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

John Zorn: Nosferatu

Read "Nosferatu" reviewed by Thomas Carroll

by Thomas Carroll
May 14, 2012

The idea of saxophonist/composer John Zorn writing music to accompany a production about vampires has exciting implications. After all, it would seem logical that a man who has, over the past 40 years, helped expand the scope of sounds that can be considered music should be able to craft something truly mind-bending when dealing with such a spooky subject. Surprisingly, however, Zorn has produced a relatively tame score that translates into an accessible album when confronted with the task of ...

Opinion

BAM: Bremen Art Music?

by Francesco Martinelli
May 14, 2012

[Editor's Note: It's been quite a few years since Italian writer, music educator and general provocateur Francesco Martinelli last contributed to All About Jazz. Having recently returned home from Jazzahead! 2012 in Bremen, and with the current debates about the meaning, future and relevance of the word “jazz" fresh in his mind, Martinelli posits an alternate meaning to trumpeter Nicholas Payton's recent BAM campaign.]Among the pile of the CDs collected during the hectic days of Bremen's Jazzahead! 2012--the ...

Album Review

Dialogues Trio with Julian Siegel: Twinkle Twinkle

Read "Twinkle Twinkle" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
May 14, 2012

The UK-based Dialogues Trio was formed in 2005 and is led by pianist Bruno Heinen, who sports an insightful compositional pen here on the band's debut, Twinkle Twinkle. The musicians often radiate a workingman's type process, where no dillydallying or inflated soloing escapades rule the roost. Featuring reedman Julian Siegel, lending his wares on select tracks, it's an album that yields supplementary rewards on ensuing listens. The trio blends convention with offbeat phrasings and deviations, where Heinen translucently ...

Album Review

Steve Lyman: Revolver

Read "Revolver" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
May 14, 2012

Drummer Steve Lyman makes his debut as leader with Revolver, a mini-album of original compositions clocking in at just over 27 minutes. Brevity is the soul of wit, of course, and Lyman wisely avoids the desire to throw everything he has onto his first recording. The result is a concise, sharp, collection with a laidback, meditative feel that announces the arrival of an imaginative musician and writer.Lyman moved to New York in 2005 to study at the New ...

Album Review

Enrico Pieranunzi: Permutation

Read "Permutation" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
May 14, 2012

Italy's jazz piano poet, Enrico Pieranunzi, records with his “American Trio"--bassist Scott Colley and drummer Antonio Sanchez--on Permutation, a collection of original Pieranunzi compositions that concentrate on percussive motifs and rhythmic variations. Pieranunzi's résumé is long and varied, and Permutation shows the pianist has no plans in slowing down his musical explorations.For all of the impressive composition on the disc, it is Pieranunzi's evening ballad, “Within the House of Night," that illustrates the composer's firm grasp of the ...

Album Review

Jon Gold: Bossa of Possibility

Read "Bossa of Possibility" reviewed by Jerry D'Souza

by Jerry D'Souza
May 14, 2012

Keyboardist Jon Gold continues where he left off with Brazil Confidential (Blujazz Records, 2011) and his love for Brazilian and Latin jazz. He brings back several of the musicians from that date to help essay 12 new compositions which ease into terrain that goes beyond his root calling. He adds to the mood of the music by blending the musicians into the compositions, a shift of balance that adds fire and spit or ushers in the cool air that entice ...

Interview

Luis Perdomo: Walking Towards the Light

by R.J. DeLuke
May 14, 2012

Pianist Luis Perdomo's fingers dart across the keys, eloquently telling the stories that traverse his mind in that instant; doing so in a manner that enraptures an audience. He moves people, and does so in a manner that appears, on the surface, easy. Like great athletes. Like other great musicians. This is one of the finer pianists out there, playing music from his heart and with plentiful chops and great vision. Perdomo's name--he hails from Venezuela--at times has ...

Book Review

Gregg Allman: My Cross to Bear

by Doug Collette
May 13, 2012

My Cross to BearGregg Allman w/ Alan LightHardback; 380 pagesISBN 978-0062112033William Morrow2012 The most vibrant interludes in guitarist and singer Gregg Allman's autobiography are those where he talks about songwriting. His accounts of exchanging and refining ideas, by himself or collaboratively, carries a level of engagement hard to find elsewhere in the 380 plus pages. Little wonder Allman values the gift of songwriting, and does so with ...

Album Review

Elliott Sharp Trio: Aggregat

by Robert Bush
May 13, 2012

Elliott Sharp is a musical provocateur of the highest order. Having developed his own distinctive voice on a wide variety of instruments, on Aggregat he focuses on tenor and soprano saxophones and guitar.His trio-mates were wisely selected. Double bassist Brad Jones has illuminated sessions by everyone from pianist Muhal Richard Abrams to pop-vocalist Sheryl Crow. Ches Smith is one of the most astonishing young drummers to hit the New York City jazz scene in quite some time, and ...

Live Review

Greg Lake: Westbury, NY, April 22, 2012

by Mike Perciaccante
May 13, 2012

Greg Lake: The Songs of A Lifetime NYCB Theatre at Westbury Westbury, New York April 22, 2012 Emerson, Lake & Palmer, King Crimson, Ringo Starr, Percy Sledge, Robert Fripp and The Who...what they all have in common is Greg Lake. Lake is the voice behind the original King Crimson (which he founded along with Fripp) and Emerson, Lake & Palmer. He has also recorded with The Who and has toured with Ringo and Sledge, among ...