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.

192

Album Review

Kenny Shanker: Steppin' Up

Read "Steppin' Up" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
August 27, 2011

Kenny Shanker has worked extensively since graduating from the Manhattan School of Music in 2001, playing with the New World Symphony, and the Tommy Dorsey and Nelson Riddle Orchestras, among others. The young alto saxophonist recorded his debut album as leader, Steppin' Up, in April 2009 but it's taken almost two-and-a-half years for it to be released. It's a shame that it has stayed in the vaults for so long, for Shanker's melodic and accessible brand of straight-ahead jazz is ...

198

Book Review

Daniel Beaumont: Preachin’ the Blues - The Life and Times of Son House

by C. Michael Bailey
August 27, 2011

Preachin' the Blues: The Life and Times of Son House Daniel Beaumont Hardback; 224 pages ISBN: 0195395573 Oxford University Press 2011 Some of the new millennial writing about blues music, such as Elijah Wald's Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues (Amistad, 2004) and Ted Gioia's Delta Blues (Norton, 2008), devote a great deal of energy addressing how the blues- scholarship approach of the 1950s and 1960s ...

147

Album Review

Das Kapital: Conflicts & Conclusions: Das Kapital plays Hanns Eisler

Read "Conflicts & Conclusions: Das Kapital plays Hanns Eisler" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
August 27, 2011

Pan-European power trio Das Kapital continues to explore, on its third release, the musical legacy of composer Hanns Eisler, after successfully rearranging Eisler's well-known compositions and songs on Ballads & Barricades (Quark, 2009) Eisler's compositions rarely were covered by free jazz musicians. The pioneer European trio of Peter Brötzmann, Fred Van Hove amd Han Bennink covered a few Esler compositions on the hard-to-find Einheitsfrontlied (FMP, 1973), though the composer's multi-layered writing attempted to fill the gap between ...

225

Album Review

Organik Vibe Trio: Moscow

Read "Moscow" reviewed by Nicholas F. Mondello

by Nicholas F. Mondello
August 27, 2011

The members of the Organik Vibe Trio bring highly diverse playing and recording experience--and writing talents--to Moscow. With a broad collective résumé, this empathic team drives hard--and quite beautifully--over ten highly inspired, enjoyable and swinging selections, with five standards and five originals. Al Dubin/Harry Warren's “Summer Night" kicks off the session, with vibraphonist/marimbaist Dave Samuels' mallets playing the up-tempo samba melody. Organist/accordionist Ron Oswanki's B-3 is always right there, comping and offering ideas across the date. The ...

209

Book Review

Brian Morton & Richard Cook: The Penguin Jazz Guide - The History of the Music in the 1001 Best Albums

by C. Michael Bailey
August 27, 2011

The Penguin Jazz Guide: The History of the Music in the 1001 Best Albums Brian Morton and Richard Cook Paperback; 768 pages ISBN: 9780141048314 Penguin Books 2010 Attention: The Penguin Jazz Guide: The History of the Music in the 1001 Best Albums does not equal The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings. The former, new publication has been roundly criticized for not being the latter in all of its exhaustive glory, when it ...

164

Live Review

Jay Phelps Big Band: Snape, UK, August 17, 2011

by Bruce Lindsay
August 26, 2011

Jay Phelps Big BandSnape MaltingsSnape, UKAugust 17, 2011 Trumpeter Jay Phelps, a native of Vancouver who moved to the UK in his teens, first came to the attention of the British jazz scene as a member of Tomorrow's Warriors. In his early 20s he co-founded Empirical, playing on that band's debut album Empirical (Destin-E Records, 2007) before leaving in 2008. He released his own first album, the bop-inspired Jay Walkin' (Specific Jazz) in 2010. A ...

220

Album Review

Patrick Cornelius: Maybe Steps

Read "Maybe Steps" reviewed by Mark F. Turner

by Mark F. Turner
August 26, 2011

With the talent to convey thought-provoking stories through his music, Patrick Cornelius pens a fresh chapter of personal and emotive composition in Maybe Steps, his third release as a leader. The recording follows the alto saxophonist's well-received debut, Lucid Dream (Self Produced, 2006) and the more groove-oriented Fierce (Whirlwind Recordings Ltd., 2010), both filled with robust writing, tight musicianship, and distinction. The mode here is modern mainstream, but what gives the recording its verve is Cornelius' intricate ...

153

Album Review

Pascal Marzan /John Russell: Translations

Read "Translations" reviewed by John Eyles

by John Eyles
August 26, 2011

"By the way, if you don't like guitars you won't like this CD!" So says guitarist John Russell, in his sleeve note to Translations, laying out the truth in typically plain, simple terms. Russell is part of the generation of improvisers who came together in London in the '70s and have been mainstays of the capital's improv scene ever since. If that makes it sound parochial, thanks to Russell the reality has been very different. Through his monthly Mopomoso series ...

181

Live Review

Ryan Cohan/Geof Bradfield: Chicago, IL, August 11, 2011

by Alex Marianyi
August 26, 2011

Ryan Cohan, Geof BradfieldMillennium Park Pritzker Pavilion Chicago, ILAugust 11, 2011 The heat wave broke in Chicago and, weather-wise, the night was shaping up to be one of the best all summer. African Journeys, featuring Ryan Cohan and Geof Bradfield, began as saxophonist Bradfield's group took the stage to perform his extended work, “African Flowers." Shortly after a brief musical introduction, Bradfield reminded the audience of the trip that had inspired his set and pianist ...

173

Album Review

Kobi Arad Band: Sketches of Imaginary Landscapes

Read "Sketches of Imaginary Landscapes" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
August 26, 2011

Dr. Kobi Arad hails from Israel, currently resides in New York City and received a doctorate in Contemporary Improvisation and Third Stream jazz, which are foundations and concepts that radiate on Sketches of Imaginary Landscapes. The keyboardist's improvisational skills and creative proclivities envelop this not-so-standard, jazz-based piano trio session. On the fringes of jazz-fusion, Arad toggles between acoustic and electric keyboards. He crafts a fluent and potent set of works in concert with his revved-up rhythm section amid ...