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

Jacam Manricks: Cloud Nine

Read "Cloud Nine" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
July 19, 2012

The euphoria-based title of Jacam Manricks' latest album makes perfect sense. After all, who wouldn't be on cloud nine with a band like this?! For his fourth album, the Australian-born, New York-based saxophonist mingles with three modernist elites who help to shape and define his sound. While Manricks' compositional prowess could easily allow him to fully script every little musical nuance conveyed on this album, he wisely allows the distinct personalities on this date to add their own thoughts while ...

Live Review

Freihofer’s Saratoga Jazz Festival: Saratoga Springs, NY, June 30-July 1, 2012

by R.J. DeLuke
July 19, 2012

Freihofer's Saratoga Jazz FestivalSaratoga Performing Arts CenterSaratoga Springs, NYJune 30-July 1, 2012Fantastic music was plentiful at the 35th Freihofer's Saratoga Jazz Festival. It usually is. But 2012 seemed to have the right vibe throughout. Part of it was the great weather on both days. Primarily an outdoor festival (though there is some covered seating), the people are always upbeat and cool at what is perhaps jazz's best picnic/party every year.But something ...

Album Review

Chris Cortez: Aunt Nasty

Read "Aunt Nasty" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
July 19, 2012

Guitarist and producer Chris Cortez's Aunt Nasty brims with a joie de vivre that permeates the entire album becoming its pervasive theme. The disc opens with a Latinized “Caravan" highlighting Cortez's flamenco guitar stylings that cascade over James Metcalfe's Afro Cuban percussion. Jimi Hendrix's “Fire" closes the album and it transforms into a gutbucket anthem with passion, shouting vocals, horns, blistering electric guitar and Glen Ackerman's pulsating bass. Even the two original songs, that ...

Live Review

Dominick Farinacci Sextet: Half Moon Bay, CA, April 1, 2012

by Bill Leikam
July 19, 2012

Dominick FarinacciDouglas Beach HouseHalf Moon Bay, CaliforniaApril 1, 2012Trumpeter Dominick Farinacci brought his New York-based sextet to the Douglas Beach House to give the nearly packed house a special treat. His band was Kris Bowers on piano, Yasushi Nakamura on bass, Greg Wyser-Pratte on drums, Keita Ogawa on percussion and Christian Tamburr on vibraphone. The afternoon, and on into the evening, consisted of pieces from his albums Lovers, Tales and Dances (Koch, 2009), Dawn of ...

Album Review

Simetrio: Simetrio

Read "Simetrio" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
July 19, 2012

The debut release from Chilean piano trio Simetrío has its own fresh aesthetic. This trio does not want to be cornered as another Latin jazz outfit but seeks to create its own repertoire free of any genre boundaries. The trio have been working since 2009 but bassist Marcelo Córdova and pianist Lautaro Quevedo, the composers of the trio original material, began working together in the nineties as session musicians in the United Arab Emirates. The trio refer ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With Roman Stolyar

by AAJ Staff
July 19, 2012

Meet Roman Stolyar: Born in Novosibirsk, Siberia, Russia. Raised in a family of engineers. Started studying piano at the age of five but rejected to continue it at the age of twelve. Went back to music being a student of Novosibirsk Technical University; ultimately, decided to quit nuclear physics. Graduated from Novosibirsk College of Music as jazz pianist; then, graduated from Novosibirsk State Conservatory as a composer. Combines improvised performance with composing chamber and orchestral music. Teaches at ...

Album Review

Henry Threadgill: Tomorrow Sunny / The Revelry, Spp

Read "Tomorrow Sunny / The Revelry, Spp" reviewed by Troy Collins

by Troy Collins
July 18, 2012

Now into its twelfth consecutive year, Zooid can finally lay claim as Henry Threadgill's longest running ensemble, having superseded the tenures of the venerable composer's most celebrated lineups, including Air, Sextett and Very Very Circus. Tomorrow Sunny / The Revelry, Spp is the idiosyncratic chamber group's fourth release for Pi Recordings, which was founded in 2001 to simultaneously release a pair of albums by the esteemed AACM multi-instrumentalist: Everybody's Mouth's a Book, by the electric Make a Move quintet; and ...

Album Review

Peter Appleyard: Sophisticated Ladies

Read "Sophisticated Ladies" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
July 18, 2012

Peter Appleyard seems to have a way with the ladies. The octogenarian vibraphonist brings his virile mallet work to bear while escorting a dozen lovely songbirds through some smartly arranged standards on this, his second release the span of a few months. Appleyard started off the year by looking toward the past, issuing a previously unreleased all-star jam session from 1974, but his gaze is firmly on the present throughout Sophisticated Ladies. He hobnobs with some of the finest vocalists ...

Extended Analysis

Blue J: Featuring Bree Bruns

by Josep Pedro
July 18, 2012

Blue JBlue J featuring Bree BrunsHalversonics Recording2012Formed in 2007 as a power trio with guitar, bass and drums, Blue J has evolved into a dynamic combo that smoothly brings in piano, Hammond, tenor saxophone and trumpet, as well as Bree Bruns' convincingly versatile vocals. With a colorful cover that anticipates the musical blend, this debut album presents an appealing combination of vocal and instrumental tunes that flows through different styles ranging from ...

Album Review

Positive Catastrophe: Dibrujo, Dibrujo, Dibrujo...

Read "Dibrujo, Dibrujo, Dibrujo..." reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
July 18, 2012

Creative juices must have been bouncing off the studio walls during the recording process of this band's sophomore album. The ten-piece unit includes several progressive-jazz notables, such as cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum and saxophonists Matt Bauder and Michael Attias. The perspicacious group-centric focus enlivens a wild Latin Jazz jamboree, where rules are most certainly meant to be broken. This variegated set tenders an off-centered mix of convention with semi-structured chaos and a profound sense of the dynamic, ...