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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Book Review

David Kastin: Nica’s Dream - The Life and Legend of the Jazz Baroness

by Chris May
January 6, 2012

Nica's Dream: The Life and Legend of the Jazz Baroness David Kastin W.W.Norton SBN: 9780393069402 Hardcover, 336 pages 2012 Wonderful woman, wonderful book. David Kastin's assiduously researched biography of Baroness Kathleen Annie Panonnica Rothschild de Koenigswarter (1913-88) brilliantly relates the life of the London-born heiress and last great private patron of American jazz--the “Nica" of Thelonious Monk's “Pannonica," Horace Silver's “Nica's Dream," Sonny Clark's “Nica," Gigi Gryce's “Nica's Tempo," Freddie Redd's “Nica Steps ...

247

AAJ PRO

Audio Player Service, Contact Your Fans and Other Free Ways to Promote Your Music

by Michael Ricci
January 6, 2012

Dear Musician,2011 proved to be a transformative year as we undertook several steps to completely rebuild All About Jazz and expand its focus. And the improvements and expansion will continue long into 2012. Please read on for the details...1. Feature Your Music with AAJ On Demand! Learn more.2. Your New & Improved ProfileWe made a significant upgrade to the musician profile page earlier this year and have made steady improvements to it ...

Album Review

Eddie Daniels / Roger Kellaway: Live At The Library Of Congress

Read "Live At The Library Of Congress" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
January 5, 2012

The Library Of Congress is a repository for important cultural artifacts, so it seems only fitting that it should serve as the stage for a duo recital from two of jazz's greatest treasures. Clarinetist Eddie Daniels and pianist Roger Kellaway have built their individual careers and reputations as genre-blind artists with near-unmatched technical prowess on their respective instruments, making them ideally suited as duo partners. Daniels' place in jazz history was sealed when he joined up with ...

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

January 2012

by Mr. P.C.
January 5, 2012

Dear Mr. P.C.: I'll be playing “Mr. Magic," or “Just the Two of Us," and a musician will say to me “I'm calling the Jazz Police." Who are the Jazz Police? “G" Is Good!

Dear GIG:You've forced me to confess: I hate policemen/policewomen! Why? Not just because they're pepper-spraying authority figures enforcing a repressive, fascist system that calls itself democracy. They're also propagandists of the worst sort, leveraging laws to distort well-intentioned actions ...

Album Review

Steve Beresford, Stephen Flinn, Dave Tucker: Ink Room

by John Eyles
January 5, 2012

Ink Room is one of those albums carrying the information that it was recorded live, with no overdubs--and it needs to. Electronic manipulator Steve Beresford, electric guitarist Dave Tucker guitar and, from Los Angeles, percussionist Stephen Flinn produce a lot of music between them, to the extent that such reassurances are required. Recorded in November 2010, the album joins the ever-growing group of recordings which enhance the reputation of the London Improvisers Orchestra. Beresford and Tucker are both members of ...

160

Album Review

Dick Wood: Not Far From Here

Read "Not Far From Here" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
January 5, 2012

California reed man Dck Wood's heterogeneous union of influences from New Orleans, Louis Armstrong, John Cage and a consortium of other luminaries are rather subliminally packaged throughout this audacious studio date. Here, the artist gives the always-thriving West Coast progressive-jazz scene yet another jolt, as his semi-structured arrangements are fashioned with shadowy song-forms, peppered with dissonant tonal swashes, electronics and bizarre interludes. Wood also infuses humor and pathos into the fluid story lines, often proposing interpretations of social pandemonium.

107

Year in Review

Doug Collette's Best Releases of 2011

by Doug Collette
January 5, 2012

In no particular order, but all artists display unusually high levels of imagination and creative courage here, rendering each album worth playing for years to come. Brad Mehldau Live in Marciac (Nonesuch) Pat Metheny What's It All About (Nonesuch) Corea, Clarke & White Forever

Album Review

Aki Takase / Han Bennink: Two for Two

Read "Two for Two" reviewed by Nic Jones

by Nic Jones
January 5, 2012

Sparks should surely fly when two of the most creative musicians on the planet come together, shouldn't they? Well in this case, no. Pianist Aki Takase and drummer Han Bennink bring heavy experience to bear when they play, but in this case their efforts are underscored by a combination of tentativeness and heavy-handed humor. The latter hasn't been so leaden in the past and has been a welcome part of their work but here, as exemplified by ...

Album Review

Phish: Hampton/Winston-Salem '97

Read "Hampton/Winston-Salem '97" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
January 5, 2012

Less than halfway through Phish's Hampton/Winston-Salem '97, it's very clear what distinguishes these shows, documented in this seven-CD box, as singular entries in the band's pantheon of concert performances. The funk pervading this music makes a consistent backdrop for lengthy improvisations, the likes of which merely sprawled earlier in the group's career. Entries like the segue from “Ghost" into “AC/DC Bag" are not so sharply defined, but nonetheless provide continuity to the performance. No loose ends dangle within ...

168

Year in Review

2011: The Year In Jazz

by Ken Franckling
January 5, 2012

The ebb and flow of jazz in 2011 was marked by a Grammy Awards coup, a Grammy dustup, economic changes that consolidated the recording industry a bit, impacted clubs in various locales, and provided some new opportunities. The U.S. Postal Service literally put its stamp on jazz, even as the government wrestled with the future of the NEA Jazz Masters program. And there were awards galore for its makers. And a jazz broadcasting legend stepped away from the microphone.