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.

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Album Review

JJ Grey & Mofro: Georgia Warhorse

Read "Georgia Warhorse" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki

by Chris M. Slawecki
June 15, 2011

JJ Grey's eleven new tunes for Georgia Warhorse, named for the notoriously resilient Southern lubber grasshopper, reflect and broadcast his love for the rustic Florida backwoods where Grey and his family have lived for generations. Grey not only wrote all the tunes but played just about every instrument, except for the slide guitar that Derek Trucks (like Grey, a Jacksonville native) slices and dices into the closing “Lullaby," and sang all the vocals except for one duet. ...

Album Review

Supercollider: Supercollider EP

Read "Supercollider EP" reviewed by Florence Wetzel

by Florence Wetzel
June 15, 2011

Supercollider is one of the most popular and distinctive jazz groups on the Colorado Front Range. A refreshing blend of jazz, blues, funk, and rock, Supercollider's music is both melodic and powerful, with an energetic frontline and a soulful vocalist who digs deep. This is a group that can embark on a twenty-minute high-wire jazz jam, follow up with a heart-melting blues vocal, then bust out a funk explosion that propels the audience up on its feet to dance.

125

Album Review

Augmented Reality: Augmented Reality

Read "Augmented Reality" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
June 14, 2011

Collaborative trios are a tricky business. While all three members might set out to form an equal musical partnership, that rarely happens. Sometimes the instrumentation dictates the focal point, as with the fascinating group, Fly--drummer Jeff Ballard, bassist Larry Grenadier and tenor saxophonist Mark Turner--which is as democratic as they come, yet the horn draws the most attention by virtue of the general dynamic within a horn-bass-drums trio. This isn't necessarily a good or bad thing, but it bears mentioning ...

240

Album Review

Mia Theodoratus: Misirlou

Read "Misirlou" reviewed by Florence Wetzel

by Florence Wetzel
June 14, 2011

This is an exciting time to be an artist. The digital revolution is providing new tools daily and, at the same time, old forms have not completely disappeared, allowing artists who are so inclined to mix and match as they please. Harpist Mia Theodoratus's EP, Misirlou, is an intriguing mixture of old and new. To record the two tracks, Theodoratus did it old school, foregoing Pro Tools and instead setting up microphones and playing straight through. The EP is available ...

283

Extended Analysis

Archie Shepp and Joachim Kuhn: Wo!man

by Chris May
June 14, 2011

Archie Shepp & Joachim KühnWo!manArchie Ball2011 At first glance, the pairing of veteran American saxophonist Archie Shepp and German pianist Joachim Kühn seems an unlikely one. But Wo!man is not the first time the two have performed together. Two or three decades back--Shepp says that he cannot now remember the year exactly--the saxophonist worked with Kühn in a band led by Finnish drummer Edward Vesala. It is a real pleasure, Shepp ...

254

Take Five With...

Take Five With David Gibson

by AAJ Staff
June 14, 2011

Meet David Gibson: Trombonist David Gibson has enjoyed a varied musical career which is deeply rooted in the genres of jazz and funk. While reared in Oklahoma, Gibson's musical journey steered him to New York City. Jazz luminary Curtis Fuller said about Gibson, “Out of all the young players I hear in the music today, David is one of very few who speaks the language of jazz." David's newest recording, End of the Tunnel, is ...

138

Album Review

Eric Hofbauer and The Infrared Band: Level

by Nic Jones
June 14, 2011

Back in 2008 this band--the only change here being bassist Sean Farias in for Michael Montgomery--produced one of the best albums of that year. In 2011, they've gone and done it again. Like Thelonious Monk, Herbie Nichols and Andrew Hill, guitarist Eric Hofbauer's music benefits enormously from having the right musicians to bring it to fruition, and in this instance he's blessed. His quartet effortlessly avoids all the well-established tropes; on “La Ligne De Chance," it brings ...

214

Album Review

De La Buena: La Tortuga

Read "La Tortuga" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki

by Chris M. Slawecki
June 14, 2011

When you consider what would be the animal kingdom's equivalent of hot, lusty Latin jazz, the first animal you think of is most likely not the turtle. At least not until you hear this first studio album by De La Buena, La Tortuga (the turtle). Milwaukee Wisconsin's reigning masters of Latin and Afro-Cuban jazz, funk and groove, De La Buena shares several members with the retro-soul ensemble Kings Go Forth, including De La Buena co-founders Andy Noble ...

234

Album Review

Ed Reed: Born to Be Blue

Read "Born to Be Blue" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
June 14, 2011

Ed Reed joins fellow West Coasters Art Pepper and Frank Morgan in returning to a critically acclaimed career previously derailed by substance abuse. After 40 years of scuffling, Reed cleaned up, became a chemical dependency treatment professional and began recording in earnest. Reed has released two recordings, Love Stories (Self Produced, 2007) and The Song is You (Blue Shorts Records, 2008), each well-received and now followed up by Born To Be Blue, featuring a youthful and upbeat take on Jon ...

334

Interview

Kyle Eastwood: Movies, Motown & Monterey

by Bruce Lindsay
June 14, 2011

Bassist/composer Kyle Eastwood can whistle. It's a talent to which few musicians lay claim, but it's one which he puts to good use on his version of Bob Haggart's “Big Noise (From Winnetka)," a tune that serves as a popular encore to his live set. The fact that Eastwood whistles in concert says much about the man and his approach to jazz--slightly self-effacing, good-natured, with a quiet confidence in his own talent and an awareness of the importance of emotion ...