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

White Hills: Frying on this Rock

Read "Frying on this Rock" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
April 25, 2012

Among other things, the New York City-based space rockers White Hills will give any stereo system a workout by pushing the limits of acceptable sonic distortion, sort of like a proving grounds for aural integrity. Unabashedly loud, and progressing with a massive wall-of-sound approach, this album tenders a psycho-rock brew tinged with thrashing guitar licks amid a few nods to Sonic Youth, or Pink Floyd on steroids.The magnum opus is the fifteen-minute closer, “I Write a Thousand Letters ...

Catching Up With

Elizabeth Shepherd: A Jewel is Born

by Anthony King
April 25, 2012

When a fetus becomes the impetus. “Impetus" is a favored word lobbed by Elizabeth Shepherd into the conversation these days as she takes a deep breath and plunges into the great unknown of traveling on the road with a family. The winsome vocalist and jazz pianist had her first child six months ago and has unplugged her tribe from their downtown Toronto home to cover Canada, literally performing dates from Nanaimo, B.C. to St. Johns, Nfld. “Gosh, that's the hope; ...

Album Review

Steve Kuhn: Wisteria

by John Kelman
April 24, 2012

Context, they say, is everything. With nearly 50 albums as a leader in a career that now spans 55 years--and stints with everyone from saxophonist Stan Getz and flugelhornist Art Farmer to trumpeter Kenny Dorham...even a brief stint with saxophonist John Coltrane--pianist Steve Kuhn's best and most varied work has been across the now-ten albums recorded for ECM. You need only look to Life's Backward Glances: Solo and Quartet (ECM, 2008)--the box collecting 1975's solo piano outing, Ecstasy; 1977's Motility, ...

Album Review

Henry P. Warner / Earl Freeman / Philip Spigner: Freestyle Band

Read "Freestyle Band" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
April 24, 2012

The Lithuania-based No Business label might seem an unlikely champion for the loft jazz of late '70s/early '80s New York City, but its track record speaks for itself. Rescued from obscurity, Freestyle Band follows on from 2010's acclaimed Muntu Recordings Box, Commitment: The Complete Recordings 1980-1983 and 2011's splendid Black Man's Blues / New York Collage. Originally self-released on vinyl in 1984, the album was little known at the time, featuring three of the Lower East Side's more unsung heroes: ...

Extended Analysis

Oriole: Every New Day

by Chris May
April 24, 2012

OrioleEvery New DayF-IRE2012Oriole's third album of sonorous South American and Iberian-flavored jazz has been some time coming. The London group, led by guitarist and composer Jonny Phillips, debuted with Song For The Sleeping in 2005 and followed up a year later with Migration (both F-IRE). There has been a six year gap before Every New Day, recorded in 2011 and originally planned for release the same year under a different title ("Mementos").

Album Review

Jazz Punks: Smashups

Read "Smashups" reviewed by Jeff Dayton-Johnson

by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
April 24, 2012

The conceit of the Los Angeleno Jazz Punks' debut is an appealing one: creative arrangements combining ("mashing up") really well-known jazz tunes ("Take The 'A' Train," “A Night In Tunisia," “Take Five") with really well known rock 'n' roll tunes ("Foxy Lady," “Should I Stay Or Should I Go?," “Misty Mountain Hop"). The jazz is mostly classic post-bop; the rock 'n' roll, mostly late-1960s/early-1970s FM fare. (Not all the sampled compositions are listed in the credits--half the fun is identifying ...

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Album Review

Mike Freeman: The Vibesman

Read "The Vibesman" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
April 24, 2012

The sound of the vibraphone glows--a ringing and sustained sonic luminescence. Current masters of the instrument include Gary Burton, Joe Locke, Bobby Hutcherson, and the perhaps lesser-known but also masterful Mike Freeman. With his percussion-soaked group Zonavibe--that includes, besides the vibes, the sounds of marimba, and kalimba, congas, bongos, campana and timbales--Freeman stirs up a multicultural brew of vibrant optimism and Latin and world jazz grooves. Tenor sax and flute, steeped in an organized rhythmic clamor on the ...

Interview

Anoushka Shankar: A Celebration of Joy

by Lloyd N. Peterson Jr.
April 24, 2012

Anoushka Shankar is one of the rare artists whose attitude and creativity reflects her love, respect and appreciation for all people and cultures in the world today. This is contrary to traditional teachings and beliefs, which have historically taught patriotism for one's country and culture specifically. But Anoushka Shankar is not your typical contemporary artist. Certainly growing up in the presence of Yehudi Menuhin, George Harrison and her father, Ravi Shankar--three of our greatest humanitarian artists--didn't hurt. But Shankar is ...

Album Review

Roscoe Mitchell: Numbers

by John Sharpe
April 23, 2012

What's the difference between composition and improvisation once the music has been committed to disc? At that point even the wildest flights of fancy become fixed and immutable, able to be reheated and pored over at leisure. One difference may lie in the notation-defying musical characteristics integral to the finest improvisations: continual variation of tone and timbre and a high degree of rhythmic complexity. This distinction could apply to expositions by reeds or strings, but it becomes less pertinent for ...

Album Review

Erb - Longberg-Holm - Roebke - Rosaly: Sack

by Glenn Astarita
April 23, 2012

Swiss saxophonist Christoph Erb aligns with prominent exponents of Chicago's nu-jazz, avant-garde scene for a highly expressionistic incursion, modeled with his breathy microtonal notes and free-form abstractions. Blotted by manifold sound-sculpting implementations, rolling rhythms and budding crash and burn stylizations, the musical characteristics radiate an extended reach where anything is possible.The band kicks off the proceedings with “Karung," a piece engineered with unnerving vistas and drummer Frank Rosaly's bustling asymmetrical grooves amid cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm's furious parts, projecting ...