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.

Behind the Lens With...

Behind the Lens With Doug Dickin

by Doug Dickin
July 1, 2012

Meet Doug Dickin: Experience: over 30 years active in photography, studied photography at Red River College in Winnipeg, Canada. Spent two years as a news photographer with the Regina Leader Post, two years with a government photo department, several years as a Mac Support Specialist.Gear: Nikon D700, iMac, Photoshop, Aperture.Teachers and/or influences? I was greatly influenced by fashion photographer Richard Avedon.I knew I wanted to be a photographer ...

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Album Review

Elephant9: Walk the Nile

Read "Walk the Nile" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
July 1, 2012

After a debut making it to more than one critic's “best of" list for 2008, Elephant9 returns with Walk the Nile. If Dodovoodoo demonstrated this keyboard power trio's affiliation for Tony Williams' late-1960s Lifetime and early Weather Report, mixed with a bit of progressive rock-era Keith Emerson, then Walk the Nile steps a tad further away from its core influences, further evolving Elephant9's definitive voice.Keyboardist Ståle Storløkken's career has been on an upward trajectory since the mid-1990s and ...

Dan's Den

Goodbye Phoebe and Hello Timme

by Dan Morgenstern
July 1, 2012

Phoebe Jacobs, who left us on April 9, 2012 just a couple of months shy of 94, was a most remarkable lady who did so much for the music and its makers, as so well-documented in last month's Big Band in the Sky.I first encountered Phoebe when she was handling press and taking care of the musicians at Basin Street East. Our shared love for Louis Armstrong made us friends, as we remained for more than 50 years. ...

Album Review

Lajos Dudas Quartet: Jazz And The City

Read "Jazz And The City" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
June 30, 2012

Most musicians firmly plant themselves in one particular territory in the music world, but clarinetist Lajos Dudas prefers to set up camp at the border crossings, allowing for swift travel between stylistic realms. Dudas doesn't discriminate when it comes to direction, and he's made that evident through his own endeavors over the past fifty years. He spars with the avant-garde elite, swings like mad in straightforward settings, tackles classical music with the requisite grace and technique that the repertoire demands ...

The Mort Report

Why Do I Write These Articles?

by Mort Weiss
June 30, 2012

The following will be an exercise in candor. I like to see my name in print on a Major--the major jazz web site. And I hope it will further better my record sales. I like to think that folks/people are finding things of interest in my remembrances that I've accumulated within my persona over a long life time--most of which was lived in and around the highly complex (yet very simple) world of jazz. And last but not least, it ...

Album Review

Samuel Hallkvist: Variety of Loud

Read "Variety of Loud" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
June 30, 2012

Copenhagen-based Sweish guitarist Samuel Hällkvist, winner of the prestigious 2010 Jazz In Sweden award, demonstrated his eclectic tastes on his 2010 debut as a leader, Samuel Hällkvist Center (Caprice), albeit still rooted in the jazz legacy. On Variety of Loud he even goes further, blurring genre boundaries between improvised jazz and his primary love for the turbulent energies of John Zorn, progressive rock, metal and electronic, while impressively juggling muscular, punchy delivery and sophisticated improvisations. Hällkvist calls his new hybrid ...

Album Review

Carol Robbins: Moraga

by Edward Blanco
June 30, 2012

The harp is probably one of the least recognized and utilized instruments in jazz yet, the jazz harp is as much a part of the genre as the saxophone, with only a handful of musicians making it their instrument of choice. The late Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane, along with Lori Andrews, Columbian Edmar Castaneda and Frenchman Jakez Francois are a few of the exponents of the harp within the jazz realm. There is another prominent member of this list ...

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Album Review

Humcrush with Sidsel Endresen: Ha!

by John Kelman
June 30, 2012

That so many artists can place themselves in a position of ultimate risk on a concert stage, attempting to create something from nothing, speaks of a certain intrepid spirit. That some of those same artists not only succeed at pulling form from the ether, but actually do so night after night, with a distinct and recognizable voice, speaks of something even more special. Not every night is equally successful, however, and between cell phones and YouTube, artists have lost control ...

The Moment's Energy

The Veiled Meanings of Paul Motian

by Nic Jones
June 30, 2012

While Paul Motian's music could be regarded as amalgam of the predetermined and the free, that tells only a small part of the story. Similarly, arguing that his drumming was a merging of Kenny Clarke and Sunny Murray is no more helpful, even as it hints at the freedom in his work. But at this moment in time, and of course in light of his recent death in November, 2011, it feels too soon to determine whether or not he ...

Album Review

Red Bank Jazz Orchestra: Red Bank Jazz Orchestra: Strike Up The Band!

Read "Red Bank Jazz Orchestra: Strike Up The Band!" reviewed by Craig Dowd

by Craig Dowd
June 30, 2012

With the sheer number of ghost bands and regional orchestras currently active in America, many of which hold fast to the grave of sophisticated pre-war swing, the supply of tributes to our finest composers is never in jeopardy of being exhausted. But volume breeds vapidness, and most offerings to this province, with their prosaic interpretations and lack of emotional fluency, are found wanting. They aspire to such sweet thunder but give to the memory of Duke Ellington and Count Basie ...