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.

Extended Analysis

Gov't Mule: Mad Mules and Englishmen - Beacon 12-31-2011

by C. Michael Bailey
March 17, 2012

Gov't MuleMad Mules and Englishmen: Beacon 12-31-2011Live Downloads2012 Trumpeter Miles Davis and singer Joe Cocker have in common covering songs by popular peers, transforming those songs, making them their own and in doing so, putting themselves on the musical map forever. Davis did this with his performance of Thelonious Monk's “'Round Midnight" at the 1955 Newport Jazz Festival, a performance that helped him transition from Prestige to Columbia Records (and from ...

Album Review

Adam Kromelow Trio: Youngblood

Read "Youngblood" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
March 17, 2012

Adam Kromelow's group is a jazz piano trio in instrumentation, but not intent. Kromelow, who originally hails from Illinois and now resides in New York, takes his cues and inspiration from a variety of sources, such as modern classical music, rock sounds and, of course, jazz. All of these influences merge on Youngblood. While it's tempting--and partially accurate--to say that this exciting new outfit meets at the crossroads of pianist Brad Mehldau and The Bad Plus, that ...

Film Review

Richard Thompson Band: Live at Celtic Connections

by John Kelman
March 17, 2012

The Richard Thompson BandLive at Celtic Connections Eagle Vision2012 In a career spanning nearly half a century, it wouldn't be unforgivable to put out the occasional duff; with a repertoire of something like 400 original songs, it wouldn't be amiss to expect a writer's pen to dull a tad with age; and with an early career as significant as Richard Thompson's, it wouldn't be beyond the pale to think that the best ...

Album Review

Katie Guthorn: Why Not Smile?

Read "Why Not Smile?" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
March 17, 2012

San Francisco-based actress, educator and singer Katie Guthorn is primarily known for her work in pop, R&B, Motown and even country music, having performed with groups such as the Soul Delights and the Randy Craig Trip. Though jazz has been part of her repertoire in the past, it has never truly been her main dish or passion. Jazz, however, is exactly what Why Not Smile? is all about, and the singer that does a superlative job voicing the music of ...

115

Album Review

Robert Glasper Experiment: Black Radio

Read "Black Radio" reviewed by Mark F. Turner

by Mark F. Turner
March 17, 2012

Robert Glasper's love for the music of his upbringing is deep. The sounds of hip hop, R&B, and urban soul music are intrinsically linked to a brilliant young jazz pianist who has gigged with jazz icons, headlined his own bands, and released a number of noteworthy recordings, including 2007's In My Element (Bluenote) and 2009's Double Booked (EMI). His music has borne the fruits of this passion; he's as comfortable with “J Dilla" as he is with John Coltrane. Some ...

Album Review

The Doors: LA Woman: 40th Anniversary Edition

Read "LA Woman: 40th Anniversary Edition" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
March 17, 2012

The two-disc reissue of The Doors' L.A. Woman (Elektra, 1971), released to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the original album, documents how this band achieved what The Beatles could not with Let It Be (Apple, 1970). Jim Morrison and company effectively and authentically went back to their musical roots and, in so doing, restored their camaraderie as a band.It matters little whether disc one or disc two is approached first--the former contains the now-classic, finished product, the latter ...

Album Review

The Claudia Quintet + 1 featuring Kurt Elling and Theo Bleckmann: What Is The Beautiful?

Read "What Is The Beautiful?" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
March 17, 2012

Poetry has always been the libretto of jazz music. Even before epic works of the late Gil Scott Heron like “H2O Gate Blues" or “Winter in America" (which inspired the nations of rap and hip-hop), there was Langston Hughes with bassist Charles Mingus on Weary Blues (Verve, 1958), the great Amiri Baraka, and A.B. Spellman. Then there was Kenneth Patchen, one of The Rebel Poets of America, an enigmatic legend who, if he chose, might have laid claim to creating ...

Extended Analysis

Martin Hoper: The Bride

by Dave Sumner
March 16, 2012

Martin HöperThe BrideHoob Records2012There is a solemnity throughout bassist Martin Höper's The Bride. When he presents a blues, it enhances the despair. When he presents a waltz, it adds to the grace. And when the tone grows celebratory, the receding soberness induces even wider smiles. Imbuing fun music with stately mannerisms is what gives The Bride an emotional complexity that brings such satisfying and successful results.The opening track has a ...

Album Review

The Michael Landau Group: Organic Instrumentals

Read "Organic Instrumentals" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
March 16, 2012

What do Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Neil Diamond have in common? Well, aside from being amongst the more important singer/songwriters of the past forty years, they've all recruited Michael Landau at one time or another. Between hundreds of recordings and plenty of high profile tours, it's more than a little surprising that the guitarist hasn't become a household name. Still, success needn't be measured solely on popular recognition; Landau's already achieved plenty as a guitarist's guitarist--a musician's musician whose ...

Multiple Reviews

Gebhard Ullmann and Theo Nabicht: Clarinets plus Basses

by John Eyles
March 16, 2012

Back in 1999, Leo Records released the debut album, Oct. 1 '98, by The Clarinet Trio, which consisted of three German clarinettists, Jürgen Kupke on clarinet plus Gebhard Ullmann and Theo Nabicht both on bass clarinets. The three had contrasting interests and styles: Kupke had been performing from contemporary to New Orleans-type music, Nabicht focused on contemporary composed and improvised music and wrote music for theatre, while Ullmann had been composing and performing in the large field of what he ...