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.

165

Album Review

Giacomo Gates: The Revolution Will Be Jazz

Read "The Revolution Will Be Jazz" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
September 29, 2011

An omnipresent cloud persistently hangs over any tribute album--that the music will be compared to the original. Even though this might seem unfair, it's a fact. Knowing this, jazz vocalist Giacomo Gates dares to venture into the distinctive songbook of Gil Scott-Heron with The Revolution Will Be Jazz, and comes out the other side with a remarkable record. Gates cautiously handpicked the songs from Scott-Heron's repertoire, and wisely does not attempt an imitation or duplication, but performs ...

192

Extended Analysis

Aziz Sahmaoui: Aziz Sahmaoui & University Of Gnawa

by Chris May
September 29, 2011

Aziz SahmaouiAziz Sahmaoui & University Of GnawaSocadisc/Discovery Records2011 The music of Morocco has fascinated European and North American musicians for over 40 years--since guitarist Brian Jones recorded Brian Jones Presents The Pipes Of Pan At Joujouka (Rolling Stones Records, 1971) over an epically stoned weekend in the Ahl Srif mountains in 1968. The same year, pianist Randy Weston began a four year sojourn in the city of Rabat, where he ran ...

113

Take Five With...

Take Five With Craig Akin

by AAJ Staff
September 29, 2011

Meet Craig Akin: Craig Akin is an in-demand upright and electric bassist living in New York City. Between 1997 and 2007, he averaged 270 gigs a year in his musical hometown of Kansas City. There he developed his rhythm and tone while playing or recording with nearly everyone on the jazz and blues scene. Craig has also performed with emerging pop and indie songwriters as well as legendary jazz artists including Tim Hagans, Pete Christlieb, Frank Mantooth, John ...

227

Album Review

Fabian Almazan: Personalities

Read "Personalities" reviewed by Mark F. Turner

by Mark F. Turner
September 29, 2011

Fabian Almazan began creating some buzz with his sparkling piano chops in trumpeter Terence Blanchard's group on Choices (Concord Music Group, 2009). Originally from Havana, Cuba, Almazan is not only one of the young rising stars in New York, but is also classically trained and has received a number of awards as a composer in film, chamber and orchestral projects. Many of these disciplines come into play on this auspicious debut, which includes Almazan's equally convincing trio ...

151

Album Review

Wooden Shjips: West

by Glenn Astarita
September 29, 2011

Derived from America's western mythology and romanticism, the San Francisco-based Wooden Shjips incorporates vintage psychedelics, propelled by punchy back-beats amid Sonic Youth-style crunch chords and doses of German space-rock. However, the musicians do seed familiar turf into an identifiable group-focused line of operations. Perhaps a throwback to the '70s, due to Farfisa organ sounds and dreamy electronics and guitars treatments, the band mixes it up with a great deal of improvisation, shaded with ethereal ambience and a haze of semi-controlled ...

160

Album Review

Rob Brown: Unknown Skies

Read "Unknown Skies" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
September 28, 2011

Each year alto saxophonist Rob Brown brings a project to NYC's annual Vision Festival. Among the most raw and compelling was this stellar trio, featuring pianist Craig Taborn and drummer Nasheet Waits, which graced the 2009 gathering but had gone unrecorded, until now. Fortunately the voguish Paris-based Rogue Art imprint has issued a fine live recording from the 2010 Sons d'hiver festival in that city, which regularly presents highlights from the New York jamboree. His chosen format echoes ...

128

Extended Analysis

McCormack & Yarde Duo: Places And Other Spaces

by Chris May
September 28, 2011

McCormack & Yarde DuoPlaces And Other SpacesEdition2011 This arresting disc, the second from pianist Andrew McCormack and saxophonist Jason Yarde, is just the thing to brighten up a chilly autumn: warm, glowing and packed with great tunes--only one of which, George Gershwin's “Embraceable You," is a standard. Along with the pair's debut, My Duo (Joy & Ears, 2009), the album is one of several compelling piano and soprano saxophone ...

116

Live Review

Eliane Elias: San Francisco, CA, September 16. 2011

by Grahame "Buzz" Ware
September 28, 2011

Eliane Elias Yoshi's San Francisco, CA September 16, 2011 Sometimes you can never anticipate a peak experience. Oh, sure there can be plenty of expectation and great intentions but when it comes, you're blown away and gone. This is what happened at Yoshi's, San Francisco, where Eliane Elias came as advertised, and then much, much more. Elias is beautiful, mature, innocent and vivacious with thick natural blond hair, and she's one helluva a composer and ...

180

Album Review

Dead Cat Bounce: Chance Episodes

Read "Chance Episodes" reviewed by Andrew J. Sammut

by Andrew J. Sammut
September 28, 2011

Saxophonist/composer Matt Steckler mentions “remembering things anew," when describing the music he wrote for Chance Episodes. Dead Cat Bounce certainly “remembers" several influences on its fourth album, yet its members recollect via their own unique voices. The Boston-based sextet munches on several speeds of hardboiled swing for “Food Blogger," with calypso beats sandwiched throughout. “Silent Movie, Russia 1995" travels between Terry Goss' big, bluesy tenor sax and Jared Sims' jagged klezmer riffs on clarinet. Sims also contributes ...

313

Album Review

Anthony Strong: Delovely

Read "Delovely" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
September 28, 2011

From beat one of this genuinely swinging recording, London-based singer-pianist Anthony Strong and his band nail just the right groove to grab the attention and get heads nodding and toes tapping. Delovely--his second recording, following 2009's self-released Guaranteed!--is a five-song mini-album of mainstream standards, distinguished by Strong's warm and romantic vocal and some fine musicianship from his fellow players. Strong's background includes study at the Guildhall School of Music, work with a diverse array of artists including ...