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

Kjetil Husebø: Contradictions

Read "Contradictions" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
September 10, 2012

Known previously as the mastermind behind the Optical Substance jazz-electronica outfits, Contradictions is Norwegian pianist Kjetil Husebø's third album and first solo recording. Here, Husebø distills his piano playing and use of electronics into a personal music universe. In his most lyrical moments, references to fellow countrymen, pianists Bugge Wesseltoft and Jon Balke, and Polish pianist Marcin Wasilewski can be found in Husebø's musical language, but the success of this album is based on the cumulative effect of his disarming, ...

On and Off the Grid

What Is Jazz Now?

by Dom Minasi
September 10, 2012

Back in February, All About Jazz Managing Editor John Kelman asked me to develop a column based on points I made in the comment section of the article BAM or JAZZ: Why It Matters. I still feel the same way, but trumpeter Nicholas Payton's statement that jazz died in 1959 made me think, and I've been thinking about it for seven months. Why 1959? I was 15 years old and going to Birdland on a regular basis. I saw everyone ...

Album Review

Chick Corea & Gary Burton: Chick Corea & Gary Burton: Hot House

Read "Chick Corea & Gary Burton: Hot House" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
September 9, 2012

The creative connection upon which vibraphonist Gary Burton ruminates to such length, in his essay for Hot House, is evident from the first instrumental exchanges with longtime collaborator, pianist Chick Corea. Burton and Corea complete each others' thoughts throughout “Can't We Be Friends," sounding as effortless and natural--arguably more so--as the seamless improvisations that earmarked their very first recorded project together forty years ago, Crystal Silence (ECM, 1972).The symbiosis recurs throughout the ten tracks here, which span standards ...

Big Band Caravan

Kris Berg & the Metroplexity Big Band / Michael Treni Big Band / Millennium Jazz Orchestra

by Jack Bowers
September 9, 2012

Kris Berg & the Metroplexity Big BandThis Time / Last YearMAMA Records2012 Until now, bassist / educator Kris Berg, who oversees the Jazz Studies program at Collin College near Dallas, TX, has been widely known and respected as someone who writes and arranges songs for others to play. From now on, he'll doubtless be known and respected as leader of his own world-class ensemble, the Metroplexity Big Band, whose debut recording, This ...

New York Beat

Trio Da Paz at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola

by Nick Catalano
September 9, 2012

Very often writers ignore popular jazz artists and groups on the theory that they have sufficient exposure and don't need further praise. As a result, some of the subtler, finer points of the aesthetics go unnoticed. In addition, popularity and high success can be a curse, bestowing certain problems lesser performers don't have. In recent months, Trio Da Paz, performing the music of Antonio Carlos Jobim, has had an unprecedented run of sold out performances at Dizzy's. ...

Album Review

The Cloudmakers Trio With Ralph Alessi: Live At The Pizza Express

Read "Live At The Pizza Express" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
September 9, 2012

The Cloudmakers Trio brings together three of the most inventive players on the UK scene: vibraphonist and band originator Jim Hart, drummer Dave Smith and expat American bassist Michael Janisch. On its debut, Live At The Pizza Express (released on Janisch's Whirlwind Recordings), the band is joined by New York trumpeter Ralph Alessi. It's a beautifully recorded set, although the live atmosphere of the Soho club is generally absent, with just a couple of bursts of applause to indicate the ...

Album Review

Mads Tolling Quartet: Celebrating Jean-Luc Ponty

Read "Celebrating Jean-Luc Ponty" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
September 9, 2012

Mads Tolling spent nine prominent years with the Turtle Island Quartet; here, with his quartet, the Grammy Award-winning violinist hails Jean Luc-Ponty at Yoshi's jazz venue in Oakland, CA. Tolling contributes two original compositions to complement six Ponty-penned works, amid other pieces culled from the legendary French violinist's expansive discography. It's a bit sleeker, when directly contrasting Ponty's epic jazz-fusion Enigmatic Ocean (Atlantic, 1977). But Tolling turns up the heat via his intensely soaring unison choruses with ...

Catching Up With

Barrett Martin: Musical Artifacts and Seattle Punk

by Jack Gold-Molina
September 8, 2012

Barrett Martin's primary instrument is the drums, but he has also been known to play upright bass, as well as many different types of ethnic percussion instruments that he has studied formally, often traveling to their countries of origin to seek out Griots and teachers. His musical credits include Seattle bands Skin Yard and Screaming Trees, supergroups Tuatara and Mad Season, and the PBS short documentary about his drumming and Zen painting, Zenga And The Art Of Percussion, which won ...

Album Review

Nils Wogram Septet: Complete Soul

Read "Complete Soul" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
September 8, 2012

Trombonist and composer Nils Wogram is one of Germany's most imaginative and inventive musicians, a player with over 20 albums to his credit as leader or co-leader with a formidable ability to play across a broad spectrum of styles, from small group improvisation to big bands. He works regularly with his Septet, his Nostalgia Trio, and in duos with trombonist Connie Bauer and pianist Simon Nabatov--past collaborators include trumpeter Cuong Vu. Complete Soul is the Nils Wogram Septet's debut recording, ...

Album Review

Riedel / Svensson / Skokic: Perfectly Still

Read "Perfectly Still" reviewed by James Pearse

by James Pearse
September 8, 2012

Swedish Grammy-nominated vocalist Sarah Riedel has quickly established herself as an accomplished performer of lyrical jazz with indie-pop sensibilities. Her jazz roots come from her father, bassist and composer Georg Riedel, who composed for television and accompanied pianist Jan Johansson on Jazz på svenska (Megafon, 1964)--a collection of jazz arrangements of Swedish folk songs. Like her father, Riedel also adopts songs from other genres, deconstructs them and finally transforms them into bona fide torch songs.Perfectly Still (Footprint, 2012) ...