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.

Extended Analysis

Heiner Stadler: Brains on Fire

by Hrayr Attarian
April 20, 2012

Heiner StadlerBrains on FireLabor Records2012One of the most exciting reissues of the first quarter of 2012 is composer and pianist Heiner Stadler's pioneering Brains on Fire, originally released in 1973. The two-CD reissue adds three lengthy, previously unreleased tracks and informative and well-researched liner notes by critic Howard Mandel. Interestingly, Stadler occupies the piano chair only on five of the eight pieces, recorded over a seven-year span in a ...

Album Review

Spike Wilner: La Tendresse

Read "La Tendresse" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
April 20, 2012

Joy.But having been told that one word reviews aren't sufficient, how about this: Pianist Spike Wilner's disc La Tendresse is pure joy.Wilner can probably best be described as an old soul occupying a modernist corpus. His foundations in ragtime and stride piano inform the music heard here, but like Thelonious Monk, he uses the tradition as the architecture for the anatomy of a modern player. Even his take on “Crepuscule With Nellie," the classic Monk expression ...

Album Review

Mari Wilson: Cover Stories

Read "Cover Stories" reviewed by John Eyles

by John Eyles
April 20, 2012

Back in the 1980s, when she was renowned for her retro beehive hairstyle and her spectacular live shows, Mari Wilson had a string of chart-making hits that included “Just What I Always Wanted" and “Cry Me a River." These days, the only remaining vestige of that hairstyle is in the name of her record label. More recently, Wilson has appeared in musical theater (including playing Dusty Springfield in Dusty: The Musical), been a BBC radio presenter and, significantly, started the ...

Album Review

Tribal Tech: X

by Ian Patterson
April 20, 2012

According to guitarist Scott Henderson, Tribal Tech never broke up; the band's work simply halted in 2000 when bassist Gary Willis moved to Spain. Henderson, keyboardist Scott Kinsey and drummer Kirk Covington continued to play in each others' respective projects in the following years. The first whispers of reunion came in 2009, and subsequently gathered force. Finally, a year after re-locking horns in thirty improvised jams and twelve years since Rocket Science (Tone Center, 2000), the doyens of modern fusion ...

Album Review

Ran Blake: Vilnius Noir

Read "Vilnius Noir" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
April 19, 2012

Although recorded in concert in a church in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius Noir has the feel of eavesdropping on a late night conversation between two old friends who don't need to say very much for the other to grasp the intended meaning. Although guitarist David Knife" Fabris hails from a different generation than pianist composer Ran Blake, they share a sophisticated approach to the material at hand in this set of duos and solos. They met at the New England ...

Profile

Evan Parker: Deciphering the Noise

by Henry Cooke
April 19, 2012

Imagine for a moment that the average jazz enthusiast is similar to a competent swimmer: safe within the confines of their local pool they're comfortable, perhaps a little brash.Individual lanes silently determine your path whilst lifeguards monitor your tempo with their special brand of overprotective nonchalance. Even the reassuring sting of chlorine serves as a constant reminder, protection from the unpleasant, the random.Now pluck this unsuspecting musical metaphor from the familiar embrace of the community pool ...

Film Review

New Thinking in Jazz Education: Lee Konitz and Jean-Michel Pilc

by Dan Bilawsky
April 19, 2012

The idea of making the mold while breaking the mold may seem paradoxical, but it's appropriate when exploring education. The education sector has become obsessed with standardization--in regard to everything from pedagogy and methodology to content--but nobody seems to address the fact that much of the content itself wouldn't exist if not for original thinkers who refused to adhere to the norms and expectations that shackle others. The very idea of learning is to better yourself and go a step ...

Album Review

Neil Welch: Sleeper

Read "Sleeper" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
April 19, 2012

Sleeper is a quality product from noted Seattle new music and jazz saxophonist Neil Welch, who composed the lone 28-minute title track based on an incident that occurred during the US presence in Iraq. Sans rhythm section, Welch paints a vivid storyline, interspersing microtonal extended notes with deft subtleties and touches upon contemporary classical frameworks. Since the plot is based on a military endeavor, he generates an impassioned and intertwining progression of musical events throughout.At times listening to ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With Skip Heller

by AAJ Staff
April 19, 2012

Meet Skip Heller: Grew up in Philly, enticed by all kinds of improvised music--jazz, bluegrass, blues, rockabilly. Played with Yma Sumac, Phil Alvin, Les Baxter, Wanda Jackson, DJ Bonbrake, Cannibal and the Headhunters, NRBQ, Karen Mantler... get the idea?Instrument(s): Guitar.Teachers and/or influences? Mose Allison, Willie Nelson, Bill Evans, John Hartford, Roger Miller, Bacharach/David, Doug Sahm, Hank Jones, The Beatles, Ahmad Jamal, Johnny Mercer, Merle Haggard, War, Bob Wills, Jethro Burns, ...

Album Review

Sebastian Gille: Anthem

by Dan Bilawsky
April 19, 2012

Given that a picture can be worth a thousand words and that saxophonist Sebastian Gille only uses one to define this album, the album artwork may be the better descriptor here. The icy peaks that adorn the cover of Anthem can be seen as a visual representation of the wide open vistas that Gille explores and creates. He paints slow snow drifts and rides through exhilarating gusts of wind balancing beauty and danger, a sense of uncertainty holding them both ...