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.

278

Live Review

TD Toronto Jazz Festival, Days 4-10: June 27-July 3, 2011

by Alain Londes
July 9, 2011

TD Toronto Jazz Festival 2011Toronto, CanadaJune 24-July 3, 2011 Monday, June 27, 2011On Monday evening, fans had a few hard choices to make among the headliners. At Koerner Hall, award-winning Dee Dee Bridgewater paid tribute to Lady Day, Billie Holiday. Meanwhile at the Enwave Theatre, Kurt Elling took to the stage before an equally enthusiastic audience. The sold-out crowd gave a standing ovation when Elling walked on the stage. Laurence Hobgood, ...

254

Album Review

Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble: Couldn't Stand the Weather

Read "Couldn't Stand the Weather" reviewed by Jim Santella

by Jim Santella
July 9, 2011

Couldn't Stand the Weather is a great album which has been reissued before. But this time, there are considerable extras in the package that make it jump out and shout. Each of the two discs runs for nearly 80 minutes: disc one includes the original album and plenty of bonus tracks; while disc two contains a previously unreleased concert appearance. Extensive liner notes by Andy Aledort of Guitar World form a biography of Vaughan, and provide interesting commentary on the ...

331

Album Review

Mark Winkler: Sweet Spot

Read "Sweet Spot" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
July 9, 2011

For all of his musical bona fides, Mark Winkler is no more a jazz singer than Jim Caruso or Michael Bublé. In spite of the fact that he attracted the best of the best in his sidemen--bassist Robert Hurst, pianist Billy Childs and drummer Greg Hutchinson--for Sweet Spot, he remains something else. The point being, that whatever kind of singer Winker is, it is beside the point. Like Caruso's Swing Set (Yellow Sound Label, 2011), Sweet Spot captures the art ...

236

Album Review

Aaron Goldberg and Guillermo Klein: Bienestan

Read "Bienestan" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
July 8, 2011

There might actually have been a universe called “Bienestan" and it may have existed for as long as Guillermo Klein. The rich sonic topography of this undiscovered place is just emerging. It is a place of oceans of sound, with energetic waves that make their rhythmic way to lap upon a shore that glistens with all manner of richly harmonized melodies. The very air on this universe is thick with reports of complex rhythms bounced across many interstellar regions from ...

238

Big Band Report

Jack's Gone! No He Isn't; Yes He Is; No He Isn't...!

by Jack Bowers
July 8, 2011

As I sat down to write this month's column, word came that trumpeter Jack Sheldon had died. No sooner had I written a few words about that when word came that trumpeter Jack Sheldon had not died. After some back-and-forth on the internet (is he or isn't he?), the last report, it seems, was the true one. According to his wife, Dianne, Jack Sheldon is alive and well, a statement that was confirmed when someone phoned Sheldon's home and Jack ...

222

Album Review

Rich Halley: Requiem for a Pit Viper

Read "Requiem for a Pit Viper" reviewed by Andrew J. Sammut

by Andrew J. Sammut
July 8, 2011

Rich Halley lists music and nature as his two greatest interests. Judging from Requiem for a Pit Viper, the saxophonist and composer is inspired by the raw power of the natural world, rather than its more peaceful gestures. This album maintains an unrelenting intensity through ten Halley originals that rarely allows a chance to stop and smell the roses. Halley's coppery tone leaves an imprint on the air between his phrases on “Snippet Stop Warp," and his ...

268

Live Review

Burlington Discover Jazz Festival: Burlington, Vermont, June 3-12, 2011

by Doug Collette
July 8, 2011

Burlington Discover Jazz FestivalBurlington, VTJune 3-12, 2011 The mix of anticipation and apprehension at the outset of each year's Burlington Discover Jazz Festival is no doubt something akin to stage fright in the mind of any stage performer, musician or otherwise. Will the string of high-profile events meet audience expectations and generate the publicity that translates into financial solvency? Will the mix of up-and-coming and cutting edge artists offer sufficient accessibility to bring in casual jazz ...

189

Bailey's Bundles

Robert Hurst: Unrehurst Volumes 1 and 2

by C. Michael Bailey
July 8, 2011

The jazz piano trio--piano, bass, and drums, also known as the “rhythm section"--is a fundamental unit in jazz ensembles. It is the motor that drives all combos greater than itself. Which instrument a trio “leader" plays often has a profound effect on the personality and temperament of the music produced. Bass-led trios often bring the bass out from behind the piano to play a more central melodic role in a performance. Paul Chambers liked to have his bass playing front ...

323

Album Review

Susana Santos Silva Quintet: Devil's Dress

Read "Devil's Dress" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
July 8, 2011

The Devil wears many guises, as does the music on Devil's Dress. Trumpeter Susana Santos Silva spans a variety of styles and, while some songs contain a dark presence and power that perfectly suits Beelzebub's reputation, other songs have a brighter outlook that looks upward toward the skies, not downward toward Hades. While Devil's Dress is Silva's debut, she is also part of the brilliant big band sound of the Orquestra Jazz de Matosinhos, which worked with ...

300

Album Review

Chuck Deardorf: Transparence

Read "Transparence" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
July 8, 2011

Bassist Chuck Deardorf follows up his pairing with Dave Peterson on Portal (Origin Records, 2004), with his multidimensional Transparence. Deardorf raises his bass presence to that of the guitar and keyboards on the board, allowing for a turbulent sound mix that resolves itself with time, like incorporating color in paint. This sonic phenomenon is well illustrated in Deardorf's cover of The Beatles' “Dear Prudence." Deardorf introduces the song with some bass chordal sonics which are allowed to ...