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

Mike Moreno: Another Way

Read "Another Way" reviewed by Mark F. Turner

by Mark F. Turner
March 7, 2012

Though it's difficult to stand out in a climate where new names appear almost daily, Mike Moreno has proven to be one of the more identifiable young jazz guitarists in recent years. At home in a number of settings, his fluid style has been found in the abstract hip hop styling of Q-Tip's The Renaissance (Universal Motown, 2008) and has received accolades from Pat Metheny who commented that Moreno's is “A really talented guy who impressed me beyond the notes, ...

Album Review

Upper Left Trio: Ulternative

Read "Ulternative" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
March 7, 2012

Portland, Oregon's Upper Left Trio has been together nearly a decade. The group began its recording journey on Origin Records in 2003 with Cycling. Ulternative is the trio's fourth recording for the label, and continues to push its music forward.The piano trio has, since pianist Bill Evans' late 1950s/early 1960s recordings with bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian, ridden the three-way interaction approach rather than the earlier mode of operation, with pianist supported by the band mates' ...

Album Review

Tommy Igoe and the Birdland Big Band: Eleven

by Edward Blanco
March 7, 2012

Led by East Coast drumming icon Tommy Igoe, the Birdland Big Band delivers powerful performances each Friday night at New York's renowned Birdland jazz club. Eleven captures Igoe and some of the city's finest jazz musicians playing in the same hard-driving fashion on eleven signature arrangements of funk, Latin and contemporary jazz. This high-octane orchestra is defined by fast and furious playing from its brass, horns and hot percussion, producing a truly electrifying sound that distinguishes it from other ensembles.

Album Review

Marc Copland David Liebman Duo: Impressions

Read "Impressions" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
March 7, 2012

There is no telling what an imaginative musician such as saxophonist Dave Liebman might do if he were given the kind of room to maneuver--to let his soul soar free--as pianist Marc Copland affords him on Impressions. It is as if the pianist gifted the saxophonist with a very large and empty canvas for Liebman to paint a musical landscape. Liebman needs no further invitation to wander off into the ocean of undiscovered sound. The saxophonist assumes the persona of ...

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Live Review

Remember Shakti: Ramallah, Palestinian Territories, February 14, 2012

by Ian Patterson
March 7, 2012

Remember ShaktiRamallah Cultural Palace Ramallah, Palestinian Territories February 14, 2012 Who believed at the end of Remember Shakti's 2006 tour--and nine years after a twenty-year hiatus--that the legendary band would get together once again, half a dozen years later? With all the members so impossibly busy with their respective music-making, a reunion seemed unlikely. But in guitarist John McLaughlin's mind the band never went away; it had merely parked up for a while. Few ...

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Album Review

Henry Cole and the Afro Beat Collective: Roots Before Branches

Read "Roots Before Branches" reviewed by Mark F. Turner

by Mark F. Turner
March 6, 2012

As a rising jazz drummer in today's environment, Henry Cole's percussive sound has emerged in works with seminal artists such as Miguel Zenón, David Sánchez, and the Le Boeuf Brothers. Like his peers, Cole is challenging old ideas and channeling new concepts into the mix. The debut of Roots Before Branches , with his Afro-Beat Collective, is full of fresh ideas that resist being easily compartmentalized. Inspired by the music of his homeland in Puerto Rico with ...

Jazz in the Aquarian Age

Herbie Hancock: The Chameleon Shows His Colors

by Bob Kenselaar
March 6, 2012

[Herbie Hancock has a long history of mixing it up--from jazz to funk, pop, and everything in between. At the time I did this interview with him in the summer of 1979, he'd been making ventures away from straight-ahead jazz for some time, but they were still fresh enough to have some fans up in arms. From today's perspective, though, it's clear that his eclecticism is a big part of what makes him the grand man of music that he ...

Album Review

Stephane Belmondo: The Same As It Never Was Before

Read "The Same As It Never Was Before" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
March 6, 2012

It is all a matter of the right tone for French trumpeter Stephane Belmondo. On Same As It Never Was Before, it is a matter of getting his lips in the right position--singular embouchure--then grabbing the air from his lungs and blowing it out in hot wild gusts through the horn. But it is also more than that. Belmondo is special: the volume of air he grabs will tell if the notes are fat or thin, rounded or sharp. He ...

Album Review

Luis Disla: The Prophecy

Read "The Prophecy" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
March 6, 2012

One quick way to verify a musician's credentials is to check out who plays on his debut record. Respected reed man Luis Disla obviously called in a few markers for The Prophecy , assembling an all-star lineup and achieving a glossy production in the process. No stranger to the studio with numerous sessions accounted for, Disla is prodigious on alto, tenor, soprano and baritone saxophones and relies on his expertise on all of them. He chooses the ...

Album Review

Mike Longo Trio +2: To My Surprise

Read "To My Surprise" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
March 6, 2012

When is a trio not a trio? Well, when it's the Mike Longo Trio +2, which actually makes it a quintet. Such is the case on six of the dozen tracks on Longo's new CD, To My Surprise, which showcases not only the versatile pianist's core group (bassist Bob Cranshaw and drummer Lewis Nash), but also the impressive talents of trumpeter Jimmy Owens and tenor saxophonist Lance Bryant.What is apparent from the outset is that everyone is having ...