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

Chris Greene Quartet: A Group Effort

Read "A Group Effort" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
June 13, 2012

In October, 2011, Chicago saxophonist Chris Greene's quartet stepped up to the stage--The Mayne Stage, to be exact, the entertainment and dining venue located in Chicago's Rogers Park--to perform a live set of sizzling post-bop ultimately captured for its first in-concert CD, A Group Effort. With an introduction from pianist/musical director William Kurk, the show kicks off with the high-energy original “Bride of Mr. Congeniality," moved along by the dash of funk which Greene also employs elsewhere in the set. ...

Catching Up With

Sunna Gunnlaugs: Keys For Traveling

by Dave Sumner
June 12, 2012

Pianist Sunna Gunnlaugs is back in the USA for a visit. Following on the heels of the critical success of 2011 release Long Pair Bond (Sunny Sky), Gunnlaugs will be touring from coast to coast beginning in Berkeley, California and hitting several cities along the way to a three-day grand finale in Virginia Beach, Virginia. She'll have the Long Pair Bond trio in tow, with Scott McLemore on drums and Þorgrimur Jonsson on bass.Originally from Iceland, Gunnlaugs attended ...

Album Review

Ravi Coltrane: Spirit Fiction

Read "Spirit Fiction" reviewed by Franz A. Matzner

by Franz A. Matzner
June 12, 2012

Ravi Coltrane's Blue Note debut, Spirit Fiction, presents the saxophonist in a self-created environment of formal experimentation defined by multiple conceits and constraints.Coltrane's penchant for this type of thoughtful experimentation has been consistent over his career. With Spirit Fiction, however, he has taken the approach to a new level, deploying an array of recording techniques, compositional approaches, and “process" contexts. The result is an album of great diversity and, considering its quite cerebral architecture, of surprising delicacy and ...

The Mort Report

Reefer Madness and Me

by Mort Weiss
June 12, 2012

How the above title turned me on to the love of jazz. It was 1939 and I was four years old and my parents took me to my first moving picture show that being the above (I kinda had eyes for Gone with the Wind) and to hear Clark Gable say that filthy word at the end of the movie--but they had other plans--maybe because the title on its release was Tell your Children. It was financed by a church ...

Album Review

Nils Berg Cinemascope: Popmotion

Read "Popmotion" reviewed by James Pearse

by James Pearse
June 12, 2012

There are concept albums and then there is concept music. While progressive rock and pop artists habitually follow a specific theme or develop a story over the course of an album, some musicians offer entirely new models of composition. Popmotion, the debut album by Swedish trio Nils Berg Cinemascope, falls unquestionably into the latter category.The eight tracks on Popmotion were written and performed around video clips of musicians from Brunei, Ghana, Japan, Sweden and United States, which the ...

Album Review

Lisa McClowry: Lisa McClowry Sings Acoustic Alchemy

Read "Lisa McClowry Sings Acoustic Alchemy" reviewed by Jeff Winbush

by Jeff Winbush
June 12, 2012

It's an interesting dilemma: how does a singer cover a band whose songs have no lyrics? The solution the Chicago-based tandem of vocalist Lisa McClowry and producer Jim Peterik came up with was not only to add lyrics to the songs of Acoustic Alchemy, but to invite the guitar duo of Greg Carmichael and Miles Gilderdale to play them as well, making this not a tribute, but a collaboration.McClowry's voice leans toward “jazzy" more than to “jazz," and ...

Live Review

Zara McFarlane: Norwich, UK, May 24, 2012

by Bruce Lindsay
June 12, 2012

Zara McFarlaneNorfolk and Norwich FestivalNorwich PlayhouseNorwich, UKMay 24, 2012The Norfolk and Norwich Festival is gaining a reputation as one of the finest arts festivals in the UK, one that's always willing to experiment, make use of street venues and the beautiful Norfolk countryside, and give rising stars as well as established artists a showcase. The 2012 Festival was no exception, although its jazz content seemed a little less than in recent years. There ...

Album Review

Amanda Ruzza: This Is What Happened

Read "This Is What Happened" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
June 12, 2012

Brazilian-born Amanda Ruzza began playing bass guitar when she was 12 years old, developing a mastery for the instrument, moving to New York City and, since then, playing a variety of styles of music with such groups as Global Noize and the Chris Stover's Caetano Veloso Project. This Is What Happened is the young artist's debut, featuring original compositions infused with elements of hard funk, jazz, Brazilian and other South American rhythms. The result is a very modern and upbeat ...

Album Review

Bill Evans (saxophone): Dragonfly

Read "Dragonfly" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
June 11, 2012

The music on saxophonist Bill Evans' Dragonfly plays like the sum total of his experiences distilled into a single disc. Evans has spent more than three decades playing with the cream of the crop, including jazz heavyweights like trumpeter Miles Davis and guitarist John McLaughlin, and smooth stars such as pianist Dave Grusin and guitarist Lee Ritenour, but he doesn't always pitch his tent in the jazz camp. He's also spent time playing with Mick Jagger, Warren Haynes, The Allman ...

Album Review

Spectrum Road: Spectrum Road

Read "Spectrum Road" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
June 11, 2012

Pure power takes precedence over finesse on Spectrum Road, but just barely. On this tribute to late drummer Tony Williams' groundbreaking fusion band Lifetime, guitarist Vernon Reid, keyboardist John Medeski, bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce and drummer Cindy Blackman Santana offer just enough respite from an otherwise nonstop sonic assault of just under an hour.“Vuelta Abajo" sets the general tone as the foursome unabashed thrashes away for a little over five minutes. The ex-Cream bassist, who was actually a member ...