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

Freddie Hubbard: Straight Life (40th Anniversary Edition)

Read "Straight Life (40th Anniversary Edition)" reviewed by Jeff Dayton-Johnson

by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
May 20, 2012

CTI Records reissued trumpeter Freddie Hubbard's November 1970 date, Straight Life, in 2011. As with some of the other reissues in this series (see John Kelman's in-depth discussion of some of the more important of these), its availability on compact disc has been spotty. Straight Life is a good--if not great--record, and it's good to have it back in circulation.The album is pretty simple. Two numbers--the relatively fast title track and Weldon Irvine's slower-grooving “Mr. Clean"--are long modal-funk ...

Album Review

Ballister Trio: Mechanisms

Read "Mechanisms" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
May 20, 2012

Stop me if you've heard this one before. A free improvising trio walks into a club and begins a live performance by ripping the ears off its listeners. No joke here, just that flexing muscular music isn't for the faint-at-heart. And certainly the trio of saxophonist Dave Rempis, cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love is an audacious one.Mechanisms is their second recording. Their first, Bastard String was self-produced in 2010 and, like this disc, recorded live. It ...

Album Review

Daniel Ori: Emuna

by Edward Blanco
May 20, 2012

Since moving to New York in 2008, Israeli-born bassist Daniel Ori has labored hard to forge for himself a reputation as one of today's up-and-coming jazz musicians. While certainly an excellent bassist, this winner of the 2009 ASCAP Jazz Composers Award is slowly cementing a reputation as a dynamic composer. His debut as a leader, So It Goes (Art of Life Records, 2010), is a testament to his skills as a writer, which he also confirms in another bold statement, ...

Multiple Reviews

Wishbone Ash: Live Dates II / Elegant Stealth

by Doug Collette
May 19, 2012

One of the most underrated bands to emerge from Britain in the late 1960s to early 1970s, Wishbone Ash achieved a fine balance between progressive and blues-rock. Its original material made prominent use of tandem lead guitars, mirrored by equally uplifting group harmony singing. These virtues distinguish the sound of the band to this day, as evidenced by comparison between a studio album, Elegant Stealth, and a live recording, Live Dates II, previously available in a variety of formats, but ...

Album Review

Spike Wilner: La Tendresse

Read "La Tendresse" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
May 19, 2012

There are few greater champions of the old and new in jazz than pianist/club owner/musical antiquarian Spike Wilner. His role in resuscitating and running one of the most important night spots for jazz in New York--Smalls Jazz Club--has made him a hero to those who frequent that bastion of musical integrity, but he's also revered as an ivory tickling keeper-of-the-flame for musical styles of yesteryear. Stride piano and ragtime are at the root of his playing, but he also mixes ...

Live Review

Lewis Nash All-Stars with Wynton Marsalis, Phoenix, AZ, April 11, 2011

by Patricia Myers
May 19, 2012

Lewis Nash All-Stars with Wynton MarsalisMusical Instrument MuseumPhoenix, AZApril 11, 2012An evening of bebop, swing, Latin and blues celebrated acclaimed drummer Lewis Nash and raised funds for youth programs of Jazz in Arizona. The 35-year-old nonprofit jazz-support organization recently opened The Nash, a performance and youth education center established in Phoenix to honor the musician in his hometown. Nash came from New York to lead an all-star combo of Renee Rosnes on piano, ...

Album Review

Bill Evans: Live At Art D'Lugoff's Top of The Gate

Read "Live At Art D'Lugoff's Top of The Gate" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
May 19, 2012

Legendary jazz pianist Bill Evans has been gone since 1980; nevertheless, his music continues to inspire new generations of young musicians and remains an integral part of jazz history. Live At Art D'Lugoff's Top of The Gate celebrates Evans' memory, capturing the great pianist and his trio performing in the upstairs room--and separate club, called The Top of The Gate--of The Village Gate night club in Greenwich Village, founded by Art D'Lugoff back in 1958. Never released until now, this ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With Moksha Trio

by AAJ Staff
May 19, 2012

Meet Moksha Trio: Neighborhood sounds.Conceived by experienced musicians, Moksha Trio has created an acoustic exemplar--intense and well-designed. “Moksha," from Sanskrit, means freedom, liberation, and diversion. It represents what the musicians seek musically, specifically “a fusion of jazz characteristics and contemporary classical music elements, having Brazilian-Afro rhythmic structures as support." Using these three pillars, pianist Gilberto Ferri, drummer Lauro Lellis and bassist Felipe Alves have assembled a complex sonority which reconciles itself with the fact that it ...

Album Review

Frode Gjerstad & Paal Nilssen-Love: Side by Side

Read "Side by Side" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
May 19, 2012

Prominent Norwegian improvisers Frode Gjerstad (alto saxophone, clarinets) and Paal Nilssen-Love (drums) toured North America in 2008 sans a bassist, and recorded this album at a studio in upstate New York, accentuating their synergy via a largely rough and tumble implementation. Gjerstad shows a fondness for the upper-register and produces a myriad of microtonal and edgy sound-sculpting statements atop Nilssen-Love's bustling polyrhythms, infused with perpetual motion and resonating counter-maneuvers. Gjerstad's scathing tonal swashes and darting lines embody a ...

Album Review

Imani Uzuri: The Gypsy Diaries

Read "The Gypsy Diaries" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
May 19, 2012

Steeped in the spirituals and gospel of her native North Carolina, vocalist Imani Uzuri traveled the world on a fascinating journey, absorbing local culture and music to produce The Gypsy Diaries. The record stands as musical documentation of the distance an artist will go seeking mystical connections with other genres, all the while maintaining a firm grasp on her individual roots.With The Gypsy Diaries, Uzuri has gone about as far away as possible from the rock opera setting ...