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.

Interview

Colin Towns: Rule Book? What Rule Book?

by Ian Patterson
July 23, 2012

Since the 1970s, internationally renowned English composer/arranger/pianist/keyboard player Colin Towns has enjoyed an extremely varied musical existence. In that time, he has composed and arranged music in just about every setting imaginable, from heavy rock groups to jazz ensembles both small and large, and from theater to film and ballet. Little wonder, then, that his first small-ensemble outing in years, Stand Well Back (Provocateur Records, 2011), from his latest group, Blue Touch Paper, shows such breadth of musical influences. Starting ...

Album Review

Traeben: Push

by James Pearse
July 22, 2012

The sound of Netherlands-based Traeben is one of unity. While guitarist Jens Larsen and saxophonist Søren Ballegaard unmistakably form the frontline, the chemistry and interplay between these four young musicians is key to understanding Traeben.The quartet's first album, Nordic Project (O.A.P., 2008), was recorded after the four members got together at Hague Conservatory. Nordic Project provided a platform for exploring the ground where Scandinavian melody and jazz rhythms meet.Traeben's second offering is Push. The album opens ...

Live Review

DC Jazz Festival 2012: In Memoriam Chuck Brown

by Franz A. Matzner
July 22, 2012

DC Jazz Festival, Washington, DC June 1-10, 2012With the summer heat descending on the nation's capital, the city transforms, its southern personality asserting itself. Ties loosen, linen suits make their first appearance, people mosey instead of dash, and the beats of jazz reverberate from venue after venue as the city welcomes the annual DC Jazz Festival with open arms.Celebrating the vibrant past, present, and future of DC's music scene, the 2012 festival once again put forth ...

Album Review

Josh Berman & His Gang: There Now

Read "There Now" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
July 22, 2012

Josh Berman is a gambler. There Now initially gives the impression that the cornetist's reversion to the music of Eddie Condon and Pee Wee Russell is only a bluff. His gang of young Chicago improvisers weaves in and out of the 1920s, inserting free jazz passages and improvised duos that could not be anticipated in the early part of 20th century.On There Now, it is as if he raises the musical ante with, “I call your Lincoln City, ...

Live Review

François Houle 5+1: Montreal, Canada, July 3, 2012

by Sara Villa
July 22, 2012

François Houle 5+1Casa del PopoloMontréal, QuébecJuly 3, 2012Wild strawberries. This was the taste of clarinetist François Houle's 5+1 performance at Casa del Popolo, presenting his group's just-released Genera (Songlines, 2012). Why wild strawberries? Because the entire two sets had both the fresh and savory, yet also spicy and untamed flavor of the Québecois berries which ripen in this summer season, and the sophisticated, refined and sensitive texture of a music that recalled the emotional complexity ...

Album Review

Elifantree: Time Out

Read "Time Out" reviewed by Anthony Shaw

by Anthony Shaw
July 22, 2012

From the opening whoop from Elifantree's singer and principle songwriter, Anni Elif Egecioglu,Time Out presents itself as something mysterious. As the name of the trio elliptically suggests, Egecioglu is the principle focus, with saxophonist Pauli Lyytinen and drummer Tatu Rönkkö making up the “tree." In comparison with its well-received debut, Love and Trees (Eclipse, 2010), Time Out is something of a return to the fold of convention, but very much Elifantree's own type of experimental, pop-influenced mainstream. ...

Reassessing

Lee Konitz and Martial Solal: Star Eyes 1983

by C. Michael Bailey
July 22, 2012

Lee Konitz and Martial SolalStar Eyes 1983Hatology2009 Even in his eighties, pianist Martial Solal has proven to be the Higgs' Boson of jazz. He readily demonstrates the substantial mass he brings to music most recently on his uniformly excellent Live at the Village Vanguard: I Can't Give You Anything But Love (Cam Jazz, 2008). This recording is sub-atomic, elemental jazz ,or, in the literary vernacular, post-modern, deconstructive jazz. Solal dismantled the Great ...

Album Review

Ivo Perelman / Matthew Shipp / Gerald Cleaver: The Foreign Legion

Read "The Foreign Legion" reviewed by Troy Collins

by Troy Collins
July 21, 2012

Inspired by the intuitive chemistry of his stunning new quartet with pianist Matthew Shipp, bassist Joe Morris and drummer Gerald Cleaver, Brazilian tenor saxophonist Ivo Perelman is in the midst of a prolific mid-career renaissance. After a successful tour supporting The Hour of the Star, the group's remarkable 2011 debut for Leo Records, Perelman decided to explore his relationship with each member of the unit in more intimate settings.The Foreign Legion is the second chapter in the series, ...

Album Review

Steve Smith and Vital Information: Live! One Great Night

Read "Live! One Great Night" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
July 21, 2012

Drummer Steve Smith means different things to different people. Arena rockers will always think of Smith as the rhythmic force that drove Journey's hits, while straight ahead jazz fans appreciate him as a keeper-of-the-flame, honoring the great drummers of the past through his work with his own Jazz Legacy group. Others rightly view him as a clinician and educator par excellence, sharing his extensive knowledge in person or through his educational DVDs, and yet another segment of people see him ...

Multiple Reviews

Jazz and Poetry: Impacted Gems

by Gordon Marshall
July 21, 2012

The poetry of the Beats, the New York school and the Black Mountain school, as well as the jazz poets, all share a particularly heavy rhythmic feel and an earthy, gritty imagery that creates a kind of syncopation within itself. The scenes dance and bump up against each other, cutting and rubbing up against the beat. Three of these poets, Kenneth Patchen (1911-1992), Paul Haines (1933-2003), and Robert Creeley (1926-2005), receive jazz treatments on a recent release, a re-release, and ...