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.

181

Jazz Fiction

Can't Get Started

by Wayne Wolfson
August 13, 2011

I had been thinking of home when I died. “Do you want a drink now?" she asked. “A drink-drink?" “Mais oui." The modus operandi of an angel with a mean streak. How had I gotten here? Her place, I had been here once but that was as part of a crowd which became a roving party, stopped only by the first rays of a new day's sun. That ...

204

Reassessing

Ornette Coleman: Change Of The Century

by C. Michael Bailey
August 12, 2011

Ornette ColemanChange Of The CenturyAtlantic1959 Change Of The Century was an audacious album title, to say the least. On his second Atlantic release--and second with his most like-minded ensemble (trumpeter Don Cherry, bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Billy Higgins)--alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman pushed the freedom principal farther. At the same time, he looked backward too for inspiration. Having eliminated the piano on his Contemporary release, Tomorrow Is The Question! (1959), Coleman opened ...

273

Album Review

Fire!: unreleased?

Read "unreleased?" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
August 12, 2011

Moving from the studio to a live performance at Tokyo's SuperDeluxe club in the fall of 2010, Fire! both pares down and expands the sonic purview of its 2009 Rune Grammofon debut, You Liked Me Five Minutes Ago. Pared down in that saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, while still tripling on Fender Rhodes and live electronics, sticks solely to the deep-bodied baritone saxophone this time around. Bassist Johan Berthling focuses monolithically on electric bass, eschewing the electric guitar and double-bass of the ...

206

Extended Analysis

Modern Jazz Quartet: The Complete Atlantic Studio Recordings 1956-64

by Eugene Holley, Jr.
August 12, 2011

The Modern Jazz Quartet The Complete Atlantic Studio Recordings of The Modern Jazz Quartet 1956-64 Mosaic Records 2011 They were diverse in talent and temperament. John Lewis, the quiet and determined westerner, who told sound stories with his linear and logical blues-based pianisms; Milt Bags" Jackson, the baggy eyed, Motor City vibraharp virtuoso; Percy Heath, the Philly bassist with deep, in-the-pocket basslines; Kenny Clarke, the bomb-dropping blacksmith of the beat from Pittsburgh; and Connie ...

175

Album Review

Sonny Rollins: On Impulse / There Will Never Be Another You

Read "On Impulse / There Will Never Be Another You" reviewed by Greg Simmons

by Greg Simmons
August 12, 2011

What could be better than an album by Sonny Rollins? Two albums by Sonny Rollins, especially a reissue of two treasured Impulse! releases--On Impulse! (1965) and There Will Never Be Another You (1978)--in their entirety, on a single 75-minute CD. That's a lot of satisfying tenor time with the Saxophone Colossus. On the heels of his 80th birthday, there's not a lot that can be added to the musical criticism of Rollins. More often than not his press ...

154

Album Review

Harrison Bankhead Sextet: Morning Sun, Harvest Moon

Read "Morning Sun, Harvest Moon" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
August 12, 2011

Harrison Bankhead's uniqueness is not restricted solely to his bass playing, which is touched by the melodicism of Ray Brown and the authority and inventiveness of Charles Mingus in a voice singularly his own. Bankhead is a composer with a sensibility finely attuned to a painterly impressionism, while being unafraid to fly in the face of convention, dappling his music with torrid references to avant-garde atonalism. All of this is in evidence on his solo debut, Morning Sun, Harvest Moon. ...

177

Album Review

Mark Winkler: Sweet Spot

Read "Sweet Spot" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
August 12, 2011

Over a three-decade career, singer/songwriter Mark Winkler has released more than a dozen albums, and written songs performed by top vocalists including Randy Crawford, Dianne Reeves and Liza Minnelli. On Sweet Spot he brings together all of that experience, plus some superb musicians, to create a collection of songs perfect for a late night club performance--or for anytime listening anywhere else, come to think of it. Winkler has name-checked Mark Murphy as a particular influence. On Sweet ...

280

Album Review

Nick Hempton: The Business

Read "The Business" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
August 11, 2011

Saxophonist Nick Hempton's decision to call his second album The Business might be a comment on the commercial nature of jazz, or it might be a rather hubristic statement about the nature of his own music. Big, fat grooves, a real sense of swing, strong melodies and even stronger rhythms suggest that Hempton is right to name this album The Business on both counts: because this is a high-quality collection of straight-ahead jazz with an immediate accessibility. ...

203

Big Band Caravan

Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band / Gerald Wilson Orchestra / Knoxville Jazz Orchestra

by Jack Bowers
August 11, 2011

Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat BandThat's How We RollTelarc2010 After more than a decade of making beautiful music at home, on the road and in the studio, Gordon Goodwin's irrepressible Big Phat Band keeps rolling merrily along, burning rubber on its sixth free-wheeling recording (and first for Telarc Records). Apart from his unquestioned status as a world-class composer, arranger, pianist and saxophonist, Goodwin has a keen eye for what moves records, and never ...

253

Multiple Reviews

Satoko Fujii's Triple Whammy

by Hrayr Attarian
August 11, 2011

The year 2011 is proving to be a fruitful one for Japanese composer and improviser Satoko Fujii. In addition to a world tour, she has released three albums (all on June 21) on her own Libra record label, each in a different setting and in the company of different musicians. Her only constant companion, through all three discs, is her husband and musical partner, trumpeter Natsuki Tamura. Satoko Fujii Min-Yoh EnsembleWatershedLibra Records2011 ...