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

Musik For Seks Elektriske Guitarer: Musik For Seks Elektriske Guitarer

Read "Musik For Seks Elektriske Guitarer" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
September 22, 2012

Music For Six Electric Guitars was created by Danish guitarist Anders Lauge Meldgaard--member of the music and arts collective yoyooyoy--who wanted to expose the mysteries of the electric guitar. Meldgaard began to focus on the idea of a six-electric guitar choir after traveling through Mali and Burkina Faso, encountering the local music--its simplicity, discipline and tightly knit collaboration between the musicians. This project transforms Meldgaard's travel experiences into minimal compositions, based on extended repetition and microscopic--yet danceable--grooves, ...

Album Review

Jeff Hamilton with the DePaul University Jazz Ensemble: Time Passes On

Read "Time Passes On" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
September 22, 2012

One of the premier college jazz bands in the country joins forces with one of the most significant big band drummers alive today for Time Passes On, as the DePaul University Jazz Ensemble invites Grammy Award-winning drummer Jeff Hamilton for a live recording at Chicago's legendary Jazz Showcase. Under the leadership of Bob Lark, a renowned trumpeter and Director of Jazz Studies at DePaul University, DePaul's jazz ensemble has often performed with jazz icons contributing to their curriculum. Hamilton is ...

Extended Analysis

Grateful Dead: Dave's Picks Volume 3

by Doug Collette
September 22, 2012

Grateful DeadGrateful Dead: Dave's Picks Volume 3 Grateful Dead/Rhino2012Previous entries in Grateful Dead archive series have documented the quietly courageous, not to mention authoritative, fashion, by which keyboardist Keith Godchaux made a place of himself in the iconic band's lineup late in 1971, having been enlisted when charter member Ron “Pigpen" McKernan became too ill to tour regularly. But neitherDick's Picks #35 Grateful Dead/Rhino, 2005) nor Road Trips Volume 1 ...

Live Review

Jack DeJohnette 70th Birthday Party: San Francisco, CA, September 5, 2012

by Bill Leikam
September 22, 2012

Jack DeJohnette, Chick Corea, and Stanley ClarkeYoshi's Jazz ClubSan Francisco, CASeptember 5, 2012It was a sold out house of 365 people on the opening night for drummer Jack DeJohnette's 70th birthday celebration concert at Yoshi's Jazz Club in San Francisco, California. DeJohnette brought two friends--pianist Chick Corea and bassist Stanley Clarke--to add to the festivities. Shortly before they made their appearance, Clarke's bass was brought out onstage. People hushed and nearby someone said, “It's starting." ...

Album Review

Roni Ben-Hur & Santi Debriano Featuring Duduka Da Fonseca: Our Thing

Read "Our Thing" reviewed by Ernest Barteldes

by Ernest Barteldes
September 22, 2012

Recorded in early 2011, Our Thing marks the first studio collaboration of guitarist Roni Ben-Hur and bassist Santi Debriano. They have worked together in a live setting on numerous occasions and are joined, in this endeavor, by drummer/percussionist Duduka Da Fonseca, who brings an extra flavor to the music.The CD opens with Thelonious Monk's “Green Chimneys," a complex track that allows the musicians to fully stretch their chops. Da Fonseca and Debriano begin with a samba-like groove, and ...

Album Review

Billie Davies: All About Love

Read "All About Love" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
September 21, 2012

Idiosyncratic drummer Billie Davies is mostly an autodidact whose natural talent, relentless, explorative spirit and multifaceted experiences have led to an innovative approach to jazz. Her bold individualism is showcased on All About Love, a collaborative effort that has her democratically guiding an unusual, bottom- heavy ensemble with lyrical trombonist Tom Bone Ralls and versatile bassist Oliver Steinberg. Davies creates complex motives and blurs the distinction between melody and rhythm on such pieces as John Coltrane's “Naima" ...

Live Review

Natalie Cressman and Secret Garden: New York, September 6, 2012

by Daniel Lehner
September 21, 2012

Natalie Cressman and Secret GardenDROMNew York, NYSeptember 6th, 2012The trombone is not an instrument that tolerates mediocrity. Because of the instrument's many idiosyncrasies, there's no real chance for the slide instrumentalist to get caught in the purgatory of empty virtuosity often exhibited by up-and-coming guitarists and saxophonists. The practitioners who persevere to make their own sound, like the 20-year-old trombonist/vocalist Natalie Cressman, tend to go right from being decent musicians to being excellent ones. Cressman, ...

Multiple Reviews

Duke Ellington: My People - The Complete Show and The Treasury Shows, Volume 16

by Chris Mosey
September 21, 2012

Duke Ellington stood aloof from the Civil Rights movement. As a self proclaimed patriot he was extremely uneasy about the street protests and civil disobedience sweeping America the 1960s. He didn't participate in Martin Luther King's 1963 Great March on Washington. He would deal with the issue his way, he said, and went to Chicago to put the finishing touches to a show, My People, which would celebrate 100 years of black emancipation. Expectations ...

Album Review

Paulette Dozier: In Walked You

Read "In Walked You" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
September 21, 2012

A successful voiceover performer, model, and professional actress, with a commanding presence onstage, Paulette Dozier is also an exciting vocalist with a sultry appeal. In Walked You, her third full-length solo disc, reveals the tender side of the singer in a wonderfully charming album that combines standards from Great American Songbook with pop classic and original tunes from the vocalist and longtime collaborator and friend, pianist Mike Levine.Dozier's smooth and sensual delivery seems to be a defining characteristic, ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With Taeko Kunishima

by AAJ Staff
September 21, 2012

Meet Taeko Kunishima: Taeko Kunishima started playing piano at seven. Particularly taken by Mozart and Beethoven, she later studied classical piano performance at university. On hearing Miles Davis for the first time, her direction changed, leading her to explore the music of many different jazz artists, and to develop her own improvisatory technique whilst studying jazz harmony.Since moving to England, she has continued to evolve and develop her startling, angular contemporary jazz approach, echoing Thelonious Monk ...