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.

372

Album Review

David White Jazz Orchestra: Flashpoint

Read "Flashpoint" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
September 14, 2011

With a faculty that includes John Abercrombie, Eric Alexander, Scott Colley, Jon Faddis, Jon Gordon and Kenny Washington, the Purchase College Jazz Studies Program is a leading talent pool for artists. No one alumnus epitomizes that capacity better than trombonist, composer and arranger David White on his debut, Flashpoint. Though he's still relatively unknown outside the New York circuit, White has played with the likes of Slide Hampton, Delfeayo Marsalis and Kenny Burrell. White's Jazz Orchestra deftly combines the traditions ...

181

Live Review

McCoy Tyner Trio with Gary Bartz: New York, NY, September 1, 2011

by Lawrence Peryer
September 14, 2011

McCoy Tyner Trio with Gary BartzBlue NoteNew York, NYSeptember 1, 2011 With all of the thunder and lightning he has summoned for more than fifty years, pianist McCoy Tyner kicked off eight sets over four nights at Manhattan's Blue Note Jazz Club on Thursday, September 1, 2011. This run was unique, compared to Tyner's typical Blue Note residencies, in that it was part of Generations of Jazz, a production of Quincy ...

164

Album Review

Flaten/ Kornstad/ Christensen: Mitt Hjerte Altid Vanker I: Live At Oslo Jazz Festival

Read "Mitt Hjerte Altid Vanker I: Live At Oslo Jazz Festival" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
September 14, 2011

If folk music is music of “the people," then certainly adding the designation of “jazz" is a redundancy. When a jazz trio such as that of bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, saxophonist Håkon Kornstad and drummer Jon Christensen performs traditional Norwegian folk music, it is both reaffirming the oral (or aural) tradition of the music and the human context (or familia) of sound and improvisation.The music heard on Mitt Hjerte Altid Vanker I: Live At Oslo Jazz Festival (My ...

168

Album Review

Paul Motian: The Windmills Of Your Mind

Read "The Windmills Of Your Mind" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
September 13, 2011

While Paul Motian's name is on the spine of this CD, guitarist Bill Frisell is the tie that binds this band. Frisell's ability to paint ethereal coats of sound in an earnest manner that speaks to his love of all things musical is at the heart of this program, which may be seen as an expansion of Petra Haden and Bill Frisell (True North, 2003)--a woefully overlooked vocals and guitar date which contains intimate and highly expressive takes on the ...

284

Talkin' Blues

Yusef Lateef: Eastern Sounds Turns 50

by Alan Bryson
September 13, 2011

Think back fifty years to the days portrayed on the TV series Mad Men. In 1961, John Kennedy and Billboard's Easy Listening Chart were inaugurated, a freedom riders bus was fire-bombed in Alabama, Rock Hudson was on the big screen, and Doris Day was selling albums. As teenagers and their swinging parents were twisting their brains out to Chubby Checker or the “authentic music by the King Curtis Combo," East German communists began construction of the Berlin ...

273

Interview

Nick Hempton: The Way It Is

by David A. Orthmann
September 13, 2011

The Business (Positone, 2011) is a milestone in the career of Nick Hempton. Since arriving in the USA from his native Australia in 2004, the 35-year-old saxophonist, composer, and bandleader has slowly but surely worked his way up the ladder of the notoriously competitive New York City jazz scene. Hempton's second date as a leader is a testament to his talent, dedication, hard work, and to a willingness not to take himself too seriously. The disc is distinguished by an ...

220

Album Review

Francesco Turrisi: Fotographia

Read "Fotographia" reviewed by Greg Simmons

by Greg Simmons
September 13, 2011

Encouraging experimentation is the lifeblood of jazz. It keeps the music vital and ensures that new voices get to have their say. The minute the music becomes a museum relic, played through a fixed, orthodox interpretation, is the moment it dies an ignominious death. Thank goodness, then, for musicians like pianist Francesco Turrisi, who embraces creative experimentation on Fotographia. This collection of fifteen vignettes periodically employs bassist Claus Kaarsgaard and percussionist Joao Lobo. But for the most part, ...

181

Album Review

Francisco Mela & Cuban Safari: Tree Of Life

Read "Tree Of Life" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
September 12, 2011

A safari, in essence, is all about the idea of an encounter between the tamed, usually in the form of adventure-seeking humans, and the wild, which they aim to explore. The same could be said for the music that drummer Francisco Mela creates with Cuban Safari on Tree Of Life. For his third solo outing, the Cuban-born drummer, best known for his work as part of the two drummer-and-bass team that anchors saxophonist Joe Lovano's Us Five outfit, assembled a ...

250

Interview

Peter Auret: Turning the Tide

by Seton Hawkins
September 12, 2011

Johannesburg-based Peter Auret is something of a renaissance man in jazz. A drummer, bandleader, recording engineer, founder of a record label, and entrepreneur, Auret has spearheaded an initiative to organize some of the city's most striking jazz talents into a musical collective centered around his label, Afrisonic Records.Starting his career as a drummer in rock bands, and later earning international acclaim through his work with the Afro-Jazz ensemble Tsunami, Auret ultimately found his life's passion in jazz. Fronting ...

128

Live Review

Detroit Jazz Festival: Detroit, MI September 2-5, 2011

by Matt Marshall
September 12, 2011

32nd Annual Detroit Jazz FestivalDetroit, MISeptember 2-5, 2011 In its 32nd year, the Detroit Jazz Festival decided to drop “International" from its name, only to turn around and proclaim “We Bring You the World." An interesting distinction, but the festival's scope was covered, nonetheless. The celebration brought to Detroit not only artists and music from around the globe, but did so with an eye toward covering the full spectrum of jazz music as it exists today.