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

Joe Locke / Geoffrey Keezer Group: Signing

by Dan Bilawsky
July 9, 2012

Signing is only the second release from the co-led Joe Locke / Geoffrey Keezer Group, but both men have traveled plenty of musical miles together, both on record and on stage. They've worked in trio with reed man Tim Garland under the Storms/Nocturnes moniker, produced compelling music for the Japanese marketplace using the New Sound Quartet name and filled venues across the globe to capacity when they take the bandstand together. While six years separate their debut--Live In Seattle (Origin, ...

Mr. P.C.'s Guide to Jazz Etiquette and Bandstand Decorum

July 2012

by Mr. P.C.
July 9, 2012

Dear Mr. P.C.:Does it really help to announce your gigs on Facebook? Ron Arnold

Dear Ron:Absolutely! In a strictly therapeutic sense, of course. It's a positive, celebratory affirmation of who you are, and what you do. “Ron Arnold," you proclaim in boldface, a hand-picked profile picture removing all doubt. “I am playing at John's Pub tonight." Who would dare dispute it, and who wouldn't envy your certainty? Then, from ...

Album Review

Rebecca Sullivan & Mike Allemana: This Way, This Time

Read "This Way, This Time" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
July 9, 2012

The great composers of the jazz standard repertoire had lesser-known contemporaries whose work although of quality, inevitably did not garner the same attention. This body of somewhat unknown jazz compositions offers the up-and-coming jazz artist a wealth of material to choose from when trying to assemble that most important debut recording. Chicago-native vocalist Rebecca Sullivan does just that and selects from this less celebrated pool of music for her debut This Way, This Time. Accompanied by guitarist ...

Album Review

The Black Butterflies: Rainbows For Ramon

Read "Rainbows For Ramon" reviewed by Jerry D'Souza

by Jerry D'Souza
July 9, 2012

When passion turns into art the effect can be stunning. Saxophonist Mercedes Figueras proves this in her masterful blend of jazz including Latin music, African rhythms and a high-energy dollop of free jazz. What makes it all the more tantalizing is the way in which she and her band scope and enlarge the composition. Figureas plays with great control and direction, but she also breaks loose to turn a tune into a memorable experience.“Rainbows For Ramon," an ode ...

Behind the Lens With...

Behind the Lens With Chuck Koton

by Chuck Koton
July 9, 2012

Meet Chuck Koton: Born into a family of photographers, I began carrying a camera around with me as a teenager. Eventually, I even set up a darkroom in my parents' Bronx apartment.Around the same time, I began my lifelong love affair with jazz. One night, I came across my older brother's copy of Miles Davis' Someday My Prince Will Come. The album's provocative cover photograph and the band's irresistible sounds guaranteed that my life would never ...

Interview

Joe Locke: Chemistry and Camaraderie

by Seton Hawkins
July 9, 2012

Even within a musical genre noted for its artists' restless creativity and ability to meld and merge with other styles, vibraphonist Joe Locke stands out as exceptional for his unceasing musical curiosity and sweeping vision. Since his arrival on the New York jazz scene nearly 30 years ago, Locke has amassed a performance résumé that includes work with artists ranging from Dizzy Gillespie to Gunther Schuller to Cecil Taylor, a catalogue of nearly 30 albums as a bandleader, and a ...

Album Review

Maria Neckam: Unison

Read "Unison" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
July 8, 2012

Vienna native and New York-based vocalist, composer and lyricist Maria Neckam is one of those rare artists whose work is accessible without being ordinary, and cerebral without being abstruse. Her third release as a leader, Unison, has both artistic originality and commercial appeal and may be the magnum opus of her short career so far. All fifteen tracks intricate Neckham originals that draw on a variety of influences. The result is less a patchwork and more a ...

We Travel the Spaceways

Yes. But Is It Jazz?

by Mark Corroto
July 8, 2012

Jazz comes at you from so many directions these days, that to rely on just one definition, is not enough. Sure, it can be a blues-based rhythmic music but it is also minimalist free improvisation. Pigeonholing something, such as jazz, always separates and eventually segregates supporters, creating conflicts and in the end lessening the whole.Maybe that's why so many “jazz" artists these days eschew the label. Is it also why many “jazz fests" have quasi-rock, blues and easy-listening ...

Album Review

kandodo: kandodo

Read "kandodo" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
July 8, 2012

Multi-instrumentalist Simon Price offers shades of vintage Brian Eno ambient-electronica, with psychedelic hooks and minimalist terrestrial planes, via his one-man solo effort, bearing the group moniker kandodo. He also intersperses an off-center new age vibe into the grand mix via oscillating guitar parts, thought-provoking textural components and tasteful themes sprinkled throughout. “Lord Hyena, 3am" closes out the album and boasts a '70s-inspired, spaced-out groove. With gradually climactic crescendos and psycho guitar overlays, Price summons a Berkeley flower-power ...

Extended Analysis

Wadada Leo Smith: Ten Freedom Summers

by Eyal Hareuveni
July 8, 2012

Wadada Leo SmithTen Freedom SummersCuneiform Records2012Music--protest songs or extended compositions--have long been to be an integral part of human rights struggles. Suffice to mention such canonical musical statements as drummer Max Roach's We Insist! Freedom Now Suite (Candid, 1960) and Lift Every Voice and Sing (Atlantic, 1971), saxophonist John Coltrane's “Alabama" from Live at Birdland (Impulse!, 1963) or bassist Charles Mingus' “Meditations on Integration (or for a Pair of Wire-Cutters)" and “Fables ...