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 Steve Montgomery

by AAJ Staff
July 18, 2012

Meet Steve Montgomery: In about 1980, I started to try to think about how to expand what the guitar could do harmonically and with its range (the bar has been set pretty high by all those great piano players out there). The two trend setters at the time (if you include jazz and rock) were Eddie Van Halen and Stanley Jordan, both of whom fretted the guitar with both hands at the same time. I ...

Interview

Ron Miles: Jazz Gentleman, Part 3

by Florence Wetzel
July 18, 2012

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3[Editor's Note: In Florence Wetzel's in-depth interview with Ron Miles, the Colorado-based trumpeter covers the rest of his releases, including an exclusive first look at his forthcoming album, Quiver (Enja, 2012), due out later this year.]Laughing Barrel AAJ: So next you have another Sterling Circle release, Laughing Barrel (2003), which has seven tunes, all your original compositions. Rudy Royston is on drums, and you have two other great musicians: ...

Album Review

Joe Alterman: Give Me The Simple Life

Read "Give Me The Simple Life" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
July 17, 2012

Bruce Lindsey, in his review of Joe Alterman's Give Me The Simple Life, notes that the young pianist has..."the feel of a musician who's been immersed in his chosen music for decades." Citing Errol Garner, Oscar Peterson and Red Garland as influences, Altman betrays influences that further give bona fides to his experience beyond youth. Chief among these influences is Garland, who held the piano chair in Miles Davis' first great quintet with John Coltrane, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe ...

Album Review

Santana: Shape Shifter

Read "Shape Shifter" reviewed by Jeff Winbush

by Jeff Winbush
July 17, 2012

The sticker plastered to Shape Shifter proclaims this is the Santana album 20 years in the making. Actually, it's the first album in 13 years where the guitarist doesn't just seem like a sideman on his own records. Nobody is more deserving of a career-reviving success story than Mexican-born Santana who was rewarded after years of falling sales and critical disinterest by the nobody-saw-it-coming success of Supernatural (Arista, 1998) which sold a whopping 15 million copies and won 11 Grammys.

Extended Analysis

Ryan Truesdell‎: Centennial - Newly Discovered Works Of Gil Evans

by Victor L. Schermer
July 17, 2012

Ryan Truesdell Centennial: Newly Discovered Works Of Gil Evans Artist Share 2012 This CD, released to celebrate the 100th birthday of the late Gil Evans, provides a wealth of listening pleasure. It is also a US national treasure that deserves a place in the Smithsonian Institute and every jazz record library. It is a Hope Diamond for everyone to enjoy often. Gil Evans (1912-1988) was a giant, one of the two greatest arrangers in the ...

Album Review

Virginia Mayhew Quartet: Mary Lou Williams: The Next 100 Years

Read "Mary Lou Williams: The Next 100 Years" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
July 17, 2012

Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth date of pianist, composer and arranger Mary Lou Williams, the Virginia Mayhew Quartet pays homage to one of the most unheralded, yet most important jazz figures of all time on Mary Lou Williams--The Next 100 Years. Presenting new arrangements of eight Williams compositions and two original blues charts, Mayhew directs a formidable quartet of veteran players and special guest, trombonist Wycliffe Gordon to make for a powerful quintet sound on several tracks.

Take Five With...

Take Five With Ludmil Krumov

by AAJ Staff
July 17, 2012

Meet Ludmil Krumov: “Ludmil was one of my best students, and I have to say that I learned as much from him as he did form me! Brilliant, creative, soulful, intellectually probing--Ludmil has it all. The work he's doing with integrating Bulgarian rhythmic and melodic concepts into today's jazz, as well as the way that he's conceptualized Bulgarian music to make it understandable to the jazz player, makes him an important figure in today's jazz scene. I highly ...

Interview

Ron Miles: Jazz Gentleman, Part 2

by Florence Wetzel
July 17, 2012

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 [Editor's Note: The second part of Florence Wetzel's extensive interview with Ron Miles covers the Colorado-based trumpeter's early performance years, and begins a chronological look at all of his solo releases, beginning with Distance for Safety (Prolific Records, 1987) and concluding with Heaven (Sterling Circle, 2002), his soft duet with guitarist Bill Frisell, with whom Miles has played, off and on, since the early 1990s. Part 3 concludes the interview ...

Album Review

Sumi Tonooka: NOW: Solo Live at the Howland Cultural Center

Read "NOW: Solo Live at the Howland Cultural Center" reviewed by Jeff Dayton-Johnson

by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
July 16, 2012

There are some jazz players who suffer an unusually large gap between their credentials and their renown. Pianist Sumi Tonooka is a case in point. She studied with Mary Lou Williams, made her recording début with Detroit trumpeter Marcus Belgrave (of Motown/Tribe Records fame), and was part of Philly Joe Jones's band. Two especially strong albums--Long Ago Today (Artists Recording Collective, 2008) and Initiation (Artists Recording Collective, 2010, with saxophonist Erica Lindsay)--exhibited a distinctive Williams-like piano style, with strong original ...

Album Review

Art Bailey: Quiet As A Bone

Read "Quiet As A Bone" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
July 16, 2012

In a classic Monty Python comedy sketch, John Cleese, a self-defense instructor, teaches various techniques to disarm an attacker who comes at his victims armed with a piece of fruit. The students dissent, but Cleese runs down a list of lethal weapons including grapes, apples, grapefruit (whole and segments), pomegranates, etc. The pupils bored refrain, “we done them," to which Cleese yelps, “How about a banana?"Like the defense class, listeners might protest at the thought of yet another ...