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.

248

Profile

Aaron Heick: From Sting to Spiderman

by Keith Henry Brown
June 19, 2011

Outside of the New York music scene, multi-instrumentalist Aaron Heick's name may not be as well known as some of his colleagues. But it doesn't matter; he's had a rich, varied career. This well-traveled, seasoned pro has played with some of the most prominent musicians in jazz, pop, reggae, funk, world, and classical music. Those who really know what's going on in music know him.In 2010, Heick released the well-received, wonderfully melodic Daylight & Darkness (Self Produced), a ...

129

Live Review

Playboy Jazz Festival: June 11-12, 2011

by Chuck Koton
June 18, 2011

Playboy Jazz Festival Hollywood Bowl Los Angeles, CA June 11-12, 2011 June gloom blanketed Los Angeles and the Hollywood Bowl last Saturday, but it wasn't long before jazz heat from the 33rd Playboy Jazz Festival burned away the last traces of fog. Playboy Jazz producer, Darlene Chan, who has, over the years, adopted the “big tent" approach to festival programming, as usual, had something to satisfy the musical tastes of all the ...

240

Album Review

Stan Killian: Unified

Read "Unified" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
June 18, 2011

Stan Killian is one of those voices that doesn't make a great deal of noise, especially on Unified. His tenor saxophone is by no means a quiet one, but his is a voice filled with a mature gravitas that seems to emerge from a deeper sense of wisdom. His tone is resonant and echoes with mellow grandeur. His colors are rich and reflect the depths to which the tenor saxophone can reach, while still remaining accessible to encompass tender emotions. ...

318

Book Review

Kurt Gottschalk: Little Apples

by Florence Wetzel
June 18, 2011

Little ApplesKurt GottschalkSoftcover; 184 pagesISBN: 978-0-557-31119-4Spearmint Lit2011 Stories about New York City tend to focus on the city's glamorous side. But in a population of eight million people, only a tiny slice of the city's residents actually live the Sex and the City lifestyle, wearing designer clothes while air-kissing at museum openings. Respected music journalist Kurt Gottschalk, whose work has appeared in All About Jazz, The Wire ...

139

Album Review

Curtis Macdonald: Community Immunity

Read "Community Immunity" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
June 18, 2011

"The Jazz Community" is a phrase that shows up in more than a few album reviews, but what does it really mean? Like-minded jazz musicians certainly gravitate toward one another, but they don't live in some massive, hippie-like commune where people play John Coltrane and Charlie Parker licks ad infinitum and bow down in front of Mao-like photos of Louis Armstrong, Ornette Coleman and Sonny Rollins. The idea of a jazz community is more about sharing like-minded philosophies, finding acceptance ...

216

Live Review

Did Les Lieber Play Jazz at Noon for the Last Time?

by Daniel Kassell
June 18, 2011

Les Lieber and Friends Jazz at NoonThe Players New York, NYJune 3, 2011 At age 99,Les Lieber was feted with lots of applause at The Players in New York City's Gramercy Park, because of a May 5, 2011 feature article by Corey Kilgannon in the New York Times, featuring the alto saxophonist opening “Stardust" a capella, in the soundscape and style of his youth (about 1932). Swinging electric guitarist Bill Wurtzel, ...

247

Album Review

Chet Baker: She Was Too Good To Me

Read "She Was Too Good To Me" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki

by Chris M. Slawecki
June 18, 2011

Newly reminted in 2010's CTI Masterworks series, She Was Too Good To Me was originally Chet Baker's 1974 “comeback album," his first recording since a well-publicized mugging by junkie acquaintances (hardly “friends") that relieved the singer and trumpet player of his money, dope and most of his teeth. “Believe me," Baker once observed, “when a trumpet player has his teeth pulled, it's a comeback." Creed Taylor's velvety production proves the perfect setting, and the standards “Autumn Leaves" ...

309

Album Review

Heinz Holliger: Johann Sebastian Bach - Concertos and Sinfonias for Oboe - Ich hatte viel Bekummernis

Read "Johann Sebastian Bach - Concertos and Sinfonias for Oboe - Ich hatte viel Bekummernis" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
June 18, 2011

Heinz Holliger is to the oboe what James Galway and Jean Pierre Rampal are to the flute, or Dennis Brain to the horn: the standard by which all else is compared. He is also an accomplished composer and conductor in his own right, two roles in which he has most often worked while recording for ECM--as composer: Alexander Lonquich Robert Schumann/Heinz Holliger (ECM, 2011); as composer and conductor: Heinz Holliger/Clara Schumann--Romancendres (ECM, 2008). The maestro does step out, from time ...

250

Album Review

Bei the Fish: Just an Idea!?

Read "Just an Idea!?" reviewed by Nenad Georgievski

by Nenad Georgievski
June 18, 2011

When Ray Davies of The Kinks fame was asked if he listens to all those new bands, he replied that he only listens to their third albums. A Band prepares for its first album all its life but only has months to make the second. The third, on the other hand, is crucial in determining whether or not anything substantial can be brought in the long run; a defining moment that can either cement an artist's reputation or, sadly, show ...

355

Extended Analysis

Sebastian Rochford & Pamelia Kurstin: Ouch Evil Slow Hop

by Chris May
June 17, 2011

Sebastian Rochford & Pamelia KurstinOuch Evil Slow HopSlow Foot Records2011 For eighty years, the Theremin has hovered on the fringes of music like a freak show exhibit at a carnival. Since its invention by Leon Theremin in 1928, it has been used mainly for novelty and, occasionally and more “legitimately," as a provider of colors, albeit colors from a limited palette, able to evoke only the eerie and the otherworldly. Almost ...