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.

229

Live Review

Vision Festival: Days 5-6, June 9-10, 2011

by John Sharpe
July 19, 2011

Day 1 | Days 2-3 | Day 4 | Days 5-6 | Day 7Kidd Jordan Quintet, Matthew Shipp/Evan Parker, Paradoxical Frog, Planetary UnknownVision FestivalAbrons Arts CenterNew York CityJune 9-10, 2011 Kidd Jordan Quintet New Orleans saxophonist Edward Kidd Jordan, who was the honoree at the 2008 Vision Festival, delivered one of the standout sets on the fifth day, with a redoubtable all-star quintet. Though they didn't ...

237

Album Review

Dan Raphael / Rich Halley / Carson Halley: Children of the Blue Supermarket

Read "Children of the Blue Supermarket" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
July 19, 2011

The relationship between word and music dates back to before their appearance around the time of King David, who presided over the greatest union of the two, sang and probably danced to his own Psalms. According to John the Evangelist, in principio erat verbum--or, as the Latin from his most celebrated introduction to his Gospel--states, “At the beginning there was The Word..." It seems, from John, that in the sound and the fury of God, in the very kinesiology of ...

210

Take Five With...

Take Five With Tim Richards

by AAJ Staff
July 19, 2011

Meet Tim Richards: Tim's first encounter with a piano was at the age of eight, in a dentist's waiting room. After classical piano lessons he taught himself jazz and blues from the age of 14, after seeing Thelonious Monk on TV.Since forming the long-lived modern jazz quartet Spirit Level in Bristol in 1979, he has performed his compositions at jazz clubs and festivals in almost every European country. Tim expanded Spirit Level to a nine-piece in ...

246

Album Review

SuperJazzers: SuperJazzers: Vol. 1

Read "SuperJazzers: Vol. 1" reviewed by Doron Orenstein

by Doron Orenstein
July 19, 2011

A scenic and vibrant city nestled in a landscape of lush scenery, Portland, Oregon is not exactly known for its jazz scene. However, Superjazzers' Vol. 1 represents the city with a depth and refinement normally associated with the jazz greats in New York, as well as other major jazz towns. Although group name implies a silly sense of sarcasm, don't be fooled. Instead, it belies an emotional depth, conveyed in the set's nine original compositions.

270

Album Review

Hiromi: Voice

by Ian Patterson
July 18, 2011

Hiromi's Voice--her seventh album for Telarc--carries the hallmarks of her previous works: prodigious piano playing, a dash of electro-funk, and strong melodic hooks, served up in a power trio setting. What has changed is the personnel, with Hiromi's rhythm section since' 04 of drummer Martin Valihora and bassist Tony Grey making way for all-rounder Simon Phillips on drums and the innovative Anthony Jackson, on contrabass guitar. Phillips, who impressed most recently on the Trilok Gurtu/NDR Big Band recording 21 Spices ...

303

Multiple Reviews

The Space Age of Mark O'Leary

by Eyal Hareuveni
July 18, 2011

Irish guitarist Mark O'Leary continues to produce intriguing concept albums, each time with different collaborators. Two recent albums feature O'Leary's forays in a symphonic-ambient style, similar to the symphonic-progressive rock of the 1970s, but with a less grandiose character. Mark O'Leary / Jeff Herr / Søren KjærgaardProject ApolloTIB2011 This project is dedicated to NASA's Project Apollo, or, as O'Leary chose to frame it: “to the ingenuity of mankind, ...

239

Album Review

Bryan Anthony/Gary Norian Trio: A Night Like This

Read "A Night Like This" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
July 18, 2011

It would be easy to give a pass to vocalist Bryan Anthony if he had wanted to do a no-surprises take on standards. Anthony has become something of an expert in the art-of-the-old, having occupied the vocalist chair in various ghost bands like the Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey Orchestras, but he clearly isn't content to simply interpret the Great American Songbook with a decades-old layer of musical dust lying at the surface. With his mellifluous vocals gliding atop fresh ...

229

Take Five With...

Take Five With Paul Lieberman

by AAJ Staff
July 18, 2011

Meet Paul Lieberman: After a session at Mickey Hart's, Gil Evans noted to Airto Moreira: “everything he plays sounds right," and David Sanborn responded to a show in New York with a surprise kiss. Saxophonist and flutist Paul Lieberman's 2011 CD ibeji features a number of legendary musicians: Rufus Reid and Nilson Matta on bass, Duduka da Fonseca, Tim Horner, and Allman Brothers co-founder Jaimoe on drums, Joel Martin on piano, and Eugene Friesen on cello.

226

Album Review

Michael Dessen Trio: Forget The Pixel

Read "Forget The Pixel" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
July 18, 2011

This jazz trio, manned by Southern California-based slide trombonist Michael Dessen, sports a full-sized sound and abides by a rather springy group-centric mode of attack. Dessen's solo work, co-leader outings, and stints with major progressive-jazz artists complement his educational duties at the University of California, Irvine. The trombonist parlays a worldly and comprehensive stance on Forget The Pixel, where the musicians share equal footing amid rousing passages, bustling rhythms, and the leader's bizarre, yet sagacious electronics overlays. The ...

330

Interview

Hiromi: The Voice Inside

by Ian Patterson
July 18, 2011

What is a voice? How much of people's voices are really their own? After all, language acquisition is derived from successful imitation. Artists of all stripes may labor for years to find their true voice and express themselves as they desire. Even the greatest artists go through a process—often painful—of imitation, refinement and, finally, emergence. The young trumpeter Miles Davis of the '40s was a pale shadow of Dizzy Gillespie, before upping anchor and heading off in his own liberating ...