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

Cecil’s Big Band with Mike Lee: West Orange, NJ, February 20, 2012

by Bob Kenselaar
March 8, 2012

Cecil's Big Band with Mike LeeCecil's Jazz ClubWest Orange, New JerseyFebruary 20, 2012A completely packed crowd at Cecil's Jazz Club on a Monday night--not a common scene--but this was the beginning of the club's final week of operation and the final show for Cecil's Big Band. Led by tenor saxophonist Mike Lee for the last five years, the 17- piece band has played virtually every Monday night over that time, week in and week out. ...

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Album Review

Vijay Iyer Trio: Accelerando

Read "Accelerando" reviewed by Troy Collins

by Troy Collins
March 8, 2012

On the surface, Accelerando follows the same basic format as Historicity (ACT Music, 2009), the debut of pianist Vijay Iyer's working trio with bassist Stephan Crump and drummer Marcus Gilmore. Though once again divided between Iyer's complex originals and some surprising covers, this eclectic sophomore session attains an even greater sense of cohesion than its predecessor, courtesy of a common aesthetic denominator. As Iyer states in the liner notes “This album is in the lineage of American creative music based ...

Mr. P.C.'s Guide to Jazz Etiquette and Bandstand Decorum

March 2012

by Mr. P.C.
March 8, 2012

Dear Mr. P.C.:A big guy came up to me on my solo piano gig and asked for the theme from Goodfellas. When I told him I didn't know it, he yelled “Know it next time!" and walked away pretty angry. Should I fear for my life? Tim, Memphis

Dear Tim:Here's the problem: If you play Goodfellas for him, he'll want the theme from The Godfather. Learn that one, and he'll make you play ...

Album Review

Bob James / Keiko Matsui: Altair & Vega

Read "Altair & Vega" reviewed by Jeff Winbush

by Jeff Winbush
March 8, 2012

In a culture inundated with movies that go unseen, books that go unread and music that goes unheard, it's easy for worthy art to slip through the cracks. That was the sad and undeserved fate of the 2011 Bob James and Keiko Matsui four-hand piano collaboration, Altair & Vega. Solo recordings are a standard for jazz pianists, and James' and Matsui's training and love of classical music are familiar to their fans, but two musicians playing one piano at the ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With Kristina Morales

by AAJ Staff
March 8, 2012

Meet Kristina Morales: With an incandescent brilliance, rising star Kristina Morales' voice shines across the heart of the city of New Orleans with illuminating clarity and burns with heart-wrenching warmth. She electrifies and charms her audience with a vulnerable passion and is commended by musicians and audiences alike for her use of vocal instrumentation while still giving lyrical color with a delicate seamlessness.Instrument(s): Vocal.Teachers and/or influences? Louis Armstrong, Jill Scott, ...

Album Review

Magos Herrera: Mexico Azul

Read "Mexico Azul" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
March 8, 2012

The sultry contralto cracks through the silence and a relatively new voce is discovered streaking across the skies of North America. This is the dark, sensuous voice of Magos Herrera, an outstanding young vocalist from Mexico. The constraints of singing in that register appear not to hold Herrera back for she often lets her voice soar free of the registers in which she is meant to sing. Her great leaps of gymnastic vocal skill are manifest throughout the woefully short ...

Album Review

Gary Husband: Dirty & Beautiful Volume 2

Read "Dirty & Beautiful Volume 2" reviewed by Johanna McKenna

by Johanna McKenna
March 8, 2012

Multitalented drummer, keyboardist, composer, and arranger Gary Husband continues to raise the bar with each successive release, and 2012's Dirty & Beautiful Volume 2 is no exception. Volume 2's collection of originals and fusion classics follows Dirty & Beautiful Volume 1 (Abstract Logix, 2010), featuring many of the same collaborators, but with some additional powerhouse guitarists rounding out this heady lineup.Of particular interest is the appearance of young Grammy-nominated guitarist Alex Machacek, who contributes his original “Lock, Stock ...

Album Review

Todd Clouser's A Love Electric: 20th Century Folk Selections

Read "20th Century Folk Selections" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
March 8, 2012

More than rock musicians and more than blues artists, jazz musicians carry the greatest burden of musical legacy. There are not stories about a contemporary rock musician who dedicates his career to mastering The Beatles catalog, or of the one who's playing is paralyzed because she cannot deal with Jimi Hendrix's solos. Nope. Only in jazz does the legacy of the past pose obstacles so large as Art Tatum, Charlie Parker, and John Coltrane that many contemporary musicians can never ...

Album Review

Eric Vloeimans / Florian Weber: Live at The Concertgebouw

Read "Live at The Concertgebouw" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
March 7, 2012

In a career spanning the intimate chamber jazz of Fugimundi to the electrified Gatecrash, Eric Vloeimans has emerged as a trumpeter with uncommon instincts, relentless lyricism and an astute ear for musical partnerships. It's been three years since his last recording as a leader--Heavens Above (Challenge, 2009)--but in the interim there's been an expansive five-CD career retrospective, V-Flow (Challenge, 2010), that shouldn't be mistaken as any suggestion that he's done all there is. If anything, V-Flow consolidates and contextualizes Vloeimans' ...

Live Review

Dave Morgan & Friends: Kirtland, OH, February 24, 2012

by Matt Marshall
March 7, 2012

Dave Morgan & Friends40th Annual Lakeland Jazz FestivalKirtland, OHFebruary 24, 2012On the opening night of the 40th Annual Lakeland Jazz Festival, bassist Dave Morgan gathered a host of friends and treated Northeast Ohioans to a rare performance of his The Way of the Sly Man (Being Time, 2010). The piece, based on the ideas of 20th-century spiritualist G. I. Gurdjieff--mixing jazz with Middle Eastern, Indian and African music plus Gurdjieff's own musical ideas--hadn't been performed ...