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

Niels Lyhne Lokkegaard: Vesper

by John Kelman
June 15, 2012

While people debate the recent re-emergence of vinyl as not just a viable hard media for music, but a better one sonically, few can argue the beauty of experiencing cover art, expanded from the 5"x5" limitation of a CD cover, to the glorious, now almost larger than life beauty of a 12"x12" long-player sleeve. If cover art is meant, in some way, to reflect the music contained within, then it's clear that the full- size image of Danish saxophonist Niels ...

Profile

Mike Nock: Making Music Flow from the River Within

by Jakob Baekgaard
June 15, 2012

It almost seems as if there's no other place on earth like it. New Zealand is truly breathtaking, with its diverse geography of mountains, beaches, green plains and forests forming a complex triptych where different strains of nature melt into a sublime scenario. And then there there's the water, the ever-flowing source of life, finding its way through the landscape, reaching the shore and resting in lakes among the rocks. This is the place where pianist Mike Nock ...

Album Review

Hristo Vitchev and Liubomir Krastev: Rhodopa

by Dan Bilawsky
June 15, 2012

The duo format is nothing new for Hristo Vitchev, but his prior work in this arena focused exclusively on his playing relationship with pianist Weber Iago. In fact, all four of the Bay Area-based guitarist's prior albums--whether duo, quartet or quintet--featured Iago in the lineup; but everybody knows that nothing is forever. With the release of the first single from his forthcoming Rhodopa (First Orbit, 2013), Vitchev has set off the signal flare to announce the cultivation of a new ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With Gavin Barras

by AAJ Staff
June 15, 2012

Meet Gavin Barras: Born in Kendal, Cumbria in the UK, bassist Gavin Barras studied music at the University of Manchester, receiving private tuition from Roberto Carillo-Garcia and Corin Long. Whist studying classical music, Gavin continued developing his love for jazz and received lessons from Steve Berry in jazz bass. Gavin is a busy working musician, actively involved in several recording and touring projects both in the UK and abroad.Instrument(s): Double bass and bass guitar.

Album Review

Jimmy Lyons & Sunny Murray Trio: Jump Up

Read "Jump Up" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
June 15, 2012

Renowned Cecil Taylor trio alumni, alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons and drummer Sunny Murray reunited in Switzerland and summoned young bass wunderkind John Lindberg for a tour de force captured live at Jazz Festival Willisau in August, 1980. Reissued and remastered, this release highlights the band's unbridled energy and resounding clarity, abetted by the crystalline audio. It sounds like it's fresh out of the box, featuring Lyons operating in tenth gear with his radical free-bop stylizations, paving the way for future ...

Album Review

Ran Blake and Christine Correa: Down Here Below

Read "Down Here Below" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
June 15, 2012

Starting with the inimitable Jeanne Lee, pianist Ran Blake has been collaborating with adventurous vocalists for half a century. These are singers who are not satisfied by merely parroting the old repertoire in the same tried and true, but also musty and tired way. These are musicians whose vocal cords command close listening, as is the case with the Mumbai-born and New York-based Christine Correa. This Abbey Lincoln tribute, Down Here Below, is the third time Correa ...

Hardly Strictly Jazz

Art Restoration: Laurie Pepper and Widow's Taste Records

by Skip Heller
June 15, 2012

It was F. Scott Fitzgerald who wrote, “In American life, there are no second acts," which means he clearly was not an Art Pepper fan. Pepper was one of the great alto saxophonist stars of the bop era, famed not only as a Stan Kenton sideman, but also for his own albums as a leader. In 1951, he placed second in the alto saxophone category in Downbeat Magazine's annual poll, losing by fourteen votes to Charlie Parker. Tragically, ...

Album Review

Gabriel Zufferey: Contemplation

Read "Contemplation" reviewed by Jeff Dayton-Johnson

by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
June 14, 2012

Jazz mashups are in the air. First, pianist Robert Glasper artfully wove pianist Herbie Hancock's “Maiden Voyage" together with Radiohead's “Everything in its Right Place" on the his In My Element (Blue Note, 2007). The Jazz Punks' raucous Smashups (Foam @ the Mouth, 2012) mashed up saxophonist Sonny Rollins with guitarist Jimi Hendrix, and Led Zeppelin with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie (not to mention John Coltrane with John Coltrane). Finally, pianist Gabriel Zufferey's Contemplation includes two particularly subtle additions to the ...

Extended Analysis

Rahsaan Roland Kirk: Spirits Up Above - The Atlantic Years 1965-1976

by Chris May
June 14, 2012

Rahsaan Roland KirkSpirits Up Above: The Atlantic Years 1965-1976Warner Jazz2012He was as funky as singer James Brown. With three horns in his mouth, he sounded like the entire JB reed section. And onstage, with a truckload of instruments around his neck, he was the hardest working man in jazz business. Saxophonist, flautist, clarinetist and multiple custom-reed instrumentalist Rahsaan Roland Kirk (1936-77) livened up the music scene like few other artists before or ...

Album Review

Sara Gazarek: Blossom & Bee

Read "Blossom & Bee" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
June 14, 2012

All chicken or feathers, feast or famine, flood or drought; regarding jazz vocal releases, there is always a healthy steady stream of new music being produced. The vast majority is good while, as it should be, the truly exceptional are of a rarer variety. The release of Kate McGarry's exceptional Girl Talk (Palmetto, 2012) might have been just a singular event of excellence, except that Sara Gazarek decided to join McGarry at Palmetto records, releasing the equally fine Blossum & ...