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

Elin Larsson Group: Let You In

Read "Let You In" reviewed by James Pearse

by James Pearse
June 11, 2012

Darkness and light are two recurring themes of life in Sweden. In winter, it is a dark unforgiving land. When spring and summer finally arrive, Sweden blooms and bursts into life like few other countries can.Potentially a love letter to the joys of spring, the opener (and title track) of Let You In, the second full-length from Stockholm's Elin Larsson Group, is at once upbeat, perky and fresh. An explosion of acoustic warmth follows the catchy drum intro ...

Album Review

Pixel: Reminder

Read "Reminder" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
June 11, 2012

When a band is described as a “powerhouse indie-jazz ensemble" it's a surprise when the first tune on its debut release is a gentle and rather moving solo performance by the band's vocalist and double bassist. “Prelude," the tune in question, demonstrates the more reflective side of Pixel, a Norwegian quartet whose approach certainly includes powerhouse indie-jazz, but goes far wider than that. Pixel's driving force is the aforementioned vocalist, bassist and songwriter Ellen Andrea Wang, a graduate of the ...

Interview

Dave Stapleton: Edition Records Takes Flight

by Bruce Lindsay
June 11, 2012

Any discussion of successful independent jazz record labels of the twentieth century will readily encompass musical icons such as Blue Note, Impulse! and ECM. Cardiff-based Edition Records is already a likely contender for the same discussion applied to labels that have arisen in the 21st century, even though its first release didn't appear until 2008. A key figure in the success of the label is co-owner and Artistic Director Dave Stapleton, who also happens to be one of the label's ...

Extended Analysis

Christian Scott: aTunde Adjuah

by Chris May
June 11, 2012

In 1959, when Whitney Balliett, the New Yorker's jazz critic, published a collection of his columns, he titled the book The Sound of Surprise. The promise of the unexpected, wrote Balliett, was jazz's most precious quality. In a year which went on to include the release of trumpeter Miles Davis' Kind of Blue (Columbia), saxophonist John Coltrane's Giant Steps (Atlantic), pianist Dave Brubeck's Time Out (Columbia) and saxophonist Ornette Coleman's The Shape of Jazz to Come (Atlantic), you could say ...

Album Review

Lajos Dudas Quartet: Jazz And The City

Read "Jazz And The City" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
June 10, 2012

Lajos Dudas' What's Up Neighbour? (JazzSick, 2011), was a collaboration with pianist Hubert Bergmann. An eminently enjoyable set of improvised tunes, the album highlighted the veteran clarinetist's love of and talent for improvisation. Jazz And The City showcases Dudas' skills in a more straight-ahead setting, leading a quartet through a set of standards and originals. The humor and good-natured love of the music remains, albeit within a more structured set of tunes.On Jazz And The City Dudas combines ...

Book Review

Ted Gioia: The History of Jazz (Second Edition)

by C. Michael Bailey
June 10, 2012

The History of Jazz (Second Edition)Ted GioiaHardcover; 452 pagesISBN: 0195399706Oxford University Press2011 For the past 25 years, author and teacher Ted Gioia has provided the most succinct and contemporary histories of America's native musics: blues and jazz. He has done this through his exceptional facility for taking all the previous literature, separating the wheat from the chaff, correcting the errors and myths, and burnishing a brand new ...

Album Review

Bela Fleck & The Marcus Roberts Trio: Across The Imaginary Divide

Read "Across The Imaginary Divide" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
June 10, 2012

Across The Imaginary Divide, the collaboration between banjoist Béla Fleck and The Marcus Roberts Trio, is as adventurous as its title suggests. And the fruit of these four musicians' labor is as seamless as their approach is fearless.The opening moments of “Some Roads Lead Home" demonstrate that the modesty with which the foursome interacts does not belie their skills. There is no showboating, as Fleck's acoustic instrument gives way to pianist Roberts' and their fluidity carries over to ...

Album Review

Mole: What's The Meaning?

Read "What's The Meaning?" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
June 10, 2012

Mole evolved via Mexican pianist Mark Aanderud and Argentinian drummer Hernan Hecht's alliance back in the early 2000s. With eminent New York City-based guitarist David Gilmore and Mexican bassist Jorge “Luri" Molina rounding out the energized quartet, What's The Meaning is an inspiring debut outing. Briskly moving amid some high-impact detours and buoyant time signatures, the band forges an acoustic-electric colossus and flirts with disparate genres along the way. Strong compositions, clever arrangements and fiery outbreaks elevate the album into ...

Album Review

The Black Butterflies: Rainbows For Ramon

Read "Rainbows For Ramon" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
June 10, 2012

The Black Butterflies is a Latin free-for-all led by reed multi- instrumentalist Mercedes Figueras, an Argentinean transplanted to New York City. Figueras and band follows up a well- received debut, 1 De Mayo (Self Produced, 2010), with Rainbows for Ramon. Reviewed in capable detail by Dan Bilawsky and Karl Ackermann, Rainbows for Ramon--and, in particular, Figueras' treatment of the Gershwin Brothers' standard--is worth some further elaboration. Musical sincerity is inversely proportional to synthetic production: the more basic, ...

Talkin' Blues

Gregg Allman's Memoir

by Alan Bryson
June 10, 2012

A few years back, Gregg Allman said in an interview that one thing was for sure, the book he was writing wouldn't have a song title. So when the publication of his memoir, My Cross To Bear (William Morrow, 2012) was announced, my initial reaction was somewhere between skepticism and ambivalence. Not only was the book a play on his song, “Not My Cross to Bear," but at least eight of the chapters were directly taken from song titles.