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.

Multiple Reviews

Siobhan Lamb: The Nightingale And The Rose / Meditations

by Chris Mosey
May 25, 2012

Experiments blending jazz with choral music are few and far between. Perhaps with good reason. Classical composer and flautist Siobhan Lamb and her husband, Gerard Presencer, the English jazz trumpeter, nonetheless accepted the challenge. Lamb's suite, “Meditations," was premiered at the 2007 London Jazz Festival, where it received rave reviews. The Guardian called it “expansively beautiful." Five years on it has been recorded in Copenhagen, where Presencer now works as trumpet soloist and conductor of the Danish ...

Album Review

Wayne Krantz: Howie 61

Read "Howie 61" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
May 25, 2012

It's rarely been the norm to talk about guitarist Wayne Krantz's singing, as the focus of his music has long been instrumental. That began to change with the sizzling Krantz, Carlock, Lefebvre (Abstract Logix, 2009), where Krantz sang on a third of the tracks. On Howie 61 Krantz sings on eight of the ten numbers. The notable evolution in Krantz' songwriting--which fuses composition and improvisation--is also heard in his increasingly melodic guitar playing. “I don't wanna follow a King I ...

Album Review

Tom Soloveitzik / Korhan Erel / Kevin Davis: Three States of Freedom

Read "Three States of Freedom" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
May 25, 2012

These three experimental musicians-- Israeli saxophonist Tom Soloveitzik, Turkish electronics player Korhan Erel (founding member of the Turkey's pioneering free improvisation group, Islak Köpek), and American expat cellist Kevin Davis met in Istanbul in 2009. This album was recorded a year later, in June 2010, following a short Israeli tour, conducted during troubled political times, both between Israel and Turkey and within Israel itself. The seven free improvisations focus on sounds at their most abstract and vulnerable. ...

Album Review

John Law / Yuri Goloubev / Asaf Sirkis: Three Leaps of the Gazelle

Read "Three Leaps of the Gazelle" reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard

by Jakob Baekgaard
May 24, 2012

Making changes in a trio can be risky a thing. If there's a special chemistry in a group, the slightest change in the lineup could spoil the magic of the music. For years, pianist John Law has had an effective formula with his Art of Sound Trio, with drummer Asaf Sirkis and bassist Sam Burgess, but Three Leaps of the Gazelle announces a significant change: Burgess is replaced by bassist Yuri Goloubev, a virtuoso musician and an old acquaintance of ...

Live Review

Undead Music Festival, Greenwich Village Edition: New York, NY, May 9, 2012

by Daniel Lehner
May 24, 2012

Undead Music FestivalGreenwich Village EditionKenny's Castways, Sullivan Hall and Le Poisson RougeNew York, NYMay 9th, 2012Despite its constant and ambitious expansion into other geographic and spatial situations, the Undead Music Festival (formally the Undead Jazz Festival, a change that says more than a bit about the nature of the music and music scene) has retained the tradition of keeping its first night at the Greenwich Village trifecta of Kenny's Castaways, Le Poisson Rouge ...

Album Review

Herbie Hancock: Empyrean Isles

Read "Empyrean Isles" reviewed by Greg Simmons

by Greg Simmons
May 24, 2012

As a member of Miles Davis' second quintet during the 1960s, pianist Herbie Hancock rarely performed live under his own leadership, but he did take the time to record. Hancock's 1964 effort, Empyrean Isles, remains one of the most diverse and often challenging records of the pianist's tenure with Blue Note Records. It's a rare jazz record that offers both a hugely popular hit, as well as an outré masterwork of rhythmic repetition and angular melodies. A masterpiece ...

Extended Analysis

Astor Piazzolla and Manos Hadjidakis: L'Ultime Concert

by Chris May
May 24, 2012

Astor Piazzolla and Manos HadjidakisL'Ultime ConcertWarner Jazz2012Astor Piazzolla's international breakthrough albums, Tango: Zero Hour and The Rough Dancer And The Cyclical Night (Nonesuch, 1986 and 1991), were made with small groups, with which the bandoneonist and composer is still most commonly associated outside Argentina. But Piazzolla also wrote for and performed with larger ensembles, frequently so during the 1980s, towards the end of his life. L'Ultime Concert was recorded in Athens, Greece ...

Album Review

Eddie Gomez: Per Sempre

Read "Per Sempre" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
May 24, 2012

Bassist Eddie Gomez has never received the attention he deserves as a leader. While that's largely due to the fact that he spends so much time making other people sound better, the reason isn't important; it's an injustice, regardless of the cause. His pliant and flexible bass has been the binding agent and rhythmic-melodic-harmonic go-between responsible for bolstering the work of pianists like Bill Evans, Chick Corea and Hank Jones, drummers like Jack DeJohnette and Steve Gadd, and countless others ...

Album Review

Lorenzo Feliciati: Frequent Flyer

Read "Frequent Flyer" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
May 24, 2012

Like countless modern-era bassists, Italy's Lorenzo Feliciati derives influence from Jaco Pastorius. Possessing formidable chops and gaining a reputation as a session bassist of choice, Feliciati struts his stuff on his third release, featuring Naked Truth band-mate/trumpeter Cuong Vu, saxophonist Bob Mintzer, King Crimson drummer Pat Mastelotto, and many others who lend their wares to this diverse program. In a loose sense, the album mirrors a resume that encapsulates Feliciati's broad interests and capabilities, spanning Latin, jazz, jazz-fusion DJ-inflected grooves, ...

Album Review

Jack Davies' Flea Circus: Jack Davies' Flea Circus

Read "Jack Davies' Flea Circus" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
May 24, 2012

It's a pity that James Brown has already laid claim to the title of Hardest Working Man In Show Business, because Jack Davies surely fits the bill to a “T." The young London-based trumpeter and writer runs his own record label, V & V, and leads three ensembles. In April 2012, he released his first three albums--one from each band, all on that label and all on the same day--thanks in part to the financial reward of winning the 2011 ...