to come came with the numerical tag at the end of pianist Alan Broadbent's superb Live At Giannelli Square: Vol. 1 (Chilly Bin, 2010); two years later, he's made good on that promise. Live At Giannelli Square: Vol. 2, recorded as its predecessor was just seeing release, finds Broadbent and his brilliantly understated trio mates back at the same San Fernando Valley venue, making magic in their own sweet way. The class, charm and ...

Album Review

Ferenc Nemeth: Triumph

Read "Triumph" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
September 25, 2012

A couple of spins of Ferenc Nemeth's Triumph reveals an artist with an ear for the big picture. The Hungarian-born drummer has assembled an all-star jazz quartet and slipped in some subtle woodwind section undercurrents on an all-original outing focused on his personal life experiences, with titles like “Purpose," “Joy" and “Sorrow and Wishful Thinking." On smaller but more focused scale, Triumph's approach is similar to pianist Brad Mehldau's Highway Rider (Nonesuch, 2010)--a thematic set shaped like a symphony, with ...

Hardly Strictly Jazz

Crimejazz: The Sound of Noir

by Skip Heller
September 25, 2012

Crimejazz! In 1923, Caroll John Daly wrote Knights of the Open Palm. Published June of that same year in the pulp magazine Black Mask, its protagonist was Race Williams, an acerbic private eye. This was the first hardboiled crime story, and it touched off a world of crime fiction. That same year, trumpeter Louis Armstrong recorded for the first time, and that touched off a world as well. There was no connection to speak of, except that each ...

Interview

Trish Clowes: From Shorter, Lovano and the Sphinx

by Bruce Lindsay
September 25, 2012

There doesn't seem to be an award for the best album title of the year anywhere in the wide world of jazz, but if there was then And In The Night-Time She Is There (Basho Records) would surely be a contender for 2012. The romantic and mysterious title belongs to the second album from saxophonist/composer Trish Clowes. On one hand, it captures the life of the jazz performer, onstage in the hours of darkness, the focus of an audience's attention. ...

Album Review

Ferenc Nemeth: Triumph

by Dan Bilawsky
September 24, 2012

Hungarian-born drummer Ferenc Nemeth is primarily known as the percussive presence behind the music of one-of-a-kind guitarist Lionel Loueke, but roles are reversed on the drummer's triumphant sophomore album. Loueke, saxophonist Joshua Redman and pianist Kenny Werner join forces with, and in support of, Nemeth, forming one of the most potent foursomes on record in 2012. Nemeth's skills as drummer, composer and musical casting agent come together brilliantly on this gripping set of music that takes shape ...

Interview

Ithamara Koorax: Celestial Elegance

by Chris M. Slawecki
September 24, 2012

Singer thamara Koorax recorded her 15th solo CD, Got to Be Real (Irma, 2012), “live in the studio" in Rio de Janeiro, the place of her birth, with her touring band--bassist Jorge Pescara, drummer Haroldo Jobim (a cousin of Antonio Carlos Jobim) and keyboardist Jose Roberto Bertrami, founding member of Brazil's famous fusion export Azymuth, on Rhodes, Yamaha and Hammond organs, clavinet, and synthesizers. Small wonder that on Got to Be Real, Koorax sounds completely at home in different types ...