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.

Live Review

Celebrating Eddie Marshall: San Francisco, CA, February 19, 2012

by Bill Leikam
March 11, 2012

Celebrating Eddie MarshallYoshi'sSan Francisco, CAFebruary 19, 2012When a San Francisco Bay Area jazz musician passes, Bay Area jazz supporters come out in droves to pay their respects and to honor the one who passed. In announcing the passing of the great drummer Eddie Marshall, Jesse Hamlin wrote, for the San Francisco Chronicle's SF Gate “Eddie Marshall, a master drummer and composer whose deep musicianship and joyous spirit made him the soul of the Bay Area ...

Album Review

Wes Montgomery: Echoes of Indiana Avenue

Read "Echoes of Indiana Avenue" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
March 11, 2012

In the mid-twentieth century, Indianapolis was an incubator for jazz talent. Trombonist J.J. Johnson, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard and guitarist Wes Montgomery all began their individual ascents to stardom from the heart of Hoosier country. While the first two artists had long careers, Montgomery wasn't so lucky. This self-taught genius, who burst onto the national scene in 1958, was felled by a fatal heart only a decade later.In ten short years, Montgomery delivered a string of classic recordings that ...

Album Review

Jurgen Hagenlocher: Leap In The Dark

Read "Leap In The Dark" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
March 11, 2012

German-born saxophonist Jürgen Hagenlocher's third album as a leader, Leap In The Dark, is an interestingly designed mix of traditional and modern-styled jazz--an interesting walk through a selection of eight sophisticated, airy and remarkably accessible original compositions. Recording in New York, Hagenlocher formed a new quintet for this album, retaining trumpet luminary Alex Sipiagin from his previous disc, and putting him alongside veteran pianist David Kikoski, bassist extraordinaire Boris Kozlov and drummer Nate Smith.The saxophonist--who has recorded as ...

Album Review

Letecki Pekinezeri: Letecki Pekinezeri

Read "Letecki Pekinezeri" reviewed by Nenad Georgievski

by Nenad Georgievski
March 11, 2012

Some bands achieve greatness early and others have to wait. Macedonia's Letecki Pekinezeri (Flying Pekinese) had to wait for six years for its debut, in the meantime honing its craft and tunes at local clubs and the occasional festival. During that time, its band members have gained a new breadth and maturity from experiences playing with musicians on the cusp of the jazz world or beyond, including Ljubojna, and Jordan Kostov Ensemble Moderne. As such, this self-titled album is also ...

Book Review

John Caps: Henry Mancini - Reinventing Film Music

by Chris May
March 10, 2012

Henry Mancini: Reinventing Film MusicJohn Caps312 pages; hardcoverISBN: 978-0-252-03673-6University of Illinois Press2012When the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's was released in 1961, its tag line promised: “It's everything you've always wanted to do--and Audrey Hepburn's the one you've always wanted to do it with." It was a more innocent time.The soundtrack for Breakfast at Tiffany's was scored by TV and film composer Henry Mancini, whose “Moon River," ...

Album Review

David Bindman Ensemble: Sunset Park Polyphony

Read "Sunset Park Polyphony" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
March 10, 2012

Jazz is at the forefront of the cultural renewal taking place in Brooklyn, and saxophonist David Bindman has been a quiet but leading force in that movement. Sunset Park Polyphony brings together members of the stellar quartet that last recorded under the leadership of percussionist Royal Hartigan on Blood Drum Spirit: Royal Hartigan Ensemble Live in China (Innova, 2008), with Bindman extending the original group to a sextet with the addition of the brilliant trombonist Reut Regev and trumpeter Frank ...

Album Review

Robert Glasper: Black Radio

Read "Black Radio" reviewed by Eugene Holley, Jr.

by Eugene Holley, Jr.
March 10, 2012

Depending on your age, Houston-born pianist/composer Robert Glasper is--like trumpeters Christian Scott and Ambrose Akinmusire, and bassist/vocalist Esperanza Spalding-either the herald of a new world a-comin' when jazz musicians will be heard on pop radio on a regular basis, or he's a throwback to the golden age of the seventies, when jazz stars, from Herbie Hancock to Donald Byrd, were played on African-American and pop stations.Blessed with a fleet-fingered, countrified approach to the piano that blends gospel, Thelonious ...

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Multiple Reviews

Thelonious Monk Redux

by Raul d'Gama Rose
March 10, 2012

Perhaps there are no better contemporary homages to pianist and composer Thelonious Monk than the ones re-imagined by soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy and trombonist Roswell Rudd, as well as by pianist Misha Mengelberg. But the greatest of all is the short one by composer and pianist Heiner Stadler. That seminal album--Tribute to Bird and Monk (Tomato, 1978; Labor Records, 2011)--alone gave evidence that Monk's music would live on for scores of succeeding generations. It also gave notice of Stadler's ingenuity. ...

Live From New York

Live From The Allen Room: Thurston Moore, tUnE-yArDs, John Mayall & John Hammond

by Martin Longley
March 10, 2012

Thurston Moore The Allen Room February 2, 2012 It's impossible to escape the aura of respectable tradition that surrounds Lincoln Center's annual American Songbook series. The very concept evokes an established Broadway-and-beyond form that lies at the heart of U.S. popular music. The majority of the artists presented in Jazz At Lincoln Center's Allen Room hail from the mainstream, whether it be jazz, cabaret, country or pop, but the series has regularly encouraged ...

Album Review

Gene Pritsker: William James's Varieties of Religious Experience

Read "William James's Varieties of Religious Experience" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
March 10, 2012

William James's Varieties of Religious Experience is the long-awaited companion to Gene Pritsker's Varieties of Religious Experience Suite (Innova Recordings, 2010). On this album, the guitarist has almost completely re-imagined William James' 1902 book, Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature, as a chamber opera. The opera describes the spiritual experiences of several individuals near the end of the 19th Century as described to James, the celebrated philosopher and brother of the writer Henry James. The philosopher presented ...