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.

Take Five With...

Take Five With Dan Meinhardt

by AAJ Staff
August 13, 2012

Meet Dan Meinhardt: Dan Meinhardt is a young saxophonist quickly making a name for himself. He has made appearances with some of the Northwest's finest musicians and has been a first-call player for touring groups and pits.In June 2012, Dan released his first album, Gone West. It contains eight original compositions and features some of the best musicians from Chicago, San Francisco and Oregon.Dan attended Lawrence University and earned a Bachelor's degree in Saxophone ...

Album Review

Mats Gustafsson/ John Russell/ Raymond Strid: Birds

by Eyal Hareuveni
August 13, 2012

Recorded live at the 2011 Hagen Festen in Sweden, this meeting of experienced free improvisers--Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafsson and drummer Raymond Strid, and British guitarist John Russell-- is quite surprising. No muscular, fiery playing of reckless abandon, as is normally expected from the powerful Gustafsson in regular outfits such as The Thing, Fire! or Swedish Radio Jazz Group; instead, Birds is spare, thoughtful, and under commanding control. Maybe it was the naturally relaxed village environment of the ...

Album Review

Tohpati Bertiga: Riot

by Mark F. Turner
August 12, 2012

In contrast to certain widely recognized guitar “gods," there are many great players who are less recognized. This may be the case for guitarist Tohpati Ario Hutomo, simply known as Tohpati. He's an extraordinary player who has performed with exciting Indonesian band simakDialog. He also released the noteworthy Save The Planet (MoonJune, 2010), with his Ethnomission ensemble, whose language mixed ethnic Indonesian music and western influences into a broader reflection of jazz fusion. Whereas Ethnomission's style featured ...

Album Review

Natsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii: Muku

by Dan McClenaghan
August 12, 2012

Trumpeter Natsuki Tamura and pianist Satoko Fujii--partners in marriage and music--have an extensive discography together, spanning a broad array of ensemble configurations, from Fujii's calamitous big bands to Tamura's European folk song-flavored Gato Libre discs, and from Fujii's propulsive, window-rattling art rock quartets to Tamura's blistering electric quartet of Hada Hada (Libra Records, 2003). But it is in their simple duo of piano and trumpet, where they have recently created some of their most compelling music.Muko is the ...

Live Review

Caramoor Festival 2012

by Richard Conde
August 12, 2012

Caramoor Jazz Festival 2012Katonah, New YorkJuly 28-29 and August 4, 2012Celebrating its 20th anniversary, this year's Caramoor Jazz festival in Katonah, New York, produced by Jim Luce, was a three-day celebration not to be missed. Stormy and thunderous days set the stage for the first two days of the festival. This year's lineup hosted drummer Roy Haynes, guitarist Pat Metheny, pianist Kenny Barron, singer Dee Dee Bridgewater and many others, and concluded on August 4 with banjoist ...

Album Review

Greg Lewis / Organ Monk: Uwo in the Black

Read "Uwo in the Black" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
August 12, 2012

It takes abundant courage and uncommon musical vision to radically reinterpret the works of such an idiosyncratic genius as pianist Thelonious Monk. Fortunately, organist Greg Lewis possesses both as is evident on the second volume of his Organ Monk trilogy, Uwo In The Black. As he did on Organ Monk (Self Produced, 2010), Lewis adds a few of his own tunes to the Monk repertoire, seamlessly blending into the overall thematic structure. The organist's “In the Black--My ...

Scumbles

Deep Down and Dirty with Sorrento Jazz

by Sammy Stein
August 12, 2012

Italy is steeped in culture. It has been the seat of awesome and terrible power and fallen into deep poverty; it is the country which saw the expansion of arts, opera and composition. Theories of the origins of the Universe have been developed by its scholars and its architecture shows the influence of many different hands, from Moorish hints in the south to the vast modern piazzas and linear streets of the northern cities. It is a country of contrasts ...

Profile

Matthew Shipp: Shipp Shape

by Chris Rich
August 12, 2012

Pianist Matthew Shipp is very keenly attuned to the details and nuances of what has to be the most forlorn and anemic environment imaginable for anything a sensible person would call business. Think of it as the sort of business ecosystem that resembles the least habitable places on earth, say a fumarole at the bottom of an ocean.While showbiz jazz at least has a small business infrastructure commensurate with a mid-level touring rock band, free jazz has no ...

Album Review

Kyle Bruckmann: On Procedural Grounds

Read "On Procedural Grounds" reviewed by Troy Collins

by Troy Collins
August 11, 2012

One of the most common methodologies embraced by the current generation of creative improvising musicians is polystylism--a seamlessly ingrained aesthetic sensibility that transcends the stylized post-modern dilettantism of earlier generations. Bay Area-based oboist Kyle Bruckmann has demonstrated the depth and breadth of this all-inclusive approach in myriad ways, from his art-damaged punk band Lozenge and genre-defying chamber group Wrack to electro-acoustic solo recitals. Accompanied by a handful of colleagues from San Francisco, as well as former associates from his Chicago ...

New York Beat

Stephanie Nakasian: The Renaissance Woman of Jazz

by Nick Catalano
August 11, 2012

For decades, Stephanie Nakasian has been swinging through an immensely challenging jazz repertoire with astonishing aplomb. Her audacious ventures into vocal territory that others have carefully avoided have resulted in recordings and performances of unrivaled excellence. From pioneering vocal efforts with singer Jon Hendricks and Annie Ross to the rigorous charts of The Danish Radio Big Band and the improvisational intricacies of saxophonists Phil Woods and Scott Hamilton, Nakasian has constantly associated herself with jazz subtleties in uncharted territory.