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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Indaba Music Women's Music Summit

by Teri Harllee King
May 24, 2012

In Texas you'll often hear someone who's being asked why they've been out of touch for a long time respond with an old saying. The conversation is this: “Where've you been?" “Oh, to Hell and back." Well, since my last column, my husband (guitarist Jackie King) and I have suffered the loss of our oldest son, our parents, a grandchild, and some of our closest and dearest friends, so that old saying rings especially true ...

We Travel the Spaceways

The Rocket Ship Takes Off

by Mark Corroto
May 23, 2012

I have good news and bad news. The bad news is the big record companies are dead. The good news is the big record companies are dead. Gone are the days of Columbia Records signing trumpeter Wynton Marsalis to a million dollar contract and then promoting the hell out of his vision of jazz, selling his records and supporting his touring. While the major labels were reassessing all forms of music from pop to hip-hop, jazz slipped further and further ...

Album Review

Orrin Evans: Flip The Script

Read "Flip The Script" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
May 23, 2012

In the wrong hands, the contemporary piano trio can sound like a retread of piano trios since the dawn of popular music. In the right hands it remains a potent force: exciting, engaging, full of imagination and capable of flights of invention. The hands of Orrin Evans are the right hands. The Philadelphia-born pianist is approaching 20 years as a recording artist and, by the sound of Flip The Script, he's in one of his most creative periods to date.

Album Review

Karl Berger / Dom Minasi: Synchronicity

Read "Synchronicity" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
May 23, 2012

The two men responsible for Synchronicity are known as bold risk-takers, well-informed free spirits and beyond-the-norm sculptors of sound, and these potential epithets are rightly reflected in the music they make together. Vibraphonist/pianist/wearer-of-many-hats Karl Berger and guitarist Dom Minasi met approximately a decade before this project came to pass and, while they periodically discussed the idea of recording together and even had the chance to lay down a short, 37-minute program at one point, this is the first proper, full-length ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With Douglas Johnson

by AAJ Staff
May 23, 2012

Meet Douglas Johnson: Douglas Johnson is a bassist, composer and bandleader in Chicago, Illinois. He earned a bachelors' degree in music performance from Northwestern University, studying with Jeff Bradetich, and has been a Fellow for the Tanglewood Music Institute and Bach Aria Festival.Doug served as Associate Principal Bass of the Honolulu Symphony for one season, and is currently active with the symphonic, chamber music, and progressive music scenes in Chicago, including playing as a substitute bassist ...

Album Review

Indra: In Between

Read "In Between" reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard

by Jakob Baekgaard
May 23, 2012

It's always a pleasure when an artist writes about the music on a record and takes the time to describe and dissect the thoughts that lie behind the sounds. However, it is rare to be treated to the kind of elaborated story that is unfolded in the notes to In Between, the second album by Danish-American group Indra. Here, singer Indra Rios-Moore tells about her childhood in New York with her grandmother and the events that led her to Denmark, ...

Album Review

Michael Benedict & Bopitude featuring Gary Smulyan: Five and One

Read "Five and One" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
May 23, 2012

Diamond hard bop is alive and well and living in Michael Benedict & Bopitude's studio. The quintet's debut, Michael Benedict & Bopitude (Planet Arts, 2011), established the group as a premiere hard bop unit employing the classic trumpet-tenor quintet format used by Miles Davis, Art Blakey and various others. For this edition of Bopitude, drummer Benedict adds baritone saxophonist Gary Smulyan, whose Smul's Paradise (Capri Records, 2012) made its own hard bop waves. The pairing is an opportune one.

Album Review

Karl Berger and Dom Minasi: Synchronicity

Read "Synchronicity" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
May 23, 2012

Pianist/vibraphonist Karl Berger and guitarist Dom Minasi are both forward-thinking and experienced composers, improvisers and educators, with discographies that goes back to the 1960s--including, in the case of Berger, collaborations with Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry and Carla Bley; and, with Minasi, 1970s work with Joe McPhee and Matthew Shipp. Synchronicity's twelve freely improvised duets were recorded in 2010 at Berger's Woodstock studio. All rely on an emphatic and patient interplay that stresses the melodic and harmonic avenues ...

Interview

Vangthanousone Bouaphanh: Lao Jazznova

by Ian Patterson
May 23, 2012

Cradling his Epiphone Emperor Regent as he stands against the backdrop of a Buddhist temple, guitarist Vangthanousone Bouaphanh cuts a dashing figure. Vangthanousone comes from the “Land of a Million Elephants," better known these days as Laos--a small, Buddhist/animist country sandwiched between Vietnam, China, Burma, Thailand and Cambodia. Vangthanousone may look like a star, but he's not at all famous. His country is not really famous, either, other than for being the single- most-bombed country in the history of warfare. ...

Album Review

Matthieu Marthouret Organ Quartet: Upbeats

by Dan Bilawsky
May 22, 2012

Necessity is not only the mother of invention, but also of direction. French pianist Matthieu Marthouret initially took on the task of mastering the organ because of problems finding bass players for rehearsals, but he found his own voice on the instrument and discovered a world of possibilities in the process. The debut album from his organ quartet--Playground (MuSt, 2009)--served as a launching pad for his explorations in this arena, but the group is in full flight throughout Upbeats.