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.

155

Album Review

Sam Rivers: Fuchsia Swing Song

Read "Fuchsia Swing Song" reviewed by Greg Simmons

by Greg Simmons
November 9, 2011

The Music Matters reissue of saxophonist Sam Rivers' Fuchsia Swing Song is likely the finest pressing of this record ever produced. Remastered from the original two- track tapes, and pressed on two 180 gram 45 rpm LPs, this vinyl is dead quiet, and sonically stunning. The instruments are huge in the soundstage and the clarity blows any CD version--and likely most prior vinyl versions--out of the water. Add to that a gorgeous gatefold cover with additional session photos and thick ...

160

Album Review

Nick Ruffini: Pressin' On

Read "Pressin' On" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
November 9, 2011

The Hammond B-3 organ blew into jazz in a big way in the 1950s and 1960s. Employed mostly in small group settings--trios and quartets--the soulful, urban, deep groove music became hugely popular at that time, thanks to organists Jimmy Smith and Jimmy McGriff, as well as guitarists Wes Montgomery and Grant Green, among many others. The B-3 organ remains a popular form of jazz vehicle to this day, through the recordings of groups like Chicago's tradition-steeped Deep Blue Organ Trio ...

183

Album Review

Oz Noy: Twisted Blues: Volume 1

Read "Twisted Blues: Volume 1" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
November 8, 2011

That guitarist Oz Noy was voted “Best Newcomer" by Guitar Player Magazine in 2008 underlines how curiously under the radar he seems to fly. By then, Noy had already played with New York's finest musicians in the dozen preceding years since arriving from Israel, and had cut three impressive CDs as leader. His fourth release, Schizophrenic (Magnitude Records, 2009) portrayed a multiple musical personality, one embracing jazz, rock, blues and funk in a potent, bewitching cocktail, veering this way and--when ...

219

Album Review

Enrico Rava Quintet: Tribe

by John Kelman
November 8, 2011

Plenty has happened since Enrico Rava last recorded with his working quintet. All but the piano chair remained stable between Easy Living (ECM, 2004) and The Words And The Days (ECM, 2007), but trombonist Gianluca Petrella is the sole remnant on Tribe. “Change is good," they say, and if the rest of Rava's quintet consists of largely fresh (and young) faces, the lack of name power shouldn't be mistaken for lack of firepower. In a post-show interview ...

190

Big Band Report

"Modern Sounds," or: Running a Marathon in Full Body Armor

by Jack Bowers
November 8, 2011

From October 19-25 Betty and I were at the Los Angeles Marriott Airport Hotel to attend Modern Sounds, the L.A. Jazz Institute's four-day salute to West Coast jazz, followed by a day-long tribute to Stan Kenton on the hundredth anniversary of the legendary bandleader's birth. We arrived a day early to be primed and ready for the event, which began at 8:30 Thursday morning with the first of four hour-long film mosaics and continued almost non-stop until somewhere around ten ...

132

Live Review

Wynton Marsalis: Newark, Delaware, November 2, 2011

by Eugene Holley, Jr.
November 8, 2011

Wynton Marsalis: The Ballad of the American ArtsBob Carpenter CenterUniversity of DelawareNewark, DelawareNovember 2, 2011 A Wynton Marsalis gig is not particularly news. But his appearance at the Bob Carpenter Center was truly newsworthy, as evidenced by the appreciative, near-capacity crowd who came out to hear his stirring fifty-minute lecture/performance. “The Ballad of the American Arts" was his intimate, yet intense presentation that encompassed arts advocacy and education, plus American political, social, ...

151

Album Review

Jacob 2-2: Fantasiarexia

Read "Fantasiarexia" reviewed by Lawrence Peryer

by Lawrence Peryer
November 8, 2011

After lighting up the indie blogosphere at the beginning of 2011 with his six-song EP, Cabazon (Moodgadget Records), DJ and producer Jacob 2-2 is back with Fantasiarexia, featuring more of his 1980s-derived electro funk. Drawing from a well of inspiration that includes not only Herbie Hancock, Jean Michel Jarre and Windham Hill but also film, TV and commercial incidental music. The veil of nostalgia hangs heavily over this music. The trip backward begins with the artist's own ...

164

Album Review

Colin Stranahan / Glenn Zaleski / Rick Rosato: Anticipation

Read "Anticipation" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
November 8, 2011

Colin Stranahan, Glenn Zaleski and Rick Rosato describe their trio as a “leaderless" jazz ensemble--a democratic aggregation. Anticipation is the band's first album, and provides plenty of evidence that such a democratic approach to jazz can have clear musical rewards. The trio was the idea of Montreal bassist Rosato, drummer Stranahan--probably the best known of the three and a past member of Herbie Hancock and Kurt Rosenwinkel's groups, and who gets his name at the front of ...

230

Film Review

Miles Davis: The Definitive Miles Davis at Montreux DVD Collection 1973-1991

by John Kelman
November 8, 2011

Miles Davis Miles! The Definitive Miles Davis at Montreux DVD Collection 1973-1991 Eagle Eye Media 2011With the release of Live at Montreux: Highlights 1973-1991 (Eagle Eye Media, 2011) a couple of months back, notice was served of a much more ambitious collection, bringing together all of Miles Davis' concerts at the esteemed Swiss festival, from the summer of 1973 through to less than 90 days before the trumpet legend's untimely passing on September 28, 1991, ...

210

Album Review

Ola Kvernberg: Liarbird

by John Kelman
November 7, 2011

It may have seemed that recruiting American saxophonist Joshua Redman for the live premiere of Liarbird--a joint commission by the Trondheim and Molde Jazz Festivals in Norway--was the musical equivalent of a ringer in sports. But it wasn't long into Ola Kvernberg's ambitious Molde Jazz 2010 performance, as the violinist launched into the first of many staggeringly fine solos, that Redman's appreciation for the players around him became clear--his expression, for most of the show, one of sheer amazement. And ...