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.

220

Live Review

Monterey Jazz Festival: Monterey, CA, September 16-18, 2011

by Larry Taylor
October 8, 2011

54th Annual Monterey Jazz Festival Monterey Fairgrounds Monterey, CA September 16-18, 2011 The Monterey Jazz Festival--still going strong after 54 years. What's more, this year, Sept. 16-18, it was better than ever: the music was great; weather warm yet crisp and the atmosphere bucolic at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Northern California. What schedulers did so well this time was to creatively juxtapose the old and the new, bringing veteran jazz masters and ...

176

Album Review

Helen Sung: (re)Conception

Read "(re)Conception" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
October 8, 2011

Pianist Helen Sung has got the swing thing down. A graduate of the inaugural class of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance, Sung has put out a series of increasingly distinctive CDs, from her ear-grabbing debut, Push (Blue Moon, 2004), to the classical leaning Sungbird (After Albeniz) (Sunnyside, 2007), through to 2010's quintet outing, Going Express (Sunnyside), with a trio stop for the outstanding Helenistque (Fresh Sound New Talent, 2006).A classically-trained pianist who didn't discover jazz until ...

218

Album Review

Uri Caine Trio: Siren

by Dan Bilawsky
October 8, 2011

Pianist Uri Caine holds a unique distinction, known the world over as a stellar jazz pianist, but a critics' darling for his genre-blind reworkings of classical music. His takes on the work of Gustav Mahler, Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Richard Wagner have become modern classics which straddle several musical worlds, but Caine's is no one-trick pony. When he isn't busy turning classical music history on its head, his restless artistic curiosity has taken him to a variety ...

Live Review

ZZ Top: Westbury, NY, August 29, 2011

by Mike Perciaccante
October 8, 2011

ZZ Top With special guests The Cadillac Black NYCB Theater at Westbury Westbury, NY August 29, 2011 Originally scheduled for Sunday, August 28, 2011, (after carefully reviewing the projected trajectory of Hurricane Irene), venue officials, Nassau County executives and band management agreed to delay ZZ Top's Long Island appearance until the storm had passed. The band released a message on Facebook and to the media which stated, “Coming from Houston as we do, deep in ...

162

Album Review

Fourthought: Fourthought

Read "Fourthought" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
October 8, 2011

The self-titled debut of an exciting New York-based quartet led by saxophonist Nicholas Biello and drummer Manuel Weyand, Fourthought forges new ground on the landscape of modern post-bop, presenting six originals and one cover tune in new light. Both Biello and German-born Weyand are products of the renowned Manhattan School of Music and are supported by Buffalo, NY bassist Cameron Kayne and Singapore-born pianist Kerong Chok. Together, as Fourthought, they bring a brash new voice to New York's vibrant jazz ...

252

Extended Analysis

Discipline (40th Anniversary Series)

by John Kelman
October 8, 2011

If King Crimson fans were shocked, stunned and grief-stricken when the seminal art-rock group was disbanded by its only original founding member, guitarist Robert Fripp, in September 1974--seemingly at the height of its power and prowess--then it's certain that many of them didn't exactly know what to make of Exposure (DGM Live) in 1979. After continuing to hone the tape-driven Frippertronics that he innovated with ex-Roxy Music keyboardist Brian Eno, on the equally seminal No Pussyfooting (DGM Live, 1973), Fripp ...

135

Album Review

Thomas Heberer's Clarino: Klippe One

Read "Klippe One" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
October 7, 2011

German born/New York-based trumpeter Thomas Heberer reveals dual facets of his personality on Klippe One--a 300-set limited edition double-LP. Although part of the Dutch Instant Composers Pool since 1990, and lately part of veteran multi-instrumentalist Karl Berger's Workshop Orchestra, Heberer here goes to the opposite extremes, with the first disc (Klippe) featuring his current trio and the second (One) finding him alone. In consort with clarinetist Joachim Badenhorst and bassist Pascal Niggenkemper, the trumpeter explores an austere chamber ...

179

Live From New York

Perry Robinson, Ron Carter, Dave Liebman and Valery Ponomarev

by Martin Longley
October 7, 2011

Perry Robinson/Diane Moser/Max Johnson The University Of The Streets August 30, 2011 Native New Yorker Perry Robinson is not one of the better known free improvisers, but his stature is no less significant as a result. Within a certain scene the clarinetist has accrued importance, his activities stretching back to the early 1960s. This low-key set involved a trio with pianist Diane Moser and bassman Max Johnson, making up a mixed ...

203

Album Review

Peter James Trio: Soul Story

Read "Soul Story" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
October 7, 2011

Soul Story is the second album from the Peter James Trio, and it's an outstanding work. Its combination of superb musicianship and keyboardist James' beautifully-crafted tunes ensures that the band can lay claim to a place in the top flight of piano trios. The passion and melodic sensibility displayed across the album further strengthens this claim. All three musicians studied together during the early '90s at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and their mutual understanding ...

173

Album Review

Freddie Hubbard: Pinnacle

Read "Pinnacle" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
October 7, 2011

Blistering. That is almost the only way to describe a solo by trumpeter Freddie Hubbard. Even from the beginning with his early recordings of the late 1950s, Hubbard sported a tone and attack akin to a chemical burn. He always had the classic posture of the trumpet player. Not the misanthropic one adopted by Miles Davis, bent full over, blowing toward the ground. Hubbard leaned back to an almost impossible angle, tucked in his chin and folded his elbows in ...