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.

138

Album Review

Keith Jarrett: Rio

by Hrayr Attarian
December 21, 2011

Rio documents one of Keith Jarrett's improvised concerts for which the pianist is famous. Like most of his dozen or so such albums, the title refers to the location where it was recorded, but the similarity ends there, since the two-disc set is a very unique work. 36 years after his groundbreaking The Köln Concert (ECM, 1975), Jarrett has come out with another masterpiece which, with time, will most certainly become a classic. While the former record ...

108

Album Review

Jason Stein Quartet: The Story This Time

Read "The Story This Time" reviewed by Nic Jones

by Nic Jones
December 21, 2011

The two horns, bass and drums quartet is becoming a commonplace grouping even though it hasn't quite reached the saturation point of the piano-bass-drums trio. A consequence of this instrumentation is the obvious decline in novelty value and, indeed, the ability to catch the ear, but this is a leader and group only too aware of that, which explains why this is such a fresh body of music. Jason Stein also plays the bass clarinet exclusively, which in a sense ...

133

Album Review

Kevin Brow: Dolls & Guns

Read "Dolls & Guns" reviewed by Mark F. Turner

by Mark F. Turner
December 20, 2011

Drummer/composer Kevin Brow is a forward thinker, his compositional acuity and scintillating technique in clear evidence on his debut and sophomore releases--Kopter (2008) and Fire Sink (2011), both on Fresh Sound New Talent--modern works as intellectual as they are risk taking. If these weren't persuasive enough, then Dolls and Guns nails the point home all the more emphatically in one of the year's more intriguing recordings. The project consists of original music performed with thirteen musicians in ...

444

Interview

Erin Dickins: In Her Own Voice

by Chris M. Slawecki
December 20, 2011

It was a long time coming, but for singer Erin Dickins, recording her debut solo album Nice Girls (Champagne Records, 2010) proved well worth the wait.Several musical lifetimes ago, Dickins was a founding member of Manhattan Transfer and appears on their first album, Jukin' (Capitol, 1971). While she has remained close with Tim Hauser, another ManTran founding member, Dickins has since performed and recorded with artists in an impressive range of styles, from James Brown to Leonard Cohen, ...

196

Year in Review

Bruce Lindsay's Best Releases of 2011

by Bruce Lindsay
December 20, 2011

What sort of a year did jazz have in 2011? On the evidence of my Top Ten, a very varied and fascinating one. The human voice did well--Liane Carroll and Kaz Simmons produced beautiful, engaging and honest recordings that stir the emotions in very different ways. Finland did alright too, thanks to superb albums from Iiro Rantala and Verneri Pohjola. And the '50s and '60s also manage to claim two of the Top Ten spots, with retrospectives from Joe Harriott ...

Album Review

Oscar Perez / Nuevo Comienzo: Afropean Affair

Read "Afropean Affair" reviewed by Dave Wayne

by Dave Wayne
December 20, 2011

On Afropean Affair , pianist/composer Óscar Pérez treads an appealing line between Afro-Latin jazz and modern jazz reminiscent of the Cuban band Irakere--or, perhaps, the first couple of Chick Corea Return to Forever discs, with saxophonist/flautist Joe Farrell and drummer Airto). A native of New York City, Pérez's early immersion in both Afro-Cuban and European classical music came courtesy of his parents, who hail from Cuba and Colombia. After studying violin, piano, and guitar as a youth, ...

Album Review

Andrew Cyrille & Haitian Fascination: Route de Freres

Read "Route de Freres" reviewed by Nic Jones

by Nic Jones
December 20, 2011

Defying preconceived notions, a band featuring two highly persuasive advocates of the free and the near-free has produced a record of warm and winning world music potent enough to lift the spirit in the depths of winter. The band is named Haitian Fascination for a very good reason. Not only is drummer Andrew Cyrille the son of a Haitian mother, he's always been a player able to light fires under anything. On this occasion his rhythmic vitality ...

192

Year in Review

David A. Orthmann's Best Releases of 2011

by David A. Orthmann
December 20, 2011

2011 was another banner year for newly recorded jazz. My favorites in no particular order... New Tricks Alternate Side (New Tricks Records) Jeff Williams Another Time (Whirlwind Recordings) Vinnie Cutro The Music of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn (Royal Music Ensembles Records) Nick Hempton The Business (Posi-Tone)

136

Album Review

Tierney Sutton: American Road

Read "American Road" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
December 20, 2011

The name “Tierney Sutton Band" is not only inclusive but entirely appropriate, as Sutton, one of the current scene's most versatile and accomplished jazz singers, uses her supple voice as an instrument to complement those of pianist Christian Jacob, drummer Ray Brinker and bassists Trey Henry or Kevin Axt on American Road, the band's spacious and colorful salute to the country of its birth. The album has been nominated for Grammy Awards for best instrumental recording (small groups) and best ...

125

Album Review

Animation: Agemo

Read "Agemo" reviewed by Lawrence Peryer

by Lawrence Peryer
December 19, 2011

One of the more intriguing albums issued in the first half of 2011, Animation's Asiento (RareNoise, 2011), has now begotten one of the best sets of the latter part of the year. Asiento was a live reimagining of trumpeter Miles Davis' seminal Bitches Brew (Columbia, 1970), recorded live in December 2006 as part of the Reissue: Classic Recordings Live series, at Merkin Hall in Manhattan. Agemo is itself a reimaging. This two-CD set is ...