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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Album Review

Little Feat: Waiting for Columbus

Read "Waiting for Columbus" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
April 29, 2012

...He's got two degrees in Bebop, a Ph.D in Swing, he's the master of rhythm, he's a rock and roll king?" The art of slide guitar, that method of playing using a metal or glass tube and sliding it on guitar strings typically tuned to an open chord, such as Gmaj or Emaj, achieved its modern quasar in the Allman Brothers Band's leader, Duane Allman. He emerged, as if shot from a cannon, revolutionizing the style between ...

Bailey's Bundles

The London Blues of Zoë Schwarz

by C. Michael Bailey
April 29, 2012

The American music genres blues and jazz are the subatomic particles of every note played since their commission to media in the early part of the last century. While one did not beget the other, were this a Venn diagram, there would exist an overlapping of blues and jazz in that place behind the roadhouse on an unfiltered whiskey Friday night - all urgent zippers and hiked skirts against the fence. It is the blues that gives ...

Album Review

MMM Quartet: Live at the Metz' Arsenal

Read "Live at the Metz' Arsenal" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
April 29, 2012

World-renowned improvisers align for a meeting of the minds on this live date, spawning a multidimensional stance, where on-the-fly invention rules the roost. The breadth of each artists' scope and stylization yields a scrappy game plan, containing a succession of abstracts which move forward at a brisk pace. Electronics pioneer Alvin Curran supplies bizarre background treatments, intersecting many of the asymmetrical patterns or mimicking the group dialogues. In a sense, he offers a translucent perspective within the body of this ...

Live Review

Esperanza Spalding: Buffalo, NY, April 18, 2012

by Kelly E Schultz
April 29, 2012

Esperanza Spalding Radio Music SocietyUniversity of Buffalo Center for The Arts/ Esperanza SpauldingBuffalo, NYApril 18, 2012It's always a good day when jazz comes to Buffalo, NY. It's a great day when a Grammy Award-winning jazz artist performs for an intimate crowd at University at Buffalo's Center of the Performing Arts.Esperanza Spalding, Grammy's 2011 Best New Artist (much to the chagrin of Justin Beiber fans), kicked off her Radio Music Society tour earlier this ...

Album Review

Oriole: Every New Day

Read "Every New Day" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
April 29, 2012

There's a stark beauty to Every New Day, the third album from Oriole, that speaks of the majesty of vast open spaces. For the most part, the warmth and splendor of these spaces gives the music a positivity and optimism, but there are also times when it takes on a more downbeat and reflective quality. The combination results in a gorgeous collection of tunes, an album of genuine beauty.The open spaces that inspired the music on Every New ...

Album Review

Eyal Vilner Big Band: Introducing The Eyal Vilner Big Band

Read "Introducing The Eyal Vilner Big Band" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
April 29, 2012

Tel Aviv, Israel-born saxophonist, composer and bandleader Eyal Vilner moved to New York City in 2007 to continue his studies at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music. After touring Israel in the summer of 2008, he decided to establish a New York version of his all-star Israeli big band. Enlisting fourteen of the city's finest musicians, the ensemble boasts such players as veteran saxophonist Dan Block, trumpeter and director of the Julliard Jazz Orchestra Brandon Lee, Grammy Award-winning ...

Album Review

Wes Montgomery: Echoes of Indiana Avenue

Read "Echoes of Indiana Avenue" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
April 29, 2012

In welcome fits of serendipity, the manuscripts of previously unknown European classical compositions are found in attics, old churches or forgotten libraries and brought to light with no little fanfare. In the United States, there is an equivalent situation with hitherto previously unissued jazz recordings being revealed in the most unlikely places. In a recent example, producer Michael Cuscuna got wind of some unissued music by guitarist Wes Montgomery (1923-1968) being offered on eBay. Due to the short length of ...

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Album Review

Allman Brothers Band: At Fillmore East

Read "At Fillmore East" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
April 28, 2012

The Blues is atomic music in the respect that as a part of American Popular Music it is an indivisible element, one that cannot be deconstructed. The Blues is a part of every genre of popular music: Rock, R&B, Jazz, Country, Bluegrass, and Rap. How did the blues insinuate itself into every popular form of American Music? By being pulled through and interpreted by the experiential filter of those musicians talented enough to understand and perform it. ...

Album Review

Mark Soskin: Nino Rota

Read "Nino Rota" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
April 28, 2012

Mark Soskin is probably best known for his work with saxophone legend Sonny Rollins. As Rollins' pianist from 1978 to 1991, he contributed to a string of several marvelous CD releases on the Milestone label. These included Dancing in the Dark (1987), which opened with a masterfully straightforward cover of the pop song, “Just Once," that featured Soskin's sparkling electric keyboards.Soskin's work with Rollins was mostly in the realm of jazz standards, Great American Songbook tunes, and the ...

Extended Analysis

Josh Maxey: The Language of Sound and Spirit

by Dave Sumner
April 28, 2012

Josh MaxeyThe Language of Sound and SpiritSelf Produced2012Sometimes it's all about setting the tone.If done right, if the musician finds a way to indelibly stamp the album's vision in those brief opening moments, no matter what comes after, those notes are imprinted on the listener's ears. And if the music varies from opening note to last, the juxtaposition of the memory of the introductory sound and that which follows, potentially ...