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

Wozzeck: Act III: Comics

Read "Act III: Comics" reviewed by Jerry D'Souza

by Jerry D'Souza
March 28, 2012

Saxophonist Ilia Belorukov and bass guitarist Mikhail Ershov made a good move when they invited four other musicians to collaborate on 47 semi-improvised parts of what they call “sound games." The use of instruments had to be unusual, and the whole venture lasted 23 minutes.Improvisation can be fun and imaginative if the musicians key into each other as they do here on Act III: Comics, breathing life into each short vignette. Everyone has individual space to set up ...

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Talkin' Blues

Talkin' Blues with Jaimoe

by Alan Bryson
March 28, 2012

As a 2012 recipient of a Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement, Jaimoe needs no introduction. He has been a beloved figure on the music scene for over four decades, as a veteran of the R&B circuit with Otis Redding, Percy Sledge and Joe Tex, and as a founding member of the legendary Allman Brothers Band and the critically acclaimed band Sea Level.In late 2011 his Jaimoe's Jasssz Band released Renaissance Man (Lil'Johnieboy Records, 2011), an album that is ...

Album Review

Simcock Garland Sirkis: Lighthouse

Read "Lighthouse" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
March 27, 2012

With Lighthouse, saxophonist Tim Garland, pianist Gwilym Simcock and percussionist Asaf Sirkis make the move to completely egalitarian collective. It's also the first album to feature the trio without any additional guests. Garland's Lighthouse Trio first came together on the saxophonist's If the Sea Replied (Sirocco, 2005), an ambitious song cycle that--in addition to including mates from his impro-folk Lammas and Acoustic Triangle, which by that time also featured Simcock--was scored for members of the Northern Sinfonia Orchestra. Libra (Global ...

Extended Analysis

Kenny Wheeler Big Band: The Long Waiting

by John Kelman
March 27, 2012

Kenny Wheeler Big Band The Long Waiting Cam Jazz 2012 While likely not the reason behind its title, The Long Waiting could easily fit for fans of the Canadian expat trumpeter who has lived in England since the 1950s. Since coming to Cam Jazz in 2004 with his duo recording with longtime pianist and fellow Cam Jazzer John Taylor, Where Do We Go From Here?, Kenny Wheeler has ramped up his output, releasing four more ...

Album Review

Dan Cray: Meridies

Read "Meridies" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
March 27, 2012

Change is never easy, but it's often the key to growing as a person and an artist. Pianist Dan Cray has released a series of well-received CDs and carved out a comfortable musical existence with his trio in Chicago, but he understood that a change of scenery and a jump into jazz's deep end would do him good. Cray made the move to New York City in 2009, but Meridies is the first outing released under his ...

Album Review

Mickylee: deComposing Cats

Read "deComposing Cats" reviewed by Nenad Georgievski

by Nenad Georgievski
March 27, 2012

For his debut, guitarist Mickylee teams up with a bunch of excellent players to come up with something that is nothing short of superb. Miroslav Mirosavljev, aka Mickylee, is a Serbian expatriate living and working in Vienna, Austria both as a composer, with chiefly music for theater, and a guitar teacher. No matter how popular or unpopular the guitar may seem, it is still a widespread instrument continues to inspire a myriad of musicians trying to find ...

Album Review

Vitor Pereira Quintet: Doors

by Jerry D'Souza
March 27, 2012

Doors makes for an ambitious leader debut for guitarist Vitor Pereira, who describes a wide canvas of styles, each interpreted with an avid sense of accomplishment. Born in Porto, Portugal, Pereira first studied and played classical music, moving to London in 2004 and getting his degree in jazz. From then on he established himself on the London jazz scene leading various bands and playing with well known figures that count trumpeter Dave Smith and bassist Will Collier among ...

Album Review

Norberto Tamburrino: Lovely Tunes

Read "Lovely Tunes" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
March 27, 2012

Italian-born pianist and composer Norberto Tamburrino has always had an affinity for a primarily solo performance. Two prior albums, Deco (Splasc(h) Records, 2006) and Prisoner of the Sea (Arabesque Records, 2007), were half or mostly solo sets, while Ascoltabile Piano & Atmosphere (Art Notes Records, 2010) is an entirely solo performance of original modern compositions. With Lovely Tunes Tamburrino sticks to this successful formula playing solo for half of the album and sharing the music with bassist Francesco Mariella on ...

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Interview

Jon Hendricks: Still Creative, Still Outspoken

by Gregg Akkerman
March 27, 2012

Jon Hendricks is still swinging madly and looking forward to upcoming projects--not only in New York, but all over Europe. Having interviewed the creator of vocalese once before, he was the first name I thought of when considering the maiden edition of this Jazz on the 90th Floor column (the name comes from the lyric to Cole Porter's “Down in the Depths" by the way). When I realized Hendricks is 90 years old, the match was too much to resist. ...

Album Review

Guillaume de Chassy: Silences

Read "Silences" reviewed by Jeff Dayton-Johnson

by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
March 26, 2012

Pianist Guillaume de Chassy insists that Silences is inspired by the example of clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre's late-1950s trio recordings. To be sure, like those records, this album is marked by intimacy and introspection, a strong clarinet sound and no drummer. But Silences, recorded at a French abbey, doesn't sound much like Giuffre's records--nor indeed, like much of jazz, at first blush.It's not at first clear just what this piano-clarinet-bass formation is up to. The helpfully titled “Birth of ...