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.

152

Album Review

e.company: On

by Dan Bilawsky
October 11, 2011

Some cities play host to rich, lively musical scenes created or fueled almost exclusively by those endemic to the environment; others seem to have magnetic properties that pull musicians from near and far into their artistic orbits. Such is the case with New Orleans, which, like New York, continues to be a beacon that draws musicians in like a lighthouse calling to ships. The members of the quintet known as e.company originate from all over the South ...

171

Big Band Caravan

Rodger Fox's Wellington Jazz Orchestra / Sammy Nestico-SWR Big Band / Gran Canaria Big Band

by Jack Bowers
October 11, 2011

Rodger Fox's Wellington Jazz OrchestraJourney HomeTbone Records2011 Alan Broadbent and Rodger Fox's Wellington Jazz Orchestra: a rendezvous that took many years to bring about and is clearly long overdue--but as the saying goes, better late than never (in this case, much better!). Broadbent, a Grammy-winning composer / arranger / pianist who was born in Auckland, New Zealand, and has earned fame and fortune in the U.S. playing with and writing for such ...

166

Take Five With...

Take Five With Philip Baumgarten

by AAJ Staff
October 11, 2011

Meet Philip Baumgarten: I started out as a bass guitarist, and played salsa in the seventies. My band, Bapao, was successful in The Netherlands, and I played in every important venue. Later on, I switched to double-bass and jazz became my main thing. I've been playing jazz now for many years with many musicians, with whom I recorded a number of CDs. I now have my own jazz trio, the Philip Baumgarten Trio, that has just released its ...

136

Album Review

Nicole Mitchell: Awakening

Read "Awakening" reviewed by Jerry D'Souza

by Jerry D'Souza
October 11, 2011

Flautist Nicole Mitchell is visionary. Her music clasps a wide panorama of styles and sounds in a constant quest for the new, as she opens up a sonic spectrum that moves from quiet interludes to scintillating rhythmic motifs. Mitchell brings the flute up front on this CD, working with a quartet rather than the larger ensembles she has employed in the past. This gives the music intimacy yet, as with all of her recordings, has a tensile layer ...

268

Interview

Tierney Sutton: In Union There is Strength

by Todd Gordon
October 11, 2011

Bands come in all shapes, sizes and dynamics. Some thrive on the tensions, while others fall apart too soon due to creative differences or inflated egos. None of these challenges seem to present themselves to the group of musicians that takes its name from the vocalist Tierney Sutton. With nine albums under its collective belt, complemented by three Grammy nominations, the Tierney Sutton Band is about to tour again in support of its American Road release (BMF Jazz, 2011).

213

Album Review

Zara McFarlane: Until Tomorrow

Read "Until Tomorrow" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
October 10, 2011

Until Tomorrow, from young London-based singer and writer Zara McFarlane, is a delight. This is not McFarlane's first recording--her 2010 self-produced six-track EP, also called Until Tomorrow, debuted some of these songs, and she has also recorded with the Jazz Jamaica All Stars--but it's her first full-length album. Filled with fresh and beautifully crafted compositions, it signals McFarlane's maturing talents as a singer and songwriter with a distinctive take on the art of the song. McFarlane is ...

238

Live Review

Hong Kong International Jazz Festival, Days 4-6, September 28-30, 2011

by Ian Patterson
October 10, 2011

Days 1-3 | Days 4-6 | Days 7-8Hong Kong International Jazz FestivalHong KongSeptember 25-October 2, 2011 The 2011 Hong Kong International Jazz Festival offered up over forty groups from 24 countries--a big jump from the eight bands that made up the first edition of HKIJF in 2008. Apart from the music, there was a series of activities and talks covering a wide range of topics. Workshops focused on improvisation, creativity for children, vocal improvisation ...

153

Album Review

Chris Connor: Chris Connor Sings Gentle Bossa Nova

Read "Chris Connor Sings Gentle Bossa Nova" reviewed by David Rickert

by David Rickert
October 10, 2011

If you were a jazz singer in the mid-sixties, chances are you recorded a bossa nova album. It might have been great, it might have been terrible, but it most likely fell somewhere in-between. You may not have wanted to record one, but bossa nova was too popular a fad to resist, and not many people were buying jazz records anyway. And, at least, bossa nova records allowed you the opportunity to use your jazz chops on something deliberately commercial.

201

Album Review

Levin Torn White: Levin Torn White

Read "Levin Torn White" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
October 10, 2011

Pity poor Alan White. The British drummer had racked up plenty of street cred playing on projects by then-ex-Beatles John Lennon and George Harrison, Joe Cocker and Free's Paul Kossoff, when progressive rockers Yes came knocking in 1973, looking to replace Bill Bruford, who'd departed, on the cusp of massive commercial success, to join up with the more improv-heavy King Crimson. Forty years later, White is still working in a group that struggles for relevancy in the 21st century--still relying ...

187

Multiple Reviews

Derek Bailey: Concert in Milwaukee and Scrutables

by John Eyles
October 10, 2011

Remarkably, over five years after his death on Christmas Day 2005, these two recordings by guitarist Derek Bailey--one dating from 1983, the other from 2000--have never before been properly released. In a 2001 interview, Bailey spoke in typically jocular fashion about the number of neglected tapes that were about in his house in Hackney, London. Of a 1975 duo with Tristan Honsinger he said, “It's on one of these big reels [on a high shelf in his study]--it might have ...