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

Natalia Calderon Quartet: Flor Azul

Read "Flor Azul" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
April 19, 2012

If one were to examine the proliferation of jazz on a global scale, Spain might be a good place to start. Though it is recognized that Spanish music, primarily flamenco, has achieved a strong foothold with jazz aficionados, there are numerous artists in Spain that are performing jazz on a regular basis and their ranks appear to be growing. With the release of Flor Azul, vocalist, songwriter, and producer Natalia Calderón will be acknowledged as a rising talent in the ...

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Live Review

Cape Town Jazz Festival 2012

by John Kelman
April 18, 2012

Cape Town Jazz FestivalCape Town, South AfricaMarch 30-31, 2012An invite to cover the 13th annual Cape Town Jazz Festival would have been reason enough to travel over 8,000 miles to South Africa. But when the invite, from South Africa Tourism, stretched to an expansive ten-day trip--beginning in Johannesburg, continuing on to Cape Town and ending at the lovely Lukimbi Lodge in Kruger National Park for two days of safari--it became an absolutely irresistible opportunity. Add to that ...

Album Review

Paul Musso: Tonescapes

Read "Tonescapes" reviewed by Florence Wetzel

by Florence Wetzel
April 18, 2012

It's always an exciting moment when a musician decides to take the plunge and release a debut CD, and it's especially noteworthy when the musician in question is already mature and deeply seasoned. This is certainly the case with guitarist Paul Musso and Tonescapes. Over the past decades, Musso has played in a diverse range of settings including jazz clubs, the Colorado Symphony, the Boulder Festival Orchestra, and the Aspen Music Festival. He's also taught guitar for almost twenty years ...

Album Review

Lola Danza: The Island

Read "The Island" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
April 18, 2012

Vocalist Lola Danza has always been an original thinker, but that doesn't get you very far in a field crowded with people fitting that description. What makes Danza stand out is her strength of vision and steadfast commitment to following her muse, no matter how non-commercial it may be. With Janya (Evolver, 2011), Danza and her fellow female band mates explored Korean-influenced avant-garde avenues of expression, creating far-reaching fantasies that could alternately fascinate or frighten. On The Island, Danza takes ...

Extended Analysis

Indigo Kid: Indigo Kid

by Chris May
April 18, 2012

Indigo KidIndigo KidBabel Label2012Indigo Kid is the debut, one heckuva debut, by the British guitarist Dan Messore, fronting one heckuva quartet. Indigo Kid comprises two parts new talent and two parts young veterans. New talent is represented by Messore and drummer Gethlin Jones, experience by tenor saxophonist Iain Ballamy and bassist Tim Harries.On this showing, Messore sounds like a contender-in-waiting for Pat Metheny's mantle. His sound is bright and warm, ...

Album Review

Carmen Lundy: Changes

by James Nadal
April 18, 2012

Contemporary jazz vocalists, caught in the current trend to accelerate their careers, are often indistinguishable from the pack, the essence of their music lost in haste. With her release of Changes , veteran singer Carmen Lundy proves that this premise does not apply to her, rising to that proverbial summit to enjoy the rarefied air of the chosen few.Graced and gifted with a smooth, effortless voice, Lundy has been highly heralded since her landmark 2005 record, Live at ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With Kyoko Kitamura

by AAJ Staff
April 18, 2012

Meet Kyoko Kitamura: A former journalist with childhood piano training at Juilliard Pre-College and a stint as a one-time war reporter on her résumé, Kyoko Kitamura is an oddball vocal improviser and composer who has performed and/or recorded with many distinguished musicians including Anthony Braxton, Reggie Workman, Steve Coleman, Jim Staley and Taylor Ho Bynum. Recently, she appears on Trillium E (New Braxton House 2011), the first ever studio-recording of an Anthony Braxton opera, and released her first ...

Album Review

SoSaLa: Nu World Trash

Read "Nu World Trash" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
April 18, 2012

SoSaLa is the brainchild of vocalist, saxophonist, music activist and native Iranian Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi, who fuses Persian influences with Western instrumentation amid indigenous platforms, summoning the Middle Eastern contingent. A well-travelled musician, Ladjevardi immerses his craft into quite a few projects and multifaceted ensemble-based frameworks. He resides in New York City, and as the story goes, blasted his horn in front of the United Nations as a means for supporting the Green Movement in Iran. “Vatan Kojai?" ...

Album Review

Taurey Butler: Taurey Butler

Read "Taurey Butler" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
April 17, 2012

A keen interest in learning and a predilection for Oscar Peterson-style piano playing seem to be the two biggest guiding forces behind pianist Taurey Butler's life journey thus far. The New Jersey native started on piano in his youth, but put the instrument on the back burner until a Peterson-produced epiphany rekindled his interest in the 88s toward the end of his high school days. While he clearly had talent, he never put all of his eggs ...

Opinion

Bridges vs. Walls

by J. Scott Fugate
April 17, 2012

If you ask ten Americans “what does it mean to be an American?" you might well get 10 different answers.So it goes with America's only original, indigenous art form.Wait... we have one of those?Yes indeed--although it's rarely given the National respect or attention it deserves.Thus, if you ask ten Americans what our only original, indigenous art form may be, the correct answer might not even make the list.Baseball, hot dogs ...