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

Fred Hersch Trio: Alive at the Vanguard

Read "Alive at the Vanguard" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
September 6, 2012

Pianist Fred Hersch has found a place to come alive: The Village Vanguard, where so many great live albums have been recorded. Saxophonists John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins, pianist Bill Evans and drummer Paul Motian also found the New York City venue a prime spot for live recordings. Hersch revisits the venue with Alive the the Vanguard, following Live at the Village Vanguard (Palmetto Records, 2003), an excellent trio affair with bassist Drew Gress and drummer Nasheet Waits, and Alone ...

Extended Analysis

Jan Bang / Erik Honore: Uncommon Deities

by John Kelman
September 6, 2012

Jan Bang / Erik Honoré Uncommon Deities SamadhiSound 2012 As the 2012 Punkt Festival debuts its eighth annual edition at its home base of Kristiansand, Norway--but this time, in the brand new, state of the art Kilden Performing Arts Centre--it has gradually evolved into something more than just a festival. The brainchild of co-artistic directors Jan Bang and Erik Honoré has even managed to transcend its founding premise of live remixes--taking performances in the main ...

Album Review

Mark Masters Ensemble: Ellington Saxophone Encounters

Read "Ellington Saxophone Encounters" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
September 6, 2012

Longtime big band arranger/bandleader Mark Masters happens to be President of the Pasadena, CA-based non-profit American Jazz Institute (AJI), while baritone saxophonist great Gary Smulyan sits on its Advisory Board. Together, the two have often joined forces on musical projects intended to foster and promote jazz; Ellington Saxophone Encounters is another one of their AJI collaborations, this time with the nine-piece Mark Masters Ensemble supplying the musical muscle.Don't be misled by the title of the album, this is ...

Album Review

Louis Durra: The Best of Both Possible Worlds

Read "The Best of Both Possible Worlds" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
September 6, 2012

Versatile pianist Louis Durra is no stranger to genre bending experiments. His resume as a recording artist includes sessions with church choirs and musical casts, as well as Christmas discs and those with his more mainstream jazz trio. On The Best of Both Possible Worlds, he interprets eight popular tunes ranging from light rock to reggae, in addition to two originals that seamlessly blend in with the album's overall concept. Drummer Jerry Kalaf showcases his classical influences ...

Live Review

Cheryl Bentyne & City of Hope All-Star Jazz Benefit: Hollywood, CA, August 11, 2012

by Carl L. Hager
September 5, 2012

Cheryl Bentyne & City of Hope All-Star Jazz BenefitCatalina Jazz ClubHollywood, CAAugust 11, 2012After kicking off Saturday night's festivities with a hard-charging version of Cole Porter's “It's Alright With Me," a beaming Cheryl Bentyne welcomed Catalina Jazz Club's capacity audience by effusing over the wide array of talent that had assembled for the occasion. Event musical director Ted Howe was poised at the grand piano and ready to swing, with performers like singers Lorraine Feather, ...

Album Review

Marco Benevento: TigerFace

by Chris May
September 5, 2012

When a renegade instrumentalist such as keyboardist/sonic adventurer Marco Benevento records an album with a relatively big budget, and with the shock-horror addition of a vocalist, it can be bad news for the core audience. Bye bye bohemia, hello mainstream. TigerFace was tracked, not at Benevento's usual Brooklyn location, but at Los Angeles' EastWest studio, where the Beach Boys recorded its 1966 sonic masterpiece Pet Sounds, a studio which does not come cheap; and it features, on two tracks, Kalmia ...

Live Review

Vince Giordano: New York, NY, August 14, 2012

by Andrew J. Sammut
September 5, 2012

Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks Sofia's Restaurant New York, NY August 14, 2012 Vince Giordano receives well-deserved attention for the twenties and thirties repertoire he's brought to the radio on A Prairie Home Companion, films such as 2008's Revolutionary Road and 2004's The The Aviator, and most recently the HBO series Boardwalk Empire, for which Giordano and his band the Nighthawks received a Grammy. Coverage also mentions Giordano's home, full of records, ...

Album Review

Bugge & Henning: Last Spring

Read "Last Spring" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
September 5, 2012

With such a focus on jazz, it's easy to forget that, at the end of the day, all music is--or, at least, comes from-- improvised music. Whether drawn from the ether and performed in real time or written down on manuscript, it's still drawn from the ether. Classical music has its own history in improvisation, ranging from Beethoven to Mendelssohn. Folk music, too, has its history of extemporization. So when ACT's label head, Siggi Loch, suggested that Norwegian violinist/violist Henning ...

Album Review

Jasmine Lovell-Smith: Fortune Songs

Read "Fortune Songs" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
September 5, 2012

A debut CD has to be good to get noticed--really good. Also, behind the pretty, well-designed cover art, an aspiring jazz person with a low profile has to have some nerve to put forty-five minutes to an hour of brand new music out there. At the very least, a new-to-the-scene artist better be able to run with the pack of more established players, or be quickly forgotten.Soprano saxophonist Jasmine Lovell-Smith, who moved to New York from New Zealand ...

Album Review

Stian Westerhus: The Matriarch And The Wrong Kind Of Flowers

Read "The Matriarch And The Wrong Kind Of Flowers" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
September 4, 2012

Beyond his reputation as Norway's “hardest working guitarist"--an éclat supported by, amongst many others, ongoing membership in Nils Petter Molvær's trio and assuming the producer's role for the trumpeter's Baboon Moon (Sula, 2011); collaborating with the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra for Ripples, raptures and disbelief (a Molde Jazz Festival commission screaming for release); and, with Didymoi Dreams (Rune Grammofon, 2012), righting a wrong with the first recorded document of his duo with another fearless innovator, singer Sidsel Endresen--Stian Westerhus has managed ...