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.

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Album Review

Stian Westerhus: Pitch Black Star Spangled

Read "Pitch Black Star Spangled" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
June 27, 2012

With advances in technology allowing musicians to turn real-time solo performances into works of near-orchestral expansiveness, the concept of a solo guitar album has become something much different than when guitarists like Lenny Breau turned the instrument on its side with Five O'Clock Bells (Genes, 1977), deceptively sounding like the work of two guitarists with no overdubbing, no effects. There's little in the canon of solo guitar--with the possible exception of Derek Bailey and Fred Frith--that can prepare or set ...

Album Review

Rich Halley: Back From Beyond

Read "Back From Beyond" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
June 26, 2012

The arrival of a new album by saxophonist and field biologist Rich Halley reliably signals a few good things: inventive composition and improvisation; tight, powerful, playing; driving grooves; a sense of humor...and squeak toys. Back From Beyond, credited to the Rich Halley 4, keeps up the pattern.Based in Portland, Oregon, Halley's extensive discography dates back to 1985. His tenor style has been compared to Coleman Hawkins, Don Byas and Albert Ayler; all three influences are discernible on Back ...

Album Review

Rodrigo Amado: Burning Live At Jazz AO Centro

Read "Burning Live At Jazz AO Centro" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
June 26, 2012

Rodrigo Amado's improvising Motion Trio might be better described as The Confluence Trio or Conflux, because its sound is a meeting of rivers. Like the three rivers of Pittsburgh, where the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers join to create the Ohio River, or Sangam, India where the Ganges, Yamuna and Saraswati meet, the music of the Motion Trio flows together to create a seamless whole, as was quite evident on its self-titled debut, Motion Trio (European Echoes, 2010).The trio ...

Live Review

BMW Jazz Festival 2012

by Ross Eustis
June 26, 2012

BMW Jazz FestivalVia FunchalSão Paulo, BrazilJune 8-10, 2012 To borrow a word commonly associated with BMW cars, this is a luxury festival. The BMW Jazz Festival debuted one year ago, in 2011, in São Paulo, Brazil. With handsome funding from BMW Financial Services-Bank Group in Brazil, the young festival experienced wild success in its first year--tickets sold out within hours. The demand indicated two things: world-class music and an audience eager to hear it. The ...

Album Review

Noah Howard Quartet: The Bremen Concert

Read "The Bremen Concert" reviewed by Jerry D'Souza

by Jerry D'Souza
June 26, 2012

Alto saxophonist Noah Howard was a key player in the free jazz movement of the 1960s. He moved into the realm of that decade--a time when the atmosphere was rife with saxophonists primed to the calling. Born in New Orleans, Howard characterized his approach with a distinctive sensibility for gospel music that unraveled enticingly in his explorations. His improvisations revolved on the turnstiles of a ripe imagination, and it was no surprise, then, that his first record as a leader, ...

Book Review

RJ Smith: The One - The Life and Music of James Brown

by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
June 26, 2012

The One: The Life and Music of James Brown RJ SmithHardcover, 464 pagesISBN: 978-1592406579Gotham Books2012James Brown (1933-2006): singer, bandleader, composer, impresario, self-made man-- Amiri Baraka called him “our number one black poet." Brown describes himself, in the pages of RJ Smith's biography, as “75 percent businessman and 25 percent entertainer." Readers may quibble with the percentages, but if by “business," Brown referred to “show business," then it is ...

Album Review

The Jay Vonada Trio: Red Pajamas

Read "Red Pajamas" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
June 26, 2012

Band leader/trombonist Jay T. Vonada has shared the stage with former Frank Sinatra pianist Russ Kassoff, bassists David Finck and Jay Leonhart, as well as drummers Tim Horner and Dennis Mackrel. He also leads several bands, is a member of the Zeropoint Big Band and performs in various venues throughout the Aaronsburg and central region of Pennsylvania. Vonada follows his highly respected debut, Jammin' (CDBaby, 2008), with another formidable performance on Red Pajamas, featuring nine original pieces of contemporary jazz.

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Album Review

Karl Seglem: NORSKjazz.no

Read "NORSKjazz.no" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
June 26, 2012

He's done everything from solo concerts on heavily processed goat horns to free improvisation duets with fellow Norwegian, percussionist Terje Isungset, but in a career spanning 20 years and including the more electronica-centric yet curiously timeless Urbs (NORCD Music, 2008), saxophonist Karl Seglem has never recorded an album with a conventional sax-piano-bass-drums quartet. Until now. NORSKjazz.no may use a time-tested format to deliver eight songs largely written by Seglem, but it remains deeply rooted in a more austere Norwegian jazz ...

Interview

Tyshawn Sorey: Composite Reality

by Daniel Lehner
June 26, 2012

Though Tyshawn Sorey's Oblique-I (Pi Recordings, 2011) is his most recent release to date, it's actually comprised of some of the percussionist/composer's earliest work. Containing music that is sonically dense, enormously challenging and (as the title suggests) consistently blurs and obscures the lines drawn between improvisation and composition, it has been hailed by critics and fans alike as a combination of what has come to be expected from Sorey: a masterful drummer and visionary, and unique composer. The story, however, ...

Album Review

The Cookers: Believe

by Troy Collins
June 25, 2012

Believe is The Cooker's third release in as many years, celebrating the all-star septet's fifth anniversary as a working group. More than just a collective of high-profile scene veterans (named after Freddie Hubbard's live 1965 Blue Note recording Night of the Cookers), the lineup's impressive credentials collectively span from the acoustic hard bop of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers to the electrified funk of Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi ensemble--encapsulating the entire spectrum of jazz tradition in the process. Founded by trumpet player ...