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.

449

Album Review

Jack DeJohnette: Music We Are

Read "Music We Are" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
January 11, 2012

Since the inception of his Golden Beams Productions imprint, Jack DeJohnette has been busy releasing music ranging from the meditational Music in the Key of Ohm (Golden Beams, 2005) and world music-inflected Music from the Hearts of the Masters (Golden Beams, 2005) to the more decidedly improvisational The Elephant Sleeps But Still Remembers (Golden Beams, 2006). A freedom of spirit infuses all his releases, but it's been over a decade since the veteran drummer has released an album as a ...

136

Album Review

Ido Bukelman / Daniel Davidovsky / Ofer Bymel: EFT

by Eyal Hareuveni
January 11, 2012

The debut release from the unique, experimental EFT (Electro Free Trio) is a bold attempt to fuse free improvisation and real-time electronics, drawing on its members experiences--guitarist Ido Bukelman, drummer Ofer Bymel and electronic artist Daniel Davidovsky--in the fields of free jazz, rock and noise. After a slow, hesitant introduction, where the trio sound checks its wide spectrum of sounds, EFT begins to form the dynamics of this live session. Bukelman pushes forward, the trio's most aggressive ...

Album Review

Mike Wofford / Holly Hofmann Quintet: Turn Signal

Read "Turn Signal" reviewed by Larry Taylor

by Larry Taylor
January 11, 2012

Holly Hofmann is an energetic, swinging, straight-ahead jazz flautist who has been performing for over 30 years. Mike Wofford, her husband, a recognized piano master, co-leads on Turn Signal, playing with an understated, intuitively rhythmic style. The two now live in San Diego, California, but travel extensively for performances. Recording her first disc for Capri in 1989, Turn Signal is her twelfth CD as a leader, in a career that has included collaborations with pianists Kenny Barron ...

117

Album Review

Opus 5: Introducing Opus 5

Read "Introducing Opus 5" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
January 10, 2012

Collectively delivered jazz albums almost always fall into one of three categories: some are outings from neophytes looking to pool their resources, while trying to build a fan base from the ground floor up; others marry the musical skills of seasoned musicians who've crossed paths in various situations and/or share a commonality in approach; and the most commercially successful, yet artistically regretfully, are usually hastily conceived or rendered performances that simply attach several big names to a project in order ...

Album Review

Mike Wofford / Holly Hofmann Quintet: Turn Signal

Read "Turn Signal" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
January 10, 2012

Down in out-of-the-way San Diego, California (that's out-of-the-way in a New York-centric jazz world), flautist Holly Hofmann and pianist Mike Wofford have been steadily making world-class jazz for a couple of decades. Wofford--who has spent much of his career in supporting roles, backing vocalists Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald, saxophonists Zoot Sims and Benny Carter, and many more--is evolving into a first-rate leader. His Live at Athanaeum (Capri Records, 2004) demonstrated the pianist's acumen in the trio context, while Live ...

140

Big Band Caravan

Stan Kenton-NOVA Jazz Orchestra / Baker's Dozen Big Band / Danny D'Imperio and the Bloviators

by Jack Bowers
January 10, 2012

Stan Kenton Orchestra / NOVA Jazz OrchestraDouble Feature, Vol. 2Tantara Productions2012 One of the more difficult aspects of reviewing Tantara's series of impressive salutes to Stan Kenton and his music is knowing where to begin. As on Volume 1 of the label's Double Feature (with Volume 3 already on the street as this is being written), the two-CD set is divided in twain: Disc 1 features the Kenton Orchestra in two ...

171

Album Review

The Jack DeJohnette Group: Live at Yoshi's 2010

Read "Live at Yoshi's 2010" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
January 10, 2012

In the text file accompanying his digital download-only Live at Yoshi's 2010, Jack DeJohnette is quoted, ..."Each piece is different every time we play it." Fans of this veteran drummer--for whom a precise count of all the artists he's worked with (let alone all the recordings he's appeared on) would be an exercise in futility--would have to agree. DeJohnette's quintet-- which made a stop at the well-known Oakland club during a summer tour in 2010--opens with a 21-minute version of ...

Album Review

Indigo Trio and Michel Edelin: The Ethiopian Princess Meets The Tantric Priest

Read "The Ethiopian Princess Meets The Tantric Priest" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
January 10, 2012

Given the paucity of flute trios in the normal course of events, and the appearance of two almost simultaneously on the same label, it was only a matter of time before the Paris-based Rogue Art imprint brought the two main protagonists together. The Ethiopian Princess Meets The Tantric Priest represents the fruits of the union of AACM flautist Nicole Mitchell and her Indigo Trio, previously heard on Anaya (Rogue Art, 2009), with veteran French flautist Michel Edelin, best portrayed by ...

100

Album Review

Jimmy Owens: The Monk Project

Read "The Monk Project" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
January 10, 2012

With a career spanning over 45 years, legendary trumpeter Jimmy Owens has had the privilege of performing with many giants of jazz, including trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, pianist Billy Taylor, bassist Charles Mingus, drummer Max Roach and the incomparable pianist Duke Ellington. Though he never had the opportunity to record with pianist Thelonious Monk, he did know and admire him, and has played the icon's music throughout his career. The Monk Project is Owen's tribute to a special man and his ...

151

Interview

Claire Daly: The Most Jazz Life I Could Ever Imagine

by Andrea Wolper
January 10, 2012

December 22, 1935. “I am going up the Taku River by dogteam to Fairbanks." “But you can't do that; there are mountains or something you can't get over. Anyway, it's no place for a woman." Thus man disposes of woman. That settled I went quietly about my business of getting ready.Thus begins the journal of Mary Joyce, a native of Wisconsin living near Juneau. Invited to the March 1936 Fairbanks Ice Carnival, she spent the winter months traveling ...