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.

156

Album Review

Joe McPhee / Michael Zerang: Creole Gardens (A New Orleans Suite)

Read "Creole Gardens (A New Orleans Suite)" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
December 10, 2011

In these recessionary times, the duet offers the optimum solution: the opportunity for dialogue and interaction, but with logistics and expense kept to a minimum. Of course, such strictures are nothing new for the avant-garde, those flowers which bloom between the cracks in the marginal wastelands. Multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee's résumé includes more than its fair share of twosomes, with drummers forming a prominent strand. Recent partners include Hamid Drake, Paul Hession, Paal NIlssen-Love and Chris Corsano, but this encounter with ...

New York Beat

Jazz Arrangers: A Celebration at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola

by Nick Catalano
December 10, 2011

Any discussion of a jazz figure's importance must include an analysis of the breadth of his or her talents. No one doubts trumpeter Louis Armstrong's stature in the origins of Dixieland. But attempts to place Jelly Roll Morton next to him in the pantheon of the genre often meet with resistance. Yet, in addition to being an outstanding performing virtuoso as, of course, Armstrong was, Morton was a premier arranger. This huge talent has too often been downplayed by jazz ...

125

Album Review

Tri-Fi: A Tri-Fi Christmas

Read "A Tri-Fi Christmas" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
December 10, 2011

Every Christmas there are volunteers sent to save us from the wrath of Burl Ives. They are called jazz musicians. Everyone loves a bit of schmaltzy music a few days before the holidays, but the only problem these days is that the holiday begins right after Halloween. Sixty days of grandma getting run over by a reindeer can make you suicidal.This year's finest jazz Christmas offering might just be by pianist Matthew Fries, bassist Phil Palombi and drummer ...

116

Live Review

Peter Murphy: New York, NY, November 21, 2011

by Christine Connallon
December 10, 2011

Peter Murphy with She Wants Revenge and Hussle Club Irving Plaza New York, New York November 21, 2011 The cold biting wind, a short holiday get-away week--even the presence of two opening acts--did not deter legions of Peter Murphy fans, both old and new, from his gig at the iconic East Village club, Irving Plaza. The ever-busy Murphy is coming off an action-packed 2011. The former front man for Bauhaus signed with Nettwerk Music ...

113

Album Review

The Claudia Quintet: What Is the Beautiful?

Read "What Is the Beautiful?" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
December 10, 2011

American poet Kenneth Patchen (1911-1972) has been a favorite of musicians for over half a century, from composer John Cage to saxophonist Peter Brötzmann and bassist William Parker. This everyman writer, considered to be the “father of the Beats," is their direct link to Walt Whitman and William Blake.Before Jack Kerouac performed his poems with a jazz band, Patchen was reciting poetry backed by Allyn Ferguson and Charles Mingus. His writings are a smattering of love poems to ...

113

Album Review

Taeko Kunishima: Late Autumn

Read "Late Autumn" reviewed by Lewis J Whittington

by Lewis J Whittington
December 10, 2011

Taeko Kunishima's Late Autumn starts with a wandering solo entrance that engages the composer/pianist's stream of jazz style. It instantly feels both musically liberated and firmly rooted in multi-era reverence. This prologue, “To the Hebrides," open an otherwise freewheeling narrative by Kunishima and her dazzling lineup.After the opening track the set ignites with the seven-minute scorcher, “Return To Life." Inside of its retro-progressive ascensions, shakuhachi virtuoso Clive Bell evokes a Japanese classicism which then vanishes, jarring the imagination. ...

140

Album Review

Jo-Yu Chen: Incomplete Soul

Read "Incomplete Soul" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
December 9, 2011

Where most musicians today release a record as a statement that they have arrived, Jo-Yu Chen's recording Incomplete Soul characterizes the ongoing journey of musical exploration which the pianist began with Obsession (Sony, 2010). Opening with the erhu (two-stringed Chinese violin) opening to “The Wandering Songstress," the record is a musical metaphor of Chen herself. In honor of her Taiwanese heritage, she chose this song and two others--"Chess" and “Red Bean"- to display her Asian cultural roots, while masterfully blending ...

171

Reassessing

Pharoah Sanders: Thembi

by Chris May
December 9, 2011

Pharoah SandersThembiImpulse!1971 It is strange that two of the most striking albums made by saxophonist Pharoah Sanders during the first flush of late 1960s/early 1970s astral jazz have been so often overlooked in reissue series. Tauhid (Impulse!, 1967)--the recording which launched astral jazz, the style Sanders fashioned alongside harpist/pianist Alice Coltrane--and Thembi have been available only intermittently during the last 20 years. Tauhid is unalloyed bliss from start ...

107

Album Review

John Mayall: Live in London

Read "Live in London" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
December 9, 2011

Though John Mayall doesn't deign to call the unit that collaborates with him on Live in London “The Bluesbreakers," his current band is arguably as tight and sympathetic as any ensemble that's sported the moniker in the recent past. Fusing bassist Greg Rzab, drummer Jay Davenport and guitarist Rocky into a fluid ensemble, The Godfather of British Blues elicits versatility from this stripped- down instrumental lineup, opening with vocals, harp and some piano on “Another Man." It's just the first ...

173

Extended Analysis

Jim Ridl: Blue Corn Enchilada Dreams

by Victor L. Schermer
December 9, 2011

Jim Ridl Blue Corn Enchilada Dreams Jim Ridl Records2011Jim Ridl is one of our most creative and versatile jazz pianists, an acknowledged master often called upon by his peers for their recordings and live performances. Whether he works along with saxophonists Dave Liebman and Charles Pillow, or flugelhornist Anthony Branker, or vocalist JD Walter, or in a duet context with guitarist Pat Martino, Ridl always adds something special to the mix, conjuring ...