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

Dave Douglas Quintet with Special Guest Aoife O' Donovan: Be Still

Read "Be Still" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
September 17, 2012

Eminent trumpeter/composer Dave Douglas models change through innovation. Among the more important progressive jazz musicians of the past three decades, he's evolved into a motivator and guiding light for scores of seasoned jazz artisans and progressive music upstarts. This 2012 campaign bridges Americana with equal parts jazz, folk, and hymnal pieces with a translucent melding of disparate genres, often intimating a custom-built design. The music resonates across rolling hills, seamless shifts in strategy and memorably melodic storylines, graced by vocalist ...

Interview

Art Lande: Revealing the Infinite

by Florence Wetzel
September 17, 2012

Born in New York City on February 5, 1947, pianist and drummer Art Lande has been a font of creativity throughout his long and multifaceted career. Lande grew up in Long Island and started studying piano at age four; he attended Williams College, then moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1969. During the early 1970s, Lande played electric piano in a jazz quintet with bassist Steve Swallow, and from 1973 to 1986 he recorded for ECM with his ...

Album Review

Davide Mantovani: Choices

Read "Choices" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
September 17, 2012

Strip out every other musician from the tunes on Choices and Davide Mantovani's bass lines are impressively attention-grabbing on their own. Put the other musicians back in and Choices becomes a richly-hued collection that takes inspiration from almost every corner of the globe.Mantovani moved to London from his native Italy in 1991 and has an impressive resumé including work with saxophonist Andy Sheppard, Natacha Atlas and guitarist Antonio Forcione. He's also a talented composer, writing or co-writing all ...

Record Label Profile

ACT: 20 Years of Magical Music

by Jakob Baekgaard
September 17, 2012

Nowadays, creating a record label is closer to the norm than the exception. The real sign of success in a fleeting music business, where the sale of records constantly declines, is staying power. This year, 2012, the German record label ACT Music is able to celebrate its 20th anniversary. Not a mean feat for a company which, in spite of its success, has never had sales as a goal in itself. Instead, the label has been driven by a tireless ...

Album Review

Motian Sickness: The Music of Paul Motian: For the Love of Sarah

Read "The Music of Paul Motian: For the Love of Sarah" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
September 17, 2012

Washington, DC drummer Jeff Cosgrove's exploration of jazz drumming legend Paul Motian's music has been a labor of love. Motian, who passed away in November 2011, sent Cosgrove 29 tunes over the three years this project took to realize. Using traditional bluegrass musicians as a kind of laboratory, Cosgrove chose compositions that best fit the uncommon instrumentation, though there's nothing in the way of Appalachian folksiness about the music. Instead, these avant-jazz/modern classical interpretations lay bare the originality and stark ...

Album Review

Sean Noonan: A Gambler's Hand

Read "A Gambler's Hand" reviewed by Florence Wetzel

by Florence Wetzel
September 16, 2012

Drummer Sean Noonan's A Gambler's Hand is an innovative musical suite that explores the world of a compulsive Irish gambler who finds himself trapped inside a wall. The project was conceived during a period when Noonan lived in a basement apartment and had a mysterious next-door neighbor; a man he never saw but could often hear screaming and pounding on the walls. Noonan thought perhaps his music and drumming would comfort the man, so he tried to communicate with him ...

Live From Philadelphia

August 2012: Brian Betz Quartet, Featuring Denis DiBlasio

by RJ Johnson
September 16, 2012

Brian Betz QuartetChris' Jazz CaféPhiladelphia, PAAugust 31, 2012Guitarist Brian Betz led his quartet through a set of standards at Chris' Jazz Café in Philadelphia. In a set comprised entirely of standards, the band used its divergent musical personalities to uncover new ground within a familiar framework.The set began with a fiery rundown of “Secret Love," a piece favored by jazz pioneers such as saxophonist Dexter Gordon. Baritone saxophonist Denis DiBlasio ...

Album Review

Dominic J Marshall Trio: Icaros

by Bruce Lindsay
September 16, 2012

Just who is Dominic J Marshall? A little bit of George Shearing, a spot of Esbjorn Svensson, a modicum of Robert Glasper and a smidgeon of Neil Cowley are all present on Icaros, the second trio album from the young pianist. Lest this sounds like Marshall is a man who has yet to find his own voice, it's worth stating at the outset that such a combination has blended together to create an individual sound: Marshall is Marshall.Marshall ...

Album Review

Herbie Hancock: Inventions and Dimensions

Read "Inventions and Dimensions" reviewed by Greg Simmons

by Greg Simmons
September 16, 2012

Recorded in August of 1963, pianist Herbie Hancock's Inventions and Dimensions puts pulsing, grooving rhythms at the center of the music, with Latin percussive elements and--in the best jazz tradition of the times--lots of blues. This isn't Hancock's most well-known date from his tenure at Blue Note, but it's an important recording for both its structural sophistication and the notably high quality of the piano improvisations, no small feat for so superlative an artist. The title of the ...

Album Review

Francisco Mora Catlett: Francisco Mora Catlett: Afro Horn MX

Read "Francisco Mora Catlett: Afro Horn MX" reviewed by Steve Bryant

by Steve Bryant
September 16, 2012

When Afro-Mexican Drummer Francisco Mora Catlett first came to this country in the1970s, he dreamed of playing drums for the Sun Ra Arkestra. Not only did Mora achieve his dream, he also forged a lifelong relationship with drum legend Max Roach, which resulted in his performing in Roach's seminal drum ensemble, M'Boom. As a composer and bandleader in Detroit, Mora focused on creating Music of “The Afro-Americas," a vision which encompassed fusing the music of Cuba, Brazil with American modern ...