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

Chloe Brisson: Blame It On My Youth

Read "Blame It On My Youth" reviewed by David A. Orthmann

by David A. Orthmann
April 14, 2012

Chloe Brisson, a young, prodigiously talented singer in the early stages of a presumably long and fruitful career, had the good fortune to record in exactly the right circumstances. Saxophonist Fred Haas, Brisson's teacher and mentor, wrote arrangements for thirteen tracks that are tailor-made for her voice and interpretative skills. Nonetheless, Blame It On My Youth is much more than a singer's showcase. Throughout most of the record, the vocals, arrangements, and instrumental solos are of equal importance. Haas extracts ...

Live Review

Melissa Stylianou Quartet: New York City, NY, April 3, 2012

by Ernest Barteldes
April 14, 2012

Melissa Stylianou Quartet Jazz Standard New York, NY April 3, 2012During the second set of Toronto-born Melissa Stylianou's CD release event for Silent Movie (Anzic, 2012) at New York's Jazz Standard, the vocalist kicked things off with a rendition of Rodgers and Hammerstein's “It Might As Well Be Spring," played at a slow tempo and showcasing guitarist Pete McCann.The band was rounded out by pianist Jamie Reynolds, bassist Gary Wong and drummer Mike ...

Album Review

Sara Leib: Secret Love

Read "Secret Love" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
April 14, 2012

A cursory glance at the track listing for Secret Love may paint it as another simple celebration of standards, but that's not the case. Singer Sara Leib takes the road less traveled by delivering ear-opening, metrically twisted, stylistically broad interpretations of oft-covered classics with a to-die-for cast of cutting-edge collaborators. Leib, who holds degrees in music from the New England Conservatory and the University of Southern California, first entered the fray with It's Not The Moon (Self ...

Album Review

Jared Gold: Golden Child

Read "Golden Child" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
April 14, 2012

A string of enjoyable leader dates and some high profile work in guitarist Dave Stryker's organ-centric groups can be credited for the steady rise in organist Jared Gold's profile. His ability to live within the tradition while simultaneously building upon it has made him one to watch, and his constant and steady growth as a musician/composer has been evident from album to album. Golden Child, his fifth release for the Posi-Tone label since 2009, was actually recorded ...

Album Review

Darius Jones Quartet: Book of Mae'bul (Another Kind of Sunrise)

Read "Book of Mae'bul (Another Kind of Sunrise)" reviewed by Troy Collins

by Troy Collins
April 13, 2012

Book of Mæ'bul (Another Kind of Sunrise) is the third release from Darius Jones to document his impressive musical growth as a bandleader. Beyond his salient contributions to groups such as Little Women, Mike Pride's From Bacteria to Boys and Tanakh, Jones' 2009 AUM Fidelity debut, Man'ish Boy (A Raw & Beautiful Thing), established the young alto saxophonist as a force with which to be reckoned--a singular talent capable of holding his own in the company of acknowledged masters like ...

Live Review

Bill Frisell and Bill Morrison: Columbus, OH, March 31, 2012

by Mark Corroto
April 13, 2012

Bill Frisell TrioThe Great FloodThurber Theater, Ohio State UniversityColumbus, OHMarch 31, 2012Sometimes you can hear a song lyric for years, but it is not until it is sung just so that it hits home. Bill Frisell's Trio presented an original soundtrack to a film by director Bill Morrison about the great Mississippi flood of 1927 at The Ohio State University's Thurber Theater on Saturday, March 31, 2012. When the guitarist quoted Oscar Hammerstein ...

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Album Review

Gabriel Vicens: Point in Time

Read "Point in Time" reviewed by Jeff Dayton-Johnson

by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
April 13, 2012

On Point In Time, his debut date as a leader, Puerto Rican guitarist Gabriel Vicéns heads a solid quintet of young players, considerably bolstered by a couple of A-list substitutions from the highest echelons of Puerto Rican jazz: tenor saxophonist David Sánchez on a pair of tracks, and bassist Eddie Gomez on about half the record.Vicéns' guitar is ringing and clear, relying on relatively low-tech reverb. His personality as an improviser is already sure and well-defined; he is ...

Album Review

Myelin: Axon

by Jerry D'Souza
April 13, 2012

Music as a means of free expression has many votaries, but trumpeter Birgit Ulher and alto saxophonist Heddy Brubaker bring an interesting perspective to their investigation and manipulation of sound. Ulher, who has been involved with experimental music and free improvisation since 1982, seeks to enhance the sound possibilities of the trumpet. By extension she explores the relationship between sound and silence. Boubaker is no slouch either, turning a crackling imagination into amazing concepts that scuttle barriers.Boubaker plays ...

Album Review

Ricky Sweum: More Than Imaginable

Read "More Than Imaginable" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
April 13, 2012

West coast saxophonist Ricky Sweum grew up in Eugene, Oregon, and spent many years as a freelance musician in New York before embarking on a military career, joining the Air Force Academy Band in 2003. After a stint with prestigious jazz big band The Falconaires as lead tenor, in 2011 he moved on and now works with the Air Force Band of the Pacific in Anchorage, Alaska where he tours the U.S., Japan and Australia. Still, Sweum manages a professional ...

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Future Jazz

Transforming Jazz From Cultural Staple to Cultural Imperative

by Peter Gordon
April 13, 2012

Futurecasting is a time honored sport, ranging from questionable store front fortune tellers to Pulitzer Prize winners, giving us both hope and despair and always trumped by 20/20 hindsight. Jazz is a particularly difficult subject, given to voracious crosscurrents and turbulent discussions. Ask ten people, get eleven opinions. This year we have witnessed the heated questioning of whether the word jazz is even appropriate. Is jazz a force of nature or the result of nurture? Does jazz have ...