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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Extended Analysis

Bob Dylan and the Band: Before the Flood

by C. Michael Bailey
April 21, 2012

Bob Dylan / The Band Before the Flood Reprise 1974 You walk into the room / With your pencil in your hand You see somebody naked / And you say, “who is that man?" Before the Flood was Bob Dylan's first live recording to be commercial released. It was recorded during Tour '74, Dylan's first full- fledged tour since 1966, when he hit the road with The Band, then the ...

Profile

Carlos Cannon: Hitting It Big

by Don Howze
April 21, 2012

So what do you do if you're a smooth jazz recording artist like saxophonist Carlos Cannon, and one of your songs is quickly becoming the next big hit on the line dance club scene? “Get ready for YouTube and the line dance party," says Chicago-based line dance instructor Belynda Head.“Line dancers are always looking to learn new dances, especially if it's a likable song." And that song, says Head, is “To The Left, To The Right" from Cannon's ...

Album Review

Josh Quinlan Quintet: Mountain Time Standards

Read "Mountain Time Standards" reviewed by Florence Wetzel

by Florence Wetzel
April 21, 2012

Although the Gold Rush is long over, the Wild West still holds out the promise of reinvention and inspiration. For saxophonist Josh Quinlan, who came of musical age in Chicago and moved to Colorado in 2006, the Front Range jazz scene has been chock-full of opportunity: he is co-director of the Telluride All-Star Program, director of education for the Colorado nonprofit Gift of Jazz, executive director of the jazz label Dazzle Recordings, and creator of the education series Jazz for ...

Album Review

Indigo Kid: Indigo Kid

Read "Indigo Kid" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
April 21, 2012

Indigo Kid, the eponymous debut from this UK-based quartet, is a slow burner. At first, it seems pleasant enough: strongly melodic and musically tight, with well-arranged tunes. But with each additional play the melodies get stronger and the interplay between the guitar and tenor saxophone reveals more and more depth. Third or fourth time around, the album's subtle charms are firmly to the fore; resistance is futile.Indigo Kid's leader is guitarist/composer Dan Messore, a player with a warm, ...

Album Review

Dudley Owens / Aaron Wright Band: People Calling

Read "People Calling" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
April 21, 2012

Saxophonist Dudley Owens and bassist Aaron Wright bring together (in classic quintet format) a band intent on expanding the language of Miles Davis's second great quintet from within. On People Calling the band does exactly this: they create a late '60s sonic image stamped in 21st Century digital. The writing is firmly post bop, with Atlantic period Ornette Coleman fighting its way out. These influences are governed by a firm compositional vision intent on cleaning up the excesses of post ...

Album Review

Westchester Jazz Orchestra: Maiden Voyage Suite

Read "Maiden Voyage Suite" reviewed by Nicholas F. Mondello

by Nicholas F. Mondello
April 21, 2012

Imagine a painter, sculptor or writer attempting to recreate a masterpiece done by a Picasso, Michelangelo or Shakespeare. The task redefines challenge and chutzpah. While jazz recreations are more common than those in other arts--Clark Terry and the Chicago Jazz Orchestra's marvelous revisit (Americana Music, 2004) of the Miles Davis/Gil Evans' Porgy and Bess (Columbia, 1958), for example--little recreated music has equaled the excellence of its original source material better than the Westchester Jazz Orchestra's Maiden Voyage Suite.In ...

Behind the Lens With...

Behind The Lens With Brian O'Connor

by Brian O'Connor
April 21, 2012

Meet Brian O'Connor: Since my early twenties I have been interested in both photography and jazz. Photography started with the purchase of a secondhand (used, preowned) 35mm Ilford Sportsman camera at £6 ($9) (one week's wages then). Three shutter speeds, no metering, guesswork focusing. The next purchase was £12 ($18) on a separate exposure meter. This proved to be the best investment made, for a combination of the two soon meant that I quickly learned to ...

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Extended Analysis

The Band: Rock of Ages

by C. Michael Bailey
April 20, 2012

I'd rather die happy than not die at all... Even its name is an enigma—The Band: a collection of four Canadians and one Arkansan, born to back up another Arkansan, Ronnie Hawkins, as “Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks," then Bob Dylan and then to exist as their own entity—The Band. Five disparate and different individuals who united for a decade, helping define it musically by producing music so much part of the North American collective unconscious as to ...

Extended Analysis

John Zorn: Gnostic Preludes

by Nenad Georgievski
April 20, 2012

John ZornGnostic PreludesTzadik2012 Composer John Zorn is a man of many projects, genres and styles. When once asked about styles, in Option, he replied “I'm not afraid of styles; I like them all." He also has a short attention span and because of that his music is a unique aural crosscut of styles--be it avant jazz, classical, cartoon cutups, free improv, computer music--continuously plunging himself into less expected musical territories. Being ...

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Album Review

George Crowley Quartet: Paper Universe

Read "Paper Universe" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
April 20, 2012

There are times on Paper Universe, George Crowley's debut album, when the young saxophonist and composer sounds like he's been sitting by the side of Coleman Hawkins or Lester Young. There are times when he flies out of the speakers like he invented hard bop. Then a few minutes later he's creating long, flowing melodic lines with a more contemporary edge. It's impressive stuff from an imaginative young talent.Crowley's band mates lend him exemplary support. Pianist Kit Downes ...