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.

216

Album Review

Art Hodes: Up In Volly's Room

Read "Up In Volly's Room" reviewed by Jack Huntley

by Jack Huntley
August 1, 2011

Throughout his long career in and around the music industry, Art Hodes was a dedicated lover of what is now termed traditional jazz but was then the current, dynamic confluence of blues, ragtime and Dixieland influences. Coming of age in Chicago's vibrant 1920s music scene, Hodes digested the sounds of transplanted New Orleans musicians such as Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, and Jimmie Noone. The music made a deep impression on Hodes, who became an accomplished pianist, recorded many respected albums, ...

167

Live Review

Gent Jazz Festival 2011: Days 1-4

by Martin Longley
August 1, 2011

Days 1-4 | Days 5-8 Gent Jazz Festival Bijloke Gent, Belgium July 7-10, 2011 There has been a radical change to the Gent Jazz Festival site since last year. The historic Bijloke zone remains historic, but it now has a new concrete 'n' iron-flavored museum and café (STAM) grafted onto the older buildings, featuring a grand entrance promenade. It's impossible to miss the festival's gateway, standing as ...

247

Album Review

Gabrielle Ducomble: J'ai Deux Amours

Read "J'ai Deux Amours" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
August 1, 2011

Belgian singer Gabrielle Ducomble began her recording career in 2003, after reaching the finale of French television's Pop Idol. After hearing Dee Dee Bridgewater Ducomble started to move towards jazz, relocated to London and graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. So, while J'ai Deux Amours is not her first recording, it is her jazz debut. Ducomble's voice is lightly expressive, with a slight vulnerability that adds emotional depth to the more romantic or melancholy ...

208

Album Review

Grupo Falso Baiano: Simplicidade: Live at Yoshi's

Read "Simplicidade: Live at Yoshi's" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
August 1, 2011

In the early 1960s, a series of albums by Stan Getz, including Jazz Samba (Verve Records, 1962), with guitarist Charlie Byrd, and Getz/Gilberto (Verve Records, 1963), with Joao Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim, helped propel the Brazilian bossa nova to an unusually high level of popularity. But in Brazil, before there was bossa nova there was choro, an earlier instrumental music that has escaped popular attention outside its home country. On Simplicide, San Francisco Bay area's Grupo Falso Baiano takes ...

305

Interview

Roseanna Vitro: Following Her Muse

by Dan Bilawsky
August 1, 2011

While the back panel of vocalist Roseanna Vitro's The Music Of Randy Newman (Motéma, 2011) says “File Under: Jazz/Pop/Vocals," those labels don't do her justice. Vitro's vocals are a conduit to the very core of American music--from blues and rock to soul and jazz--and her recorded output over the past three decades speaks to her talents and wide-ranging abilities in all of these arenas. Some vocalists who have been dubbed “jazz singers" are afraid to move outside of the borders ...

232

Album Review

Yaala Ballin: On The Road

Read "On The Road" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
July 31, 2011

Yaala Ballin's On The Road came into being as the young vocalist came off the road, completing an international tour with her working band. Ballin wisely chose to capitalize on the musical bonds and connections forged on the road, bringing the band into the studio to record a set that reflects the programming and flow of her live performances. While some singers seem to thrive on the unexpected, transforming classics into near-unrecognizable numbers with odd re-harmonizations and ...

227

Live Review

Marc Broussard: Patchogue, NY, July 17, 2011

by Mike Perciaccante
July 31, 2011

Marc Broussard Great South Bay Music Festival, Shorefront Park Patchogue, NY July 17, 2011On a very warm but pleasantly windy Sunday evening by the bay, Carencro, LA native Marc Broussard was the penultimate performer at the 2011 Great South Bay Music Festival, bringing his patented brand of Bayou soul to Long Island, NY. While much of Broussard's audience was there to see him, others had come early to the Blue Point Brews Stage in the hopes ...

275

Album Review

Ingrid Laubrock / Sleepthief: The Madness of Crowds

Read "The Madness of Crowds" reviewed by Nic Jones

by Nic Jones
July 31, 2011

As of The Madness of Crowds, saxophonist Laubrock, pianist Liam Noble and drummer Tom Rainey are one of the most rewarding bands out there. They were before, but now the clarity and depth of interaction in their music is enough to deepen that assertion, and when a signature sound also comes as part of the deal then it's time for the loud applause. Laubrock has evidently arrived at a point in her musical journey where she's more ...

240

Album Review

Ensemble Fur Neue Musik, Zurich: Women Composers I

Read "Women Composers I" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
July 31, 2011

Even in the liberal societies of the Western world, women have rarely been recognized for their contributions to the arts in the same manner as men. Music has been a particularly difficult field for them to break into, despite some having rather sublime talent. From Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann to Lili Boulanger and her sister, the great Nadia Boulanger, their courage and talent has been celebrated in circles no larger than small coteries of cognoscenti. The celebrated elder Madame ...

165

Product Spotlight

Hewlett-Packard TouchSmart 610 with Beats Audio

by Mark F. Turner
July 31, 2011

Though digital music has changed the landscape for everyone in the business--record companies, artists, and consumers--one of its many criticisms has been the loss of audio quality in the listening experience. Audiophiles and those old enough to remember the prevalence of Long Playing (LP) record albums (those huge flat vinyl discs now popularized by DJ scratching) and high fidelity components can sometimes become nostalgic for the days of analog quality-delivered media. Whereas the current availability of MP3 encoding--and ...