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

Romain Collin: The Calling

Read "The Calling" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
July 3, 2012

In the dense jungle of the jazz piano trio, unearthing and successfully making heard an original voice is no small feat. Romain Collin caught the attention of many with his debut, The Rise and Fall of Pipokhun (Fresh Sound, New Talent, 2009), a mellow yet ambitious conceptual suite that marked the New York-based Frenchman as a pianist and composer of note. Collin's innate lyricism shone through from his keys, as did a rare delicacy of touch that conveyed emotional power ...

Album Review

Carol Robbins: Moraga

by Dan Bilawsky
July 3, 2012

While the harp is often pigeonholed as an instrument that belongs in the confines of classical music, artists like Carol Robbins, Zeena Parkins and Edmar Castaneda are helping to change public perception about this topic. Castaneda has created rhythmically engaging music that's high on excitement, and Parkins is constantly breaking barriers by invading every area, from edgy, alternative rock to avant-garde jazz, with her harp in hand(s); but Robbins is the one that found a way to manipulate the instrument's ...

Book Excerpts

The Last Balladeer: The Johnny Hartman Story

by Gregg Akkerman
July 3, 2012

[Editor's Note: The Last Balladeer: The Johnny Hartman Story (Scarecrow Press, 2012), by Gregg Akkerman, is the long-overdue biography of a singer who, amongst other things, achieved considerable fame for his classic collaboration with intrepid saxophonist John Coltrane, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman (Impulse!, 1963).] Several years ago I was riding in a car to a jazz gig with a few cohorts when “Lush Life" from the iconic John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman album began playing on ...

Album Review

The Worst Pop Band Ever: Sometime Things Go Wrong (and other songs we shouldn't play)

Read "Sometime Things Go Wrong (and other songs we shouldn't play)" reviewed by Mark F. Turner

by Mark F. Turner
July 3, 2012

Recorded live at Cory Weed's Cellar Jazz Club in Vancouver, The Worst Pop Band Ever's Sometime Things Go Wrong (and other songs we shouldn't play) is music for people, whether they dig jazz or not. The group delivers a set that cares less about genres, as heard in its breezy cover of Sly and the Family Stone's 1973 hit single, “If You Want Me to Stay." There's no crossover message here; just a tight band playing with substance and feeling ...

Behind the Lens With...

Behind the Lens With Becky Yee

by Becky Yee
July 3, 2012

Meet Becky Yee: Photographer/videographer Becky Yee peels back the cultural skins to expose what's deepest in us. This piercing-yet-inviting point of view can be seen in her editorial, commercial and curated portfolios. Becky's ability to provoke confession and embrace compulsion has drawn in clients from Beijing to Berlin. Focusing on the extreme contrast of Ura (backside) and Omote (front side), the difference in space between private emotions and public perceptions are explored in her work.Recent successes ...

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Interview

Sidsel Endresen: The Place to Be

by Adriana Carcu
July 3, 2012

Sidsel Endresen is one of those rare artists who, after covering a vast musical territory--in her case reaching across from the Nordic folk songs to the rich cultural heritage of Arabic, Chinese and the Japanese traditional singing--have created their own form of expression, and gradually perfected it into a new musical language. She uses her voice to process the immediate sonic environment into a musical presence that emerges like a new energy, both suave and highly technical, to meet and ...

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Album Review

Jon Balke: Diverted Travels

Read "Diverted Travels" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
July 3, 2012

As Jon Balke moves further and further away from his '80s work with the Miles-informed group Masqualero, he moves deeper into abstraction, experimenting with instrumental combinations that allow for a broad range of textures within an ever-expanding concept. Since the mid-'90s, with his constantly shifting Magnetic North Orchestra, he has explored the juncture between composition and improvisation in a way that assimilates an increasing number of world music influences, yet never seems to sound directly like any of them. Diverted ...

Album Review

Traeben: Push

by Chris May
July 2, 2012

With a Danish frontline and Dutch rhythm section, Den Haag-based Træben draws much of its inspiration from the chamber jazz which came out of Los Angeles and San Francisco in the late 1950s and 1960s. Hummable melodies, cool swing, mellifluous improvisation. The whisper rises to a conversational murmer but rarely raises its voice. This is sunny, summer afternoon music.Push is the group's second album, following 2009's Nordic Project (Jarr). With the exception of a new drummer, Haye Jellema, ...

Album Review

Kjell Ohman: The Duke

by Chris Mosey
July 2, 2012

In the somewhat circumscribed world of Swedish popular music, Kjell Öhman has been there, done that and bought the T-shirt. The keyboard wizard, born in 1943, has worked as a studio musician on more than three thousand recordings, with stars ranging from keyboardist/singer Georgie Fame to harmonicist Toots Thielemans, produced music for some of the country's top TV shows and, for 17 years, was musical director of a national institution, the televised summer sing-alongs at Skansen, Stockholm's outdoor museum.

Extended Analysis

Ray Charles: The Complete ABC Recordings 1959-1961

by Chris May
July 2, 2012

Ray CharlesThe Complete ABC Recordings 1959-1961Le Chant du Monde2012At first glance, it's a mystery. Why choose 1961 as the cut-off point for a collection spanning the first years of singer/keyboardist Ray Charles' lengthy tenure with ABC-Paramount? Extend that to 1962, and even within the 3-CD confines of The Complete ABC Recordings 1959-1961 it would be possible to include the momentous Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music. This was the album that ...