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.

334

Take Five With...

Take Five With Lenny Marcus

by AAJ Staff
October 26, 2011

Meet Lenny Marcus: Lenny Marcus hails from Washington, DC, but studied, performed and recorded for many years in New Orleans, LA, before relocating to Roanoke, VA. He is leader on 18 albums, and has studied and recorded with many jazz legends, including David Fathead" Newman, Brian Lynch, Sonny Fortune, Frank Foster, Charlie Byrd, Herb Ellis, Alvin Batiste, Ellis Marsalis, Jane Powell and many others. Marcus has played in three New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festivals, two international festivals ...

203

Album Review

Julius Hemphill: Dogon A.D.

Read "Dogon A.D." reviewed by Troy Collins

by Troy Collins
October 25, 2011

Dogon A.D. has long been revered as a classic among jazz connoisseurs; Julius Hemphill's relatively obscure but highly influential debut is widely considered the missing link between the avant-garde and populist forms such as blues, funk and soul. The 1972 recording session for this historic masterpiece originally produced four unique compositions, but Hemphill only issued three on his Mbari Records imprint due to time constraints. Arista/Freedom Records eventually bought the master tapes, using the fourth cut, “The Hard Blues," as ...

Book Excerpts

David Baker: A Legacy in Music

by Monika Herzig
October 25, 2011

This article appears in Chapter 2 “A Star is Born" of David Baker: A Legacy in Music by Monika Herzig (Indiana Univ. Press, 2011). The George Russell Sextet Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on June 23, 1923, George Russell started out as a drummer and soon entered the New York jazz scene.32 Bouts of tuberculosis kept him for extended periods in hospitals, where he developed much of the framework for his Lydian Chromatic Concept. The 1953 pamphlet ...

317

Album Review

Carol Morgan: Blue Glass Music

Read "Blue Glass Music" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
October 25, 2011

Trumpeter Carol Morgan's Blue Bamboo debut, Opening (2010) was received uniformly, with accolades from all quarters. The Texas-native cum Manhattan-ite exploded out of Julliard following the tutelage of trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, and seemed to be everywhere at once. Morgan has been a constant in the DIVA Jazz Orchestra (with Sharel Cassity), and fronting her quintet, Carol Morgan's Case Study, featuring pianist Helen Sung and guitarist Mike Moreno, and her organ trio, Morgana' Organic Trio, featuring Akiko Tsuruga. ...

191

Album Review

John Stein: Hi Fly

by Edward Blanco
October 25, 2011

With HI Fly, renowned jazz guitarist John Stein takes flight, leading his high-flying quartet on another top-flight set. The album is a follow-up to his recent Raising The Roof (Whaling City Sound, 2010), and features new band mate, pianist Jake Sherman, replacing keyboardist Koichi Sato, who appeared on the Stein's last two recordings. Sherman is a student at the Berklee College of Music, where the Stein is an Associate Professor.On this album, Stein navigates the band through five ...

159

Interview

Diane Monroe: Bridging Diverse Musical Worlds

by Victor L. Schermer
October 24, 2011

Listening to Diane Monroe play jazz violin--whether solo, duo, or in a group--what's immediately evident is how great an improviser she is, fitting seamlessly with the music and the group, breathing and moving with the music. Only then does it become clear that she possesses the precision, complexity, and technique of a classical concert violinist. Indeed, Monroe studied classical violin at the Curtis Institute of Music with renowned teacher Ivan Galamian. While engaging in a career as a concert artist, ...

255

Album Review

Vinny Golia Quartet: featuring Bobby Bradford, Ken Filiano and Alex Cline: Take Your Time

Read "Take Your Time" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
October 24, 2011

The third recording by this venerable Southern California ensemble yields an abundance of rewarding factors. First, it's a superbly recorded audio engineering process that adds to the depth and nuances of the program. Second, multi-woodwind artist Vinny Golia and his band mates hit their stride in prismatic fashion. Unbound by borders, the musicians' have helped formulate the West Coast musical aura, evidenced by the successful output of the Cryptogramophone and Golia's Nine Winds record labels, with a lineage ...

263

Book Excerpts

Traditional New Orleans Jazz, Conversations with the Men Who Make the Music

by Thomas W. Jacobsen
October 24, 2011

This article, adapted by the author, appears in Chapter 5 of Traditional New Orleans Jazz, Conversations with the Men Who Make the Music by Thomas W. Jacobsen (LSU Press, 2011). Irvin Mayfield: Boy Wonder Sometimes people live long enough to fulfill the promise of their youth, and sometimes they don't. Some individuals eventually achieve their youthful dreams of success, but many certainly do not. Such is life.The following conversation, recorded on March ...

Album Review

RED Trio + John Butcher: Empire

by John Eyles
October 24, 2011

It is an interesting comment on the state of improvised music across Europe that Empire is performed by a Portuguese trio joined by an English saxophonist, released on a Lithuanian record label, pressed in Germany. Studio-recorded in Lisbon in April 2010, Empire has been released on 12" vinyl in a limited edition, housed in a very appealing sleeve. The LP format provides full, rich sound that allows each note of every player to be heard clearly and distinctly.

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Take Five With...

Take Five With Tommy Vig

by AAJ Staff
October 24, 2011

Meet Tommy Vig: Born to a musical family in Budapest, Tommy Vig was internationally recognized as a child prodigy by the age of six, playing drums with his father, clarinetist Gyorgy Vig. His sense of improvisation, rhythm and energy at that young age made him unique, and he performed live concerts on radio, at the Budapest City Theatre, the Academy of Music in Budapest, and even the National Circus. At the age of eight, he made an album, ...