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

Eri Yamamoto Trio: The Next Page

Read "The Next Page" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
April 5, 2012

It is arguable whether a bar is the right venue for jazz in the 21st century. On any given night most of the punters are there for a chat with friends over drinks, maybe to pick someone up, and just perhaps to appreciate the music. For the last decade, Japanese pianist Eri Yamamoto and her trio have held down a regular weekend gig at Arthur's Tavern in NYC's Greenwich Village. Anyone who has made their way along the narrow bar ...

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Big Band Caravan

Stan Kenton-UW Eau Claire / Kirk MacDonald Orchestra / Kansas City Jazz Orchestra

by Jack Bowers
April 5, 2012

Stan Kenton Orchestra/UW-Eau Claire Jazz Ensemble 1Double Feature, Vol. 3Tantara Productions2012 Volume 3 in Tantara's ongoing two-CD series of Double Features, encompassing heretofore unissued music by the Stan Kenton Orchestra and guests, covers parts of five Kenton concerts spanning the years 1971-77 on Disc 1, and presents a dozen never-recorded charts by Dee Barton, Bill Fritz, Joe Coccia, Hank Levy, Willie Maiden and Ken Hanna, performed by the University of Wisconsin-Eau ...

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Album Review

Carlos Jimenez / Mambo Dulcet: Red Tailed Hawk

Read "Red Tailed Hawk" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
April 5, 2012

Latin jazz flute players aren't exactly commonplace, but artists like Dave Valentin, Nestor Torres, Bobby Porcelli and, more recently, Mark Weinstein have helped to widen this avenue of instrumental exploration. They've paved the way and opened up a world of possibilities for fine and feisty flautists of the present and future to flourish in danceable domains. Carlos Jimenez is one of the beneficiaries of their trailblazing. Jimenez, who was brought up in New York, moved to Puerto ...

Album Review

Devin Gray: Dirigo Rataplan

Read "Dirigo Rataplan" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
April 5, 2012

Despite his youth, drummer Devin Gray has built an impressive resume and a well- deserved reputation as both an improviser and instrumentalist. His first CD as a leader, Dirigo Rataplan shows that he is not a slouch in the composition or bandleader department either. The record's title, loosely translated from Latin and French, means leading from the beat, and Gray's unique approach to the drum-set allows him to do just that--not an easy feat given the august ...

Album Review

Sabrina Lastman: The Candombe Jazz Sessions

Read "The Candombe Jazz Sessions" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
April 5, 2012

The Candombe Jazz Sessions reflects Sabrina Lastman gift of storytelling. It does not matter if it is an improvised wordless tale, a poetic interpretation sung in Spanish or Portuguese, or her thoughts put to music. It is always a vivid story, full of passionate dramatic nuances, elegance and charm and with a touch of irony. This album also present Lastman's eclectic tastes as an artist who was born in Montevideo, Uruguay (where she studied classical singing and ...

Album Review

Cathy Segal-Garcia and Yoonseung Cho: Bohemian

Read "Bohemian" reviewed by Nicholas F. Mondello

by Nicholas F. Mondello
April 5, 2012

The classic vocal-piano format can present itself in a myriad of ways, ranging from a more common singer-with-accompanist experience, with one melodically active and the other harmonically supportive, to a more cerebral, highly energized interplay and exploration of musical ideas. Bohemian, featuring vocalist Cathy Segal-Garcia and pianist Yoonseung Cho is an exquisite example of the latter. As the first collaboration between these two fine artists, this recording is a musical kaleidoscope of vocal sound textures, all swirling ...

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Extended Analysis

Theo Bleckmann: Hello Earth! The Music of Kate Bush

by Dave Sumner
April 4, 2012

Theo BleckmannHello Earth! The Music Of Kate BushWinter & Winter2012The 1980s possessed an incongruous hope for the future against a backdrop of possible nuclear annihilation, as if in the darkest of times, society retreated to a naive state. This is a generalization that doesn't, obviously, represent the entire gamut of human experience, yet it was there all the same. The majority of singer and composer Kate Bush's music came from that decade, ...

Album Review

Steve Lehman: Dialect Fluorescent

Read "Dialect Fluorescent" reviewed by Troy Collins

by Troy Collins
April 4, 2012

Currently a doctoral candidate in Music Composition at Columbia University, alto saxophonist Steve Lehman's previous releases for Pi Recordings include Travail, Transformation and Flow (2009), On Meaning (2007) and Demian as Post-Human (2005). On these cerebral endeavors, the former Fulbright scholar and Wesleyan graduate engaged his penchant for fusing vintage hard bop-style melodies with post-M-Base rhythmic structures--modernist affairs that deftly balanced nostalgic reverie with futuristic innovation.Compared to the high-minded conceptualism of Lehman's previous albums (the most recent explored ...

Extended Analysis

Yuri Goloubev: Titanic for a Bike

by Ian Patterson
April 4, 2012

Yuri GoloubevTitanic for a BikeCaligola2011The old saying, “if you want a job done ask a busy person," certainly applies to Russian bassist Yuri Goloubev, one of the hardest-working musicians in jazz. When not touring with his own small ensembles, he's criss-crossing Europe in the trios of pianists Gwilym Simcock, John Laws and Carlo Morena, or in the quartets of saxophonists Claudio Fasoli and Mattia Cigalini. And in the two years since Metafore ...

Album Review

e.s.t.: 301

by Bruce Lindsay
April 4, 2012

Australia in January 2007, the height of summer, a time for relaxing on the beach and for taking it easy in the post-Christmas comedown--but not for the Esbjörn Svensson Trio. Hiring Sydney's Studio 301 for a couple of days, the band spent its time jamming and improvising, yielding what would seemingly be the groundbreaking trio's final studio album, Leucocyte (ACT, 2008), for Svensson's untimely death was less than 18 months away. In late 2011, bassist Dan Berglund and drummer Magnus ...