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.

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Album Review

Ozric Tentacles: Paper Monkeys

Read "Paper Monkeys" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
January 14, 2012

A band that has endured the dips and spikes of the progressive-rock genre since its inception back in 1983, UK-based Ozric Tentacles has the beat on jam-based space-rock via its signature style of execution. With undulating synths, driving pulses and layered sculpting techniques, the quartet almost always bestows a sweeping plane, centered on lucid imagery and might. Ozric's ideology hearkens back to the imaginative persuasions witnessed during the psychedelic era, while keeping pace with modernization from a technical and sound ...

Album Review

Gary Smulyan: Smul's Paradise

Read "Smul's Paradise" reviewed by Larry Taylor

by Larry Taylor
January 14, 2012

A baritone saxophonist leading an organ trio is certainly a rarity; the results of Gary Smulyan's Smul's Paradise is, in sixties hip, a “gas." This slang seems especially appropriate here because the CD pays tribute to an often-overlooked organist, Don Patterson, who came on the scene in that decade. Fronting a quartet behind his big bari, Smulyan contributes his tribute, “Blues for D.P.," in addition to including two tunes by Patterson in the eight-song set. Smulyan has said ...

169

Take Five With...

Take Five With Emiel van Egdom

by AAJ Staff
January 14, 2012

Meet Emiel van Egdom: Emiel van Egdom is a musician equally at home in high energy electric jazz or fusion as in romantic classical and contemporary acoustic solo guitar arrangements. With major worldwide releases, he's a highly talented guitarist who has demonstrated the highest levels of musical achievement--Alma Berklee, Jim Hall Jazz Award, USA. His albums and concerts read like a who's who in contemporary music and jazz, having worked wih artists including Bob MIlitello, Bob ...

117

Album Review

Marialy Pacheco: Songs That I Love

Read "Songs That I Love" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
January 13, 2012

For her third solo album, and first for Australian label Pinnacles Music, Cuban pianist Marialy Pacheco follows her truest muse--the songs closest to her heart. It follows that the eight tracks--Cuban compositions, two by Jerome Kern, two originals, and one by Paul Simon--were recorded with minimum fuss in just three hours. Consequently, these performances have a refreshingly vital immediacy, and an exciting improvisational vein, which begs the question why more artists don't take this approach in the studio. Pacheco's strong ...

Big Band Report

SuperSax Me

by Jack Bowers
January 13, 2012

Back in the early 1970s bassist Buddy Clark and saxophonist Med Flory conceived a brilliant idea: to form a group (primarily a reed section with rhythm) that would use orchestrated arrangements of saxophonist Charlie Parker's transcendent bop solos as the basis for its music. As for a name, nothing less than SuperSax would suffice. The nine-piece group made its debut in 1972 and was an immediate hit with US audiences on the West Coast and fans around the world. SuperSax ...

Album Review

Tom Wetmore: The Desired Effect

Read "The Desired Effect" reviewed by Mark F. Turner

by Mark F. Turner
January 13, 2012

Here's a sophisticated and hip debut from up-and-coming pianist Tom Wetmore. His studies with well-noted composer/improviser Ran Blake and influences that cite Brad Mehldau and Stevie Wonder speak volumes about his openness to create music that is versed in classic jazz but stretches beyond its confines. Since 2005 he's been thick in the New York City music environment, whether performing, writing or leading his own traditional jazz trio. But his alternate ego is plugged in and materializes with The Desired ...

241

Behind the Lens With...

Behind the Lens With Richard Conde

by Richard Conde
January 13, 2012

Meet Richard Conde: My work has been featured in National Geographic and recently chosen for their permanent stock collection. Most of my work consists of jazz photography, travel photography and dance performance events. Currently I am the senior staff photographer for the Jazz Museum in Harlem and the club photographer for the Birdland jazz club in New York City. I am also represented by the HP Garcia gallery in New York City. I have earned a ...

327

Album Review

Jack DeJohnette and Foday Musa Suso: Music from the Hearts of the Masters

Read "Music from the Hearts of the Masters" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
January 13, 2012

For drummer Jack DeJohnette's second project on his fledgling Golden Beams Productions record label, he moves from the Asian subcontinent south to Africa for a series of duets with master Gambian kora player Foday Musa Suso. While Music from the Hearts of the Masters is, in its own way, as hypnotic as DeJohnette's first release on his label, the meditative Music in the Key of OM, it's also more actively engaging and extroverted. At first glance the ...

Album Review

Jack DeJohnette: Sound Travels

Read "Sound Travels" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
January 13, 2012

With 2012 barely underway, it looks like it's going to be a year to remember for drum legend Jack DeJohnette. The renowned rhythmic force behind classic recordings from Miles Davis, Charles Lloyd, Keith Jarrett--and numerous notable projects of his own--will receive some well-deserved recognition when he's inducted into the National Endowment for the Arts' Jazz Master Fellowship in January. Crossing the globe to bring his music to admirers around the world, 2012 also marks his 70th birthday. Putting him at ...

118

Album Review

Frank Macchia: Frank Macchia's Swamp Thang

Read "Frank Macchia's Swamp Thang" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
January 12, 2012

You never can tell what some jazz guys have up their sleeves. Los Angeles-based reedman Frank Macchia has worked extensively in television and movies, while maintaining a busy jazz career. His two orchestral jazz outings--Emotions (2006) and Landscapes (2008)--each garnered Grammy nominations, and he has also offered up two very distinctive jazz re-imaginings of traditional fare with Folk Songs for Jazzers (2010) and Son of Folk Songs for Jazzers (2011), all released on his own Cacophony Records.With Frank ...