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.

Live From Philadelphia

March-April 2012: Dan Hanrahan, Matthew Shipp, Danilo Perez, Aerial Photograph

by RJ Johnson
May 10, 2012

Dan Hanrahan TrioMoonstone Arts CenterFebruary 22, 2012The Moonstone Arts Center, one of Philadelphia's more successful outlets for jazz music, has been growing in popularity amongst local musicians as a venue geared towards supporting original music. Dan Hanrahan, a guitarist well versed in jazz tradition, led his organ trio through a set of arranged standards and original compositions.The set began with the standard “I'm Getting Sentimental Over You," arranged with an updated bebop-influenced ...

Album Review

Dan Cavanagh Trio: The Heart of the Geyser

Read "The Heart of the Geyser" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
May 10, 2012

There's no arguing that the best of the best in the piano trio field comes from the longterm units: on the younger end of the spectrum there's Brad Mehldau's group with bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jeff Ballard, who replaced his long term predecessor in that chair, Jorge Rossy; and, of course, on the legendary end, there's Keith Jarrett's Standards Trio, with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Jack DeJohnette, who have been honing their artistry in the piano trio endeavor ...

Album Review

Yoni Kretzmer 2Bass Quartet: Weight

Read "Weight" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
May 10, 2012

Israeli saxophonist Yoni Kretzmer is one of the promising musicians that emerged from Israel's small and familiar scene. He has a unique musical vision, is well-versed in the history of the forward-thinking genres of jazz and is fearless and ambitious. So it is no surprise that, after relocating to New York, he formed a working group with local, like-minded musicians. The 2Bass Quartet debut is released after a yearlong series of performances that solidified the sonic aesthetics ...

Album Review

Jimmy Owens: The Monk Project

Read "The Monk Project" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
May 10, 2012

Who better to pay homage to one of the musical geniuses of the 20th century than seven of today's most idiosyncratic artists? The septet is lead by Jimmy Owens, who is known for his versatility in settings as diverse as swing bands and avant-garde ensembles; most notably, for this undertaking, he organized a concert of Thelonious Monk music at Carnegie Hall in 1974 that featured the legendary pianist himself. Although The Monk Project features nine of the ...

Album Review

Bad Luck: Bloodroot

by Dave Wayne
May 10, 2012

Available as a download only, Bad Luck's Bloodroot is a fine example of the extremely powerful and virtuosic, cutting-edge music coming out of Seattle these days. Sure, drummer Chris Icasiano and saxophonist Neil Welch make an unholy racket for much of the track's generous twenty-plus minutes duration, yet a determined sense of focus is quite palpable: this is freely improvised music with a strong sense of direction.Welch possesses a raw, cavernous, unforgiving tenor sound that brings both Peter ...

Hardly Strictly Jazz

England Swings Like A Pendulum Do

by Skip Heller
May 9, 2012

Several years ago, when the Skip Heller Trio was touring all the time, I came across a disc called London Is The Place For Me: Trinidadian Calypso In London, 1950-1956 (Honest Jons, 2002), a collection of calyspo music recorded in London. The music and accompanying thick booklet were full of revelations: the history of postwar migration from Trinidad to London, the role of jazz, Jamaican music and Latin music in the evolution of calypso... there was a lot. The first ...

Album Review

Shirley: From a Bright Clearing

Read "From a Bright Clearing" reviewed by Florence Wetzel

by Florence Wetzel
May 9, 2012

It's hard to pinpoint the exact moment when “fusion" became a dirty word in jazz, but it definitely occurred sometime in the 1980s. Although fusion had been embraced by many musicians and fans, there was suddenly an overriding philosophy that “real" jazz did not incorporate electric instruments or electronics. This idea has lost currency over the decades, and there's a new crop of musicians who do not labor under this invisible rule. These folks are picking up where fusion forefathers ...

Album Review

Atomic Five: Atomic Five

Read "Atomic Five" reviewed by Dave Wayne

by Dave Wayne
May 9, 2012

Intriguing, multi-sectioned compositions carry the day on Atomic 5's eponymously-titled debut CD. Written by pianist Beavan Flanagan, guitarist Nicolas Godmaire and saxophonist Steven Salcedo, the nine originals that comprise Atomic 5 nevertheless have a continuous narrative flow that makes for a musically satisfying and conceptually fresh listen. The playing throughout is sharp and nimble, though drummer Aaron Landsberg stands out as a real spark plug. His dexterous playing gets exuberant at just the right times. He's no slouch with the ...

Album Review

Euan Burton: Occurrences

Read "Occurrences" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
May 9, 2012

Bassist/composer Euan Burton takes a prosaic approach to naming the tunes on Occurrences, but that's where such matter-of-factness ends. Burton's music--characterized by a calm, meditative, atmosphere for the most part--is melodically strong and engaging as it moves through this suite of seven tunes.Burton, from East Kilbride in Scotland, is equally at home on bass guitar and double bass. He's worked with New York saxophonist Will Vinson and Irish guitarist Mark McKnight in their own bands, played bass for ...

Album Review

Jazz Punks: Jazz Punks: Smashups

Read "Jazz Punks: Smashups" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
May 9, 2012

A homogenous and playfully bastardized take on modern jazz, the Los Angeles-based Jazz Punks offers a rather chic, and youthful blend of jazz, punk-rock and rock on its debut outing. It's an undulating approach and at times, pleasantly schizophrenic by design. Here, electric guitarist Sal Polcino looms as the bridge between the rock and jazz element to augment the all-acoustic instrumentation tendered by his cohorts. The album comprises a hodgepodge of quotes and lucid interpretations of jazz and rock classics, ...