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.

126

Album Review

Jack DeJohnette: Sound Travels

Read "Sound Travels" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
January 9, 2012

Turning 70 and being awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Fellowship would be enough to make 2012 a special year for Jack DeJohnette, but Sound Travels transcends mere celebration of the veteran drummer/pianist/bandleader's broad swath of accomplishments since emerging, in the mid-1960s, with saxophonist Charles Lloyd's massively successful quartet. His first album to equitably balance piano and drums--including the meditative “Enter Here" and South African/gospel-tinged “Home," solo piano pieces which bookend the set, DeJohnette ...

105

Album Review

Jamie Dubberly And Orquesta Dharma: Road Warrior

Read "Road Warrior" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
January 9, 2012

When trombonist Jamie Dubberly moved from New York to northern California in 2003, he immediately became ensconced in the burgeoning Bay Area Latin jazz scene. While he sharpened his performance skills by playing in bands like Avance and Louie Romero's Mazacote, these groups also inspired him to put pen to paper and explore the lexicon of Latin jazz in a more personalized manner. Three-and-a-half years in the making, Road Warrior is the result. While this release marks ...

136

Live Review

Paris Jazz Diary 2011

by Patricia Myers
January 9, 2012

Woody Allen's 2011 film, Midnight in Paris was a hit summer film in the U.S. and Paris, and also a theme that resonated during my annual two-month sojourn to the City of Light. At that hour, I was often happily sitting in jazz venues, my spirits lifted both by the music and seeing the clubs filled with listeners of all ages. Jazz is easy to locate in Paris because music venues are listed by type in the events section ...

245

Album Review

Fini Bearman: Step Up

Read "Step Up" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
January 9, 2012

Step Up is the debut from British vocalist/songwriter Fini Bearman. Bearman has studied with Judy Niemack, and lists Gretchen Parlato as an influence--two singers with the ability to inhabit the lyrics of a song, giving the impression that even well-worn songbook standards were written about their lives. Bearman shares that quality and also has Cassandra Wilson's ability to weave her voice in and around the instrumental lines as if it were an additional instrument. She sings with the London Vocal ...

Album Review

Larry Young: Unity

by Greg Simmons
January 9, 2012

Larry Young's best known record, Unity (Blue Note, 1966), addresses the Hammond B3's more challenging sonic tendencies first by good management of the instrument--blending volumes and stops to add subtlety and variation to the electrified sound--and then by adding some of the best sidemen available. Now reissued by Music Matters on 45 RPM vinyl, the record reveals more about the recording than has likely been heard on previous issues. Remastered from the original session tapes, Music Matters strives ...

Album Review

Tom Szczesniak: Waltz for Bill

Read "Waltz for Bill" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
January 9, 2012

Toronto, Canada-based Tom Szczesniak is a veteran pianist, composer and arranger who has spent a portion of his professional life writing scores for over 100 films and numerous television shows. Settling in Canada in 1973 after a stint with the U.S. Air Force band in Washington, DC, Szczesniak has also worked extensively as a sideman on other artists' projects, performing in jazz clubs throughout Toronto, yet never found the time to produce his own music. Waltz for Bill has taken ...

158

Interview

Jack DeJohnette: Time and Space

by John Kelman
January 9, 2012

It begins with the sound of a resonating bell, followed by a gently cascading piano solo that gradually assumes shape and form, hovering around two chords and creating an inviting ambiance that resolves with another ringing of the bell, segueing gently into the groove-heavy “Salsa for Luisito." The track is “Enter Here," and the album is Sound Travels (Golden Beams/eOne, 2012), Jack DeJohnette's first hard CD as a leader since 2009's Music We Are, also on the drummer's Golden Beams ...

Album Review

Jen Allen: Pieces Of Myself

Read "Pieces Of Myself" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
January 8, 2012

Jen Allen's debut as a leader, Pieces of Myself, is an eclectic collection of original compositions. Among the members of the pianist, composer and educator's sextet is her husband, saxophonist Kris Allen, and Thelonious Monk International Jazz Bass Competition finalist, Dave Baron. Allen, who studied cello prior to switching to jazz piano, draws on her broad musical experience to display her versatility as a composer and an arranger. The styles displayed on Pieces of Myself vary from funky to straight-ahead ...

169

Book Review

Brian Harker: Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings

by Florence Wetzel
January 8, 2012

Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven RecordingsBrian HarkerSoftcover; 186 pagesISBN: 9780195388404Oxford University Press2011In 1925, Louis Armstrong was 24 years old. He had just returned to Chicago from New York City at the behest of his second wife, pianist Lil Hardin Armstrong, who wanted Armstrong back in the Windy City to play with her band. Armstrong had already appeared on numerous recordings, but now he was asked to ...

Album Review

Andrew Hill: Point Of Departure

Read "Point Of Departure" reviewed by Greg Simmons

by Greg Simmons
January 8, 2012

The folks at Music Matters have been reissuing classic Blue Note albums of the 1950s and 1960s at an aggressive clip, and have been careful to include virtually every style of music the label recorded, including some of its more challenging material. Pianist Andrew Hill's Point of Departure (1964) will never be mistaken for light cocktail jazz, but it's inclusion in this reissue series displays Music Matters' commitment to more adventurous material. In 1964, the term avant-garde could ...