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.

293

Album Review

Oscar Penas: From Now On

Read "From Now On" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
July 21, 2011

The music on From Now On is modern jazz marinated in the seductive flavors of Spain and South America. Guitarist Oscar Peñas' path lead him from Barcelona to Brooklyn, NY, and this geographic duality is ever-present in the intriguing blend of music that's presented on this, his debut for BJU records. While Iberian-influenced guitar lines often set the stage and thread their way through the music, this record goes well-beyond any single style or influence. Peñas' writing ...

264

Live Review

James Farm at the Jazz Standard

by Warren Allen
July 21, 2011

James FarmJazz StandardNew York, NYJune 17, 2011 Pianist Aaron Parks snapped the cover photo for the debut album of James Farm (Nonesuch, 2011) on his iPhone, in a moment when the image of a barn reflected in water struck him a certain way. The image is a lovely, spontaneous recorded instant of digital information, yet it's indistinguishable from paint and canvas. That mix of spontaneity, speed and art is a fine metaphor for the ...

339

Album Review

Tianna Hall: Never Let Me Go

Read "Never Let Me Go" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
July 20, 2011

Never Let Me Go is Houston-native vocalist Tianna Hall's third release, and first for Blue Bamboo Music, following her self-produced Lost in the Stars (2007) and Ballads and Bossas (2010). Hall has preferred the intimacy of smaller accompaniment on her first two recordings, a preference she carries to Never Let Me Go. The singer is support by guitarists Mike Wheeler and Mike Nase, cellist Lisa Vasdoganes and percussionist James Metcalfe in a style that is equal parts Hot Club, Carnegie ...

353

Extended Analysis

Aram Bajakian's Kef: New Sounds from the Armenian Diaspora

by Chris May
July 20, 2011

Aram BajakianAram Bajakian's KefTzadik2011 Itself born out of traditional music, jazz has over the last hundred years often enriched itself with folk infusions. In the 1930s, the Gypsy jazz of guitarist Django Reinhardt enlivened the European scene. Contemporaneously, the country swing of bands such as Bob Willis & The Texas Playboys was doing the same thing in the southwestern US. Skip forward a few decades, and guitarist Bill Frisell was creating ...

281

Album Review

Francois Couturier: Tarkovsky Quartet

Read "Tarkovsky Quartet" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
July 20, 2011

He may have passed away a quarter century ago, but the spirit of Russian film director Andrey Tarkovsky continues to loom large, and not just in the world of cinema. The connection between film and music has long been an intimate one, dating back to the early silent days, when pianists provided a live (and often improvised) soundtrack in theaters around the world. It's hard to imagine many films without the scores that not only add weight to the narrative, ...

279

Take Five With...

Take Five With Abdiel Flores

by AAJ Staff
July 20, 2011

Meet Abdiel Flores: Currently, Abdiel Flores is premiering his first soloist production El cuida de mia. It is a compilation of traditional hymns harmonized and arranged with jazz influences and Latin rhythms. Musicians with great experience in the jazz genre, such as Ramon Vazquez, Leobadis Gonzalez, Isaac Lausell, Elias Santos, and Jan Carlos Artime have contributed to this production.Instrument(s): Alto saxophone.Teachers and/or influences? Miguel Zenon, David Sanchez, Eddie Gomez.

255

Album Review

The H2 Big Band: You're It!

Read "You're It!" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
July 20, 2011

For those who can enjoy and fully appreciate the pulsating sounds of contemporary big bands, You're It! is a powerful musical encounter not to be missed. Led by two educators from the University of Denver's Lamont School of Music--renowned trumpeter Al Hood and co-leader, pianist Dave Hanson--have assembled a seventeen-piece ensemble including some of Denver's finest, just for this recording. The H2 Big Band, named from the first letter of both co-leaders' surnames, can surely be considered a muscle-type orchestra, ...

290

Extended Analysis

The New Universe Music Festival 2010 - Abstract Logix Live!

by John Kelman
July 20, 2011

For those who like their jazz hard, loud, filled with killer chops and intricate writing, the 2010 New Universe Music Festival was like manna from heaven. Amidst seven groups including two fusion deities, guitarist John McLaughlin and drummer Lenny White, it was an exhilarating experience for the few hundred people in attendance--some coming from hundreds of miles away, a few even crossing oceans to get to this first-time event curated by Souvik Dutta and his wife, Shweta. ...

297

Live Review

Miles Davis Tribute Band: Rotterdam, the Netherlands, July 10, 2011

by R.J. DeLuke
July 19, 2011

Miles Davis Tribute BandNorth Sea Jazz FestivalRotterdam, the NetherlandsJuly 10, 2011 As bassist Marcus Miller noted during the Miles David Tribute Band set at the North Sea Jazz festival in Rotterdam, it hardly seems like Davis has been gone for 20 years. Maybe, he surmised, it's because the spirit of Miles lives on in all who were in his employ over the years. The spirit lives on for many fans, too. To mark ...

295

Album Review

Wolfert Brederode Quartet: Post Scriptum

Read "Post Scriptum" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
July 19, 2011

At a time when the world is becoming an increasingly busy and, in some cases, hostile place, it's easy to forget the power of music, to create a space away from the demands and stresses of day-to-day life, where it's possible to just sit back, absorb, and become absorbed in something transcendent. Music doesn't always have to be pretty, but when it is, it needn't preclude the more complex emotions that comprise the human condition. Pianist Wolfert Brederode's 2008 ECM ...