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.

205

Album Review

Nick Hempton: The Business

Read "The Business" reviewed by Jerry D'Souza

by Jerry D'Souza
September 10, 2011

On his self-produced debut, Nick Hempton Band (2009), saxophonist Nick Hempton showed a deft sense of humor through his liner notes. No witticisms mark the release of The Business, but another factor that was evident on the first manifests itself all over again: Hempton is a saxophonist of class.

177

Album Review

Etienne Charles: Kaiso

Read "Kaiso" reviewed by Nicholas F. Mondello

by Nicholas F. Mondello
September 10, 2011

With Kaiso, trumpeter Etienne Charles revisits his robust Trinidad-Tobago roots, brilliantly exposing their beauty, mystery and fascinating flavors. The fruits of Charles and crew's labor blossom from multiple Caribbean grooves into a highly energized performance, with more jazz-tinged interpretations than his prior outing, the highly acclaimed Folklore (Self-Produced, 2009). The title tune, from an African word loosely defined as “proceed" (as in “play on"), is dark and hard. With the frontline boiling hot over a pulsing harmonic ...

298

Reassessing

Chet Baker: She Was Too Good To Me

by C. Michael Bailey
September 9, 2011

Chet BakerShe Was Too Good To MeCTI Records1974 The modern image of trumpeter/vocalist Chet Baker is a hopelessly fractious one. Baker is, at once, a brilliant musical autodidact with a superb ear while, at the same time, a musician with a nonexistent grounding in musical theory. Like cornetist Bix Beiderbecke before him, Baker taught himself, thereby forging a personal sound identifiable across the space-time continuum. He left a 40-year aural testament, ...

234

Book Review

Chet Baker: His Life and Music

by C. Michael Bailey
September 9, 2011

Chet Baker: His Life and Music Jeroen de Valk Paperback; 296 pages ISBN: 189316313 Berkeley Hills Books 2000 The legacy of jazz trumpeter/vocalist Chet Baker, particularly that developed after 1980, has largely evaded detailed analysis. In the 25 years since Baker's death, following a fall from an Amsterdam hotel window, May 13, 1988, a clearer picture of the artist has emerged in the form of two excellent, yet whole disparate biographies, James ...

Album Review

Eric St-Laurent Trio: Ruby

by Jerry D'Souza
September 9, 2011

Montreal born guitarist Eric St-Laurent learned to play the instrument in his home town before moving to New York, where he mastered the art of improvisation. While many jazz musicians would have been happy to find a grounding in New York, St-Laurent had a wider vision. He then moved to Berlin, where he played with German and Scandinavian bands during the 10 years he lived there. As an adjunct, he also began composing music for film. With that under his ...

147

Album Review

Jake Hertzog: Evolution

Read "Evolution" reviewed by Mark Redlefsen

by Mark Redlefsen
September 9, 2011

Evolution is the third solo outing from guitarist Jake Hertzog, Guitar Player Magazine contributor and member of the rock band, The Young Presidents. Although the album appears weighted towards jazz fusion, it is the rock-inflected phrases woven into the music that saves it from running into all-too-familiar jazz guitar footprints. The generational sound of this recording is only slightly more youthful than Marc Ribot or Nels Cline, its title referring, perhaps, to the advancement of an unapologetic brand of jazz-rock ...

121

Mr. P.C.'s Guide to Jazz Etiquette and Bandstand Decorum

September 2011

by Mr. P.C.
September 8, 2011

Dear Mr. P.C.: Jazz is a finite resource, right? So when people write long compositions or take long solos, aren't they stripping the planet? What will be left for our children and grandchildren? Saxophonists Against Future Exploitation

Dear SAFE: Of course there are the jazz depletion deniers who say we can always find more. They want us to mine the music of remote aboriginal tribes, for example, then distill it and extract essential ...

101

Album Review

Phil Seamen: Seamen's Mission

Read "Seamen's Mission" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
September 8, 2011

British jazz has produced many great players whose fame never came close to matching their talent. One such was the mercurial drummer Phil Seamen. Seamen's Mission a splendid 4-CD box set in the Proper Box series, is a great reminder of Seamen's skills across a range of ensembles from big bands to trios, from swing to bop. Seamen began his professional career in 1944, working in the big bands of Nat Gonella and Joe Loss, among others. ...

171

Album Review

Trevor Watts / Veryan Weston: 5 More Dialogues

Read "5 More Dialogues" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
September 8, 2011

5 More Dialogues is the successor to 6 Dialogues (Emanem, 2002) and offers more in the way of fascinating elaborations by longtime collaborators, pianist Veryan Weston and saxophonist Trevor Watts, both heralded artisans of the British progressive jazz and improvisational circuit. A mark of invention pervades throughout, as the duo fuses sublime persuasions, inverted theme-building jaunts, and mesmeric passages with fleeting melodies and rhythmical dynamics. Highlighted by a manifold approach to the program, the duo aligns a throng ...

216

Live Review

Return to Forever IV / Zappa Plays Zappa: Denver, August 27, 2011

by Geoff Anderson
September 8, 2011

Return to Forever IV with Zappa Plays ZappaParamount TheaterDenver, COAugust 27, 2011 With Return to Forever IV and Zappa Plays Zappa on the same bill, the Paramount Theater heard more notes per cubic inch than ever before. To say that these two bands play fast is like saying the Yankees win a few baseball games. The virtuosic playing, the jazz-rock aesthetic and the similar eras of their popularity--mainly in the 1970s--make these two bands ...