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

Curtis Fuller: Down Home

Read "Down Home" reviewed by Florence Wetzel

by Florence Wetzel
May 7, 2012

The jazz world of the fifties and sixties was undeniably a golden age, and legendary trombonist Curtis Fuller was one of the era's key voices. Throughout his sixty-year career, Fuller has worked with some of jazz's foundational players: he appears on saxophonist John Coltrane's Blue Train (Blue Note, 1957), he was part of drummer Art Blakey's smoking hot, early sixties Jazz Messengers, plus he worked with trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, saxophonists Hank Mobley and Benny Golson, bassists Paul ...

Album Review

Ulf Wakenius: Vagabond

Read "Vagabond" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
May 7, 2012

Swedish guitarist Ulf Wakenius is perhaps best known for his ten year stint in pianist Oscar Peterson's trio, following in the footsteps of guitarists Barney Kessel, Herb Ellis and Joe Pass. Wakenius clocked up enough road miles with Peterson to have traveled to the moon and back, and he also toured extensively and recorded with bassists Ray Brown and Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen. These heavyweight associations have tended to overshadow his own projects as leader, which date back more than two ...

Big Band Report

The "Desert Island" Revisited

by Jack Bowers
May 7, 2012

Back in the last millennium, shortly after this column first saw the light of day, I posted a list of twenty “desert island" albums, those that would be snugly ensconced in a crash-proof, water-tight carrying case should yours truly ever be marooned on a miniature atoll with nothing to relieve the boredom save palm trees, coconuts, sandy beaches and ample electrical outlets. Here is the list as it appeared then: 1. Buddy Rich, Big Swing Face (Pacific ...

Album Review

Vicious World: Vicious World Plays The Music of Rufus Wainwright

Read "Vicious World Plays The Music of Rufus Wainwright" reviewed by Dave Wayne

by Dave Wayne
May 7, 2012

Rufus Wainwright is one of those musicians whose work straddles several different musical genres--pop, rock, Broadway, and folk music all figure prominently into his oeuvre. While not a jazz artist by any stretch, Wainwright's music is certainly sophisticated and multilayered enough to withstand instrumental reinvention by modern jazz artists. Even without vocals, Wainwright's artistry literally thrives in the hands of trombonist Matthew McDonald and saxophonist Aaron Irwin who, as co-leaders of Vicious World (the name of the group is, in ...

Album Review

Steve Lehman Trio: Dialect Fluorescent

Read "Dialect Fluorescent" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
May 7, 2012

Among studies with new music icons, reedman Anthony Braxton and trombonist George Lewis, alto saxophonist Steve Lehman has emerged as an important figures in the recent shift towards a more radical spin on jazz. Pushing the envelope is a common thrust for Lehman, who historically enjoys working within a tight-knit trio setting. On this release, he tenders a fervent mix of jazz standards and originals. Lehman's chromatic attack features a sweet-toned sound, often dissected with rippling flurries and ...

Interview

Adam Cruz: Making Some Room

by R.J. DeLuke
May 7, 2012

Playing drums with some of the finest musicians around, touring the globe with them, and teaching music can be a lot on the plate of a person fortunate enough--and talented enough--to find themselves in that situation. In fact, that's a solid career.But for Adam Cruz--a much sought-after drummer on the New York City scene when he's not touring with Danilo Pérez or David Sánchez and doing other projects of that ilk--there was always more. Composing and pursuing his ...

Album Review

Aaron Novik: Secret of Secrets

Read "Secret of Secrets" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
May 6, 2012

Aaron Novik blends the readings of the Kabbalah into a nouveau, borderless set of musical inferences, combining horns, strings, electronics and disparate instrumentation with Jewish mysticism and man's destiny into a shadowy portraiture. Featuring ominous passages and weighty movements, the San Francisco-based leader integrates his electric clarinet amid a cavalcade of psycho-rock sorties and lean improvisational segments, embedded into an ultra-progressive program. Here, Jewish traditional music is often low-key, but suitably presented in various forms and flavors. However, ...

From Far and Wide

John (and Bucky) Pizzarelli: First CD with Paul McCartney

by Fradley Garner
May 6, 2012

John--and Bucky--Pizzarelli's First CD with Paul McCartneyKisses on the Bottom (Hear Music, 2012), the album of vocal standards Paul McCartney always wanted to make with The Beatles, is the knighted bassist/singer's first release in nearly five years. Diana Krall and members of the pianist-arranger's band back him on most tracks. The New York Times singled out guest guitarist John Pizzarelli's “buoyant, ukulele-like sound." Could the three leading Times jazz reviewers be referring to John's unmentioned father? Bucky Pizzarelli ...

Extended Analysis

Bob Baldwin: Betcha By Golly Wow - The Music of Thom Bell

by Jeff Winbush
May 6, 2012

Bob BaldwinBetcha By Golly Wow: The Songs Of Thom BelleOne2012New urban jazz keyboardist Bob Baldwin disdains the “smooth jazz" moniker, but that doesn't necessarily mean he isn't familiar with the conventions of the genre. He's got ideas that don't have a thing to do with cranking out infinite versions of the same old sound with a few new riffs. Baldwin is a bit more ambitious than that and with Betcha By Golly ...

Album Review

Beats And Pieces Big Band: Big Ideas

Read "Big Ideas" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
May 6, 2012

Beats And Pieces Big Band: a great name, for this is a band that knows how to emphasize the beat. Big Ideas, the debut album from this Manchester-based ensemble (a four-track EP was released in 2009 but is now deleted), is filled with danceable grooves and rhythms, mixed in with some more reflective melodies to create an absorbing and stimulating set.The band--the brainchild of Ben Cottrell, who's the director and the composer of all of the tunes except ...