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.

170

Take Five With...

Take Five With Josh Nelson

by AAJ Staff
September 16, 2011

Meet Josh Nelson: Josh Nelson, born and raised in Southern California, maintains an active and creative schedule as a jazz pianist, composer, teacher, and recording artist. At 33 years old, he has already performed with some of the most respected names in jazz, including Natalie Cole, Anthony Wilson, Robert Hurst, Jeff Hamilton, Ralph Moore, Albert Tootie" Heath, Seamus Blake, Matt Wilson, Sara Gazarek, Ernie Watts, Jack Sheldon, Tom Scott, Peter Erskine, Abe Laboriel, and Alex Acuna, to name ...

212

Album Review

Tommy Vig: Welcome to Hungary!

Read "Welcome to Hungary!" reviewed by Jerry D'Souza

by Jerry D'Souza
September 16, 2011

Vibraphonist Tommy Vig has had an interesting career. Born in Budapest, he played the drums when he was six and recorded his first album two years later. Music was his passion, but the political landscape in Hungary was to cast a shadow on his days as a jazz musician. Jazz was banned in 1949, and Vig could not play it again until 1956. With the defeat of the Hungarian Revolution, Vig decided that it was time to move on. Move ...

167

Album Review

Curtis Fuller: The Story Of Cathy & Me

Read "The Story Of Cathy & Me" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
September 16, 2011

Legendary trombonist Curtis Fuller pays heartwarming tribute to his wife, Catherine Rose Driscoll Fuller, on The Story of Cathy & Me, a musical tale of how they met, how they lived and how he now lives without her (she passed away in January, 2010). The album's many soft and intense pieces reflect Fuller's deeply personal memories, and range of emotions from excitement to sadness.With titles like “My Lady's Tears," “Too Late Now," and “Life Was Good, What Went ...

157

Album Review

Mike Baggetta Quartet: Source Material

Read "Source Material" reviewed by Mark F. Turner

by Mark F. Turner
September 15, 2011

Guitarist Mike Baggetta's versatility has been in the thick of New York's creative music scene, whether performing with Tom Harrell or front-lining projects like Bridges (MabnotesMusic, 2011), a duo recording with trumpeter Kris Tiner. Source Material is Baggetta's follow up to 2009's Small Spaces (Fresh Sound), with a working quartet that includes robust sax work from Jason Rigby, veteran drummer George Schuller and rising bassist Eivind Opsvik. What sets this recording on higher ground is not just the caliber of ...

276

Extended Analysis

Steven Bernstein's Millennial Territory Orchestra: MTO Plays Sly

by Chris May
September 15, 2011

Steven Bernstein's Millennial Territory OrchestraMTO Plays SlyThe Royal Potato Family2011 The Sly Stone songbook is a solid gold thing, and it is strange that it is so rarely revisited. Then again, repertory tributes are generally paid to artists who have passed. Stone is still with us, although, it sometimes seems, only just: over the last few decades, he has been ravaged by “personal problems" which would likely have finished off any ...

245

Multiple Reviews

Gerry Mulligan / J.J. Johnson / Sarah Vaughan / Misha Mengelberg & Piet Noordijk: Live At Concertgebouw

by David Rickert
September 15, 2011

The Concertgebouw in Amsterdam was a stop for quite a few notable jazz musicians during the 1950s and '60s, and for the past few years the Dutch Jazz Archive has released a concert from their archive at the rate of one per year. Judging by what has been released, it seems that many of these musicians did their best work here. Many of them were at the peak of their careers, and European audiences were always eager and enthusiastic for ...

210

Album Review

Atsuko Hashimoto: Until The Sun Comes Up

Read "Until The Sun Comes Up" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
September 15, 2011

Atsuko Hashimoto rides the Hammond B-3 organ through a selection of familiar standards, borrowing songs from The Great American Songbook on Until The Sun Comes Up, the Japanese organist's sixth album as leader. The recording is also her third project with Grammy Award-winning drummer Jeff Hamilton, following Time After Time (CDBY, 2008) and Introducing Atsuko Hashimoto (Azica Records, 2008). Guitarist Graham Dechter, a regular member of the renowned Clayton/Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, rounds out the trio.This particular group was ...

164

Album Review

Ricardo Villalobos / Max Loderbauer: Re: ECM

by David McLean
September 15, 2011

Over the past decade or so, the ECM label has been flirting with elements of electronic music in varying degrees. Evan Parker's Towards The Margins (1997) introduced electronic manipulation in the live processing of sound as a new improvisational tool, embellishing the saxophonist's already avant-garde collection of instrumentation. Since then, subtle machinations have crept into other releases from the label, But with Re:ECM, label head/producer Manfred Eicher has made a clear and bold statement--a full embracement of electronic music-making.

199

Album Review

Wadada Leo Smith's Organic: Heart's Reflections

Read "Heart's Reflections" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
September 14, 2011

To assess Wadada Leo Smith's contribution to the literature of his chosen instrument--the trumpet--as his sole claim to fame would be touching just the tip of the proverbial iceberg of his importance in the scheme of contemporary music. Firstly, there is a bottomless depth to him that rivals that of musicians such as Yusef Lateef and Adam Rudolph. His development of “Ankhrasmation"--profound graphic musical scores--have not borrowed from Karl-Heinz Stockhausen's European ones, but rather, have grown organically from his Afro-American ...

266

Live Review

Summer Jazz Cycling Tour 25: Groningen, The Netherlands, August 26-27, 2011

by John Sharpe
September 14, 2011

Summer Jazz Cycling Tour 25Groningen, Netherlands August 26-27, 2011 Only in the Netherlands. Where else would anyone think to create such a harmonious conjugation of jazz and cycling? Now in its 25th year, the annual ZomerJazzFietsTour (Summer Jazz Cycling Tour) takes place in the bucolic countryside just outside Groningen in the northern Netherlands. In some ways its existence is only to be expected, as almost everything else in Groningen involves a bicycle. Over 57% of urban journeys ...