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.

182

Extended Analysis

Howard Riley: The Complete Short Stories 1998-2010

by John Sharpe
August 24, 2011

Howard RileyThe Complete Short Stories 1998-2010No Business Records2011 Veteran British pianist Howard Riley has found a champion from an unexpected source in the adventurous Lithuanian label, No Business. After issuing a double CD of the pianist's one man concert in the capital, Live In Vilnius (2010), it has gone further with a box set collecting a brace of previously released solo double disc sets along with a another two discs of ...

207

Album Review

Miguel Zenon: Alma Adentro: The Puerto Rican Songbook

Read "Alma Adentro: The Puerto Rican Songbook" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
August 24, 2011

The cover photo on alto saxophonist Miguel Zenón's Alma Adentro: The Puerto Rican Songbook is of two people dancing in the middle of a boulevard. They are nicely dressed. The man's coat tail flies and their dance clasp is a passionate embrace, suggestive of a romantic yearning hitched to the side of a good time, a posture suggesting a sense of pride and dignity. And that's what the music on this release is, in large part, all about.On ...

194

Album Review

John Brown: Dancing With Duke: An Homage To Duke Ellington

Read "Dancing With Duke: An Homage To Duke Ellington" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
August 24, 2011

The cover photo for this album is a bit misleading. John Brown stands with his left forearm pressed against a shiny black piano and the album title--Dancing With Duke: An Homage To Duke Ellington--resides, clear as day, in the upper right hand portion of the cover. If not for the personnel list, which almost blends into the side of the piano and lists pianist Cyrus Chestnut's name right under Brown, those unfamiliar with the bassist might assume he were tickling ...

164

Album Review

Philippe Duchemin / Philippe Le Van / Christophe Le Van: Massilia

Read "Massilia" reviewed by Patricia Myers

by Patricia Myers
August 24, 2011

Born in Toulouse, France, Philippe Duchemin began classical piano studies at age nine, and was attracted to jazz at 15. Self-taught, he spent eight years studying his idols, Fats Waller, Erroll Garner and Oscar Peterson. Drawing from this classical and jazz background, Duchemin delivers a brilliant balance of melodic exploration and pulsating rhythm from first to last note on Massilia. His agility and creativity are absolutely dazzling as he merges classical roots with modern jazz, blues and soul, conveying the ...

218

Album Review

Armen Donelian: Leapfrog

Read "Leapfrog" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
August 23, 2011

While cohesion and individuality, by their very definitions, may seem to be at odds with one another, the music on Leapfrog reconciles these two opposing ideals without a problem. For his ninth date on the Sunnyside label, pianist Armen Donelian has together a program of strikingly modern originals that showcase the cutting edge talent and simpatico sensibilities of his band. The personnel in Donelian's quintet might, at the surface, seem like an intergenerational mishmash, but that couldn't ...

261

Interview

Patrick Brennan: Rhythms of Passion

by Ludwig vanTrikt
August 23, 2011

Since moving to New York City in 1975, one-time bassist/painter Patrick Brennan has crafted a musical path that is open in its candor and indebtedness to all facets of black music. Much like trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, the alto saxophonist brews a thicket of his own distinct musical language that “unlike much contemporaneous vanguard music is built specifically upon the potentialities of swinging and polyrhythm." For the astute lay person this means moving the expressive expansiveness of ...

142

Album Review

Nicole Mitchell: Awakening

Read "Awakening" reviewed by Jack Huntley

by Jack Huntley
August 23, 2011

Flautist Nicole Mitchell's generous improvisational abilities are at the musical heart of Awakening. Not only does she move effortlessly from single-note lines and sliding honks to wispy, soft timbres, but she is equally comfortable moving from pure melodic phrasing to more experimental, free content. Coupled with an exceptional trio backing, Mitchell's album crackles with infectious spontaneity. Her music manages to be at once reflective and energetic, accessible as well as clever. “Curly Top" kicks of the set ...

154

Live Review

John Butler Trio: Denver, CO, August 12, 2011

by Geoff Anderson
August 23, 2011

John Butler TrioRed RocksDenverAugust 12, 2011John Butler's favorite guitar has 11 strings. Friday night he also played banjo, ukulele, some sort of lap acoustic guitar using a metal bar on the frets like a steel guitar, a standard issue 6-string acoustic guitar, a Les Paul and a Stratocaster. But mainly he played his 11-string acoustic-- a 12-string with one string removed (Butler is a bit of an eccentric). And why not? He could make that ...

194

Album Review

Rafal Sarnecki: The Madman Rambles Again

Read "The Madman Rambles Again" reviewed by Greg Simmons

by Greg Simmons
August 23, 2011

The Madman Rambles Again is a counterintuitive name for such a carefully constructed album. The compositions feature layered, periodically angular melodies, showing off tight arrangements and a serious dramatic flair. Far from being a madman, guitarist Rafal Sarnecki is a decidedly forward-looking leader with an intense aesthetic on this sophomore effort. Instrumental leadership is not self-evident. The supporting instruments are at least as prominent, and often more so than the guitar, suggesting good things from Sarnecki's management. The ...

284

Album Review

Harris Eisenstadt: September Trio

Read "September Trio" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
August 23, 2011

In the global jazz community, drummer Harris Eisenstadt has spiraled to prominence via his technical capacities and insightful compositional prowess via large and small ensembles. His musicality supersedes that of most drummers, where he takes a holistic approach to variable tangents and architectures. With his September trio, armed with an equally prominent support system, Eisenstadt charts the mood or biorhythms of September, 2010, capturing and propagating a broad plane of sentiment, executed at either slow or medium-tempo processions.