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.

379

Album Review

Yelena Eckemoff: Forget-me-not

Read "Forget-me-not" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
March 31, 2012

Russian-born pianist Yelena Eckemoff comes from a diverse artistic background. Having studied both classical and jazz, she has performed in concert halls and with experimental jazz/rock ensembles. This versatility is on display on Forget-me-not, a disc comprised of ten original compositions with a unifying theme: a floating, dreamy atmosphere filled with cerebral and stimulating tone poems.Eckemoff weaves her different influences into her improvisations with seamless ease. The title track opens with inimitable percussionist Marilyn Mazur's sparse cymbals followed ...

153

Album Review

Phronesis: Walking Dark

Read "Walking Dark" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
March 30, 2012

As the pile of talented and exciting piano trios continues to grow ever higher, it takes a very talented and exciting threesome to rise to the top and stay there. Enter Phronesis. Up on the peak with its third album--the award-winning Alive (Edition Records, 2010), Jazz Album Of The Year in both Jazzwise and Mojo magazines--the trio is emphatically still there with album number four, Walking Dark.Danish bassist Jasper Høiby leads the band, which he formed in 2005 ...

Catching Up With

Catching Up With Gary Husband

by Ian Patterson
March 30, 2012

Gary Husband has wind in his sails these days. The pianist/keyboardist/drummer and composer has released three outstanding records in nearly as many years, all on Abstract Logix: the heady post-bop Hotwired (2009); the jazz-fusion all-star extravaganza Dirty & Beautiful Vol 1 (2010), and the eagerly awaited follow-up, 2012's Dirty & Beautiful Vol 2. His Dirty & Beautiful sets have brought together some of the biggest names in jazz fusion, whose myriad colors illuminate Husband's strong compositional frameworks. ...

Album Review

Dmitry Baevsky: The Composers

Read "The Composers" reviewed by David A. Orthmann

by David A. Orthmann
March 30, 2012

In some respects, The Composers is cut from the same cloth as Down With It, Dmitry Baevsky's 2010 release on Sharp Nine. The alto saxophonist selects seldom-played compositions from the jazz canon and executes thoughtful interpretations, so that the heads of tunes like Cedar Walton's “Ojos de Rojo," Wayne Shorter's “Mister Chairman," and Duke Ellington's “Self Portrait (of the Bean)" stand quite nicely on their own. A crack rhythm section consisting of pianist David Hazeltine, bassist John Webber, and drummer ...

151

Album Review

Gabriel Vicens: Point in Time

Read "Point in Time" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
March 30, 2012

When Berklee beckons, most aspiring jazz musicians pick themselves up and trek to Boston to further their studies, but guitarist Gabriel Vicens isn't most people. While the young guitarist had a scholarship lined up at that venerable learning institution, he opted to stay in his native habitat and study at the Music Conservatory of Puerto Rico. Over the course of his years there, Vicens developed a distinct tone that cuts, yet remains warm, round and focused. He also created a ...

Album Review

Gary Husband: Dirty & Beautiful Volume 2

Read "Dirty & Beautiful Volume 2" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
March 30, 2012

With friends as talented as those of pianist/drummer/keyboardist Gary Husband, the musical possibilities are mouthwatering and seemingly endless. With a riotous assembly of jazz fusion greats playing their butts off, Dirty & Beautiful Volume 2 follows suit from Dirty & Beautiful Volume 1 (Abstract Logix, 2010). Several threads tie the two records together. Many of the musicians here were on the first record, and Volume 2 is another guitar-centric feast, boasting animated performances from John McLaughlin, Allan Holdsworth, Mike Stern, ...

Album Review

Masabumi Kikuchi Trio: Sunrise

Read "Sunrise" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
March 30, 2012

Pianist Masabumi Kikuchi recorded a session with the late trumpeter Miles Davis in 1978 that was never released. Had it been, the Japanese musician could perhaps have been slung by Davis' Jovian presence/influence to greater fame. As it is, Kikuchi has maintained a career as an iconoclastic artist, collaborating with some of the best jazz players. His musical tributes to Edith Piaf and Kurt Weill with the Tethered Moon trio in the 1990s--with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Paul Motian--may ...

Extended Analysis

Badbadnotgood: BBNGLIVE 2

by Thomas Carroll
March 30, 2012

Hip-hop grooves and electronics are not new to the jazz world. In the 1970s, forward-thinking jazz giants such as trumpeter Miles Davis and keyboardists Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea popularized the sound of electrified keyboards and horns supported by rhythm sections of slapping bass players, superhuman fusion drummers and funky electric guitarists. Since at least 2003, piano trio The Bad Plus has been deconstructing popular rock and electronica songs and even more recently pianist Robert Glasper released an album full ...

108

Album Review

Masabumi Kikuchi Trio: Sunrise

by John Kelman
March 29, 2012

With a surprising number of recordings coming out that represent some of drummer Paul Motian's final work before passing unexpectedly in the fall of 2011, few have created as deeply personal a tribute as the liner notes to Japanese pianist Masabumi Kikuchi's Sunrise. “Suddenly Paul was gone. He left without warning," Kikuchi writes, as he recounts his first meeting with Motian, the time they shared together in the Tethered Moon trio--which, with bassist Gary Peacock, released three albums between 1993 ...

Extended Analysis

Third Story: Third Story

by Robert Bush
March 29, 2012

Third StoryThird StoryThird Story Music2012Third Story is a remarkable document from a young band (average age 26) of top flight musicians. Although the group was put together, and the album produced, by bassist Danny Weller, there is a collaborative spirit that infuses the disc, drawing material from three of the four players.The roots of Third Story the band lie in the fertile Southern California jazz scene. Weller and guitarist Jeff ...