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.

225

Album Review

Evan Parker & Matthew Wright: Trance Map

Read "Trance Map" reviewed by John Eyles

by John Eyles
June 8, 2011

Trance Map is part of an ongoing body of work on Psi that includes past releases by Joel Ryan and DJ Sniff, which each used Evan Parker's music as source material to be manipulated to create new works. Whereas Parker was not an active participant in those recordings, for this album he has worked collaboratively with Matthew Wright to create Trance Map, to the extent that each is credited with “co-composition." Wright is a senior lecturer at Canterbury ...

248

Album Review

Bill Dixon Orchestra: Intents And Purposes

Read "Intents And Purposes" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
June 8, 2011

At last Bill Dixon's almost mythical Intents And Purposes sees the light of day once again. The only sadness is that the trumpeter died in June 2010 before his monumental early masterpiece could resurface. Painstakingly transferred from the two-track masters, the disc is lovingly presented as a facsimile of the original LP with the album cover and liner notes duplicated and the CD, in an inner sleeve, sporting the RCA Victor label. Dixon is on record as saying that he ...

175

Live Review

Paul Motian: New York, NY, May 20 2011

by Warren Allen
June 8, 2011

Paul Motian Quartet “Tribute to the MJQ"Village VanguardNew York, NYMay 20, 2011 The boundary between past and present in jazz has, over the years, become a source of overwrought debate. The rise of “Tribute" shows at New York City's big name clubs gives ammunition to those who say that jazz today looks too much to its past at the expense of its future. But good musicians make good music, regardless of how it's advertised, ...

209

Album Review

David S. Ware / Cooper-Moore / William Parker / Muhammad Ali: Planetary Unknown

Read "Planetary Unknown" reviewed by Nic Jones

by Nic Jones
June 8, 2011

Planetary Unknown marks the first time this quartet played together, though that isn't apparent, given the music's deep roots and connections. Drummer Muhammad Ali is brother to Rashied, who worked with John Coltrane's post-Elvin Jones group. This is his first appearance on record since the early 1980s, and he brings a wealth of experience with the likes of Albert Ayler and Alan Shorter, to the table. Saxophonist David S. Ware and pianist Cooper-Moore came to New York ...

183

Album Review

Travis Sullivan: New Directions

Read "New Directions" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
June 8, 2011

Travis Sullivan's New Directions, his Posi-Tone debut, is a rewarding trip through a mix of strong, self-penned, tunes and an unusual combination of covers. The saxophonist leads his quartet with style, emphasizing musicality and emotional engagement over displays of technique, and creating a sparkly collection that emphatically establishes his talents as a composer as well as a saxophonist. The altoist's compositions are firmly within the modern jazz tradition, but there's a variety in pace, rhythm and mood ...

207

Album Review

Dawes: Nothing Is Wrong

Read "Nothing Is Wrong" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
June 8, 2011

In the process of redefining rootsy rock and roll out from the West Coast, Dawes has had its profile heightened by association lately, with props from Jackson Browne in the pages of Rolling Stone and as accompanists for The Band's Robbie Robertson. But if the group's second album, Nothing Is Wrong, proves anything, it's that this quartet can stand on its own. No question the group owes some obvious debts, but it's not for lack of ideas; rather, ...

233

Live Review

Pilc-Moutin-Hoenig Trio: Washington, D.C. May 17, 2011

by Franz A. Matzner
June 8, 2011

Jean-Michel Pilc / Ari Hoenig / François Moutin Blues Alley Washington, D.C. May 17, 20011Tumultuous, unpredictable, vibrant with variegated rhythms and tempos, shimmering with torrents of sound and spiraling tendrils of color, the Pilc-Moutin-Hoenig Trio's recent performance at Blues Alley proceeded less like an unveiling and more like the exploding of a star--the event emitting a creative shock wave of force, overlapping forms, light, darkness, expanding and contracting space.The resonating artistic ...

582

Interview

SIU2: Shenging It Up in Hong Kong

by Ian Patterson
June 7, 2011

It shouldn't really come as a great surprise that China hasn't produced an abundance of jazz musicians, while neighboring Japan continues to turn them out at a great rate of knots, given the very different histories the two countries have lived post World War II. The traumatic Cultural Revolution, under Mao Zedong, shunned all things western, whereas Japan's rebuilding was dependent on western countries, and it was therefore wide open to cultural influences. Now, with China gradually opening up to ...

157

Album Review

Pat Metheny: What's It All About

Read "What's It All About" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
June 7, 2011

Pat Metheny has released plenty of solo albums over the years, but One Quiet Night (Nonesuch, 2003) found him turning to a different modus operandi, imposing a series of restrictions: one guitar, one tuning, no overdubs. An intimate album of mostly original material, beyond three covers including Keith Jarrett's “My Song" and Gerry & the Pacemakers' hit, “Ferry Cross the Mersey," One Quiet Night was a more intimate and immediate alternative to his production-heavy Pat Metheny Group releases, and recent ...

162

Album Review

Farmers By Nature: Out Of This World’s Distortions

Read "Out Of This World’s Distortions" reviewed by Nic Jones

by Nic Jones
June 7, 2011

Sometimes it feels like there's a glut of piano trios out there, so it could be argued that it takes something special for one to stand out. Whatever that special something might be, these guys have got it. Pianist Craig Taborn, bassist William Parker and drummer Gerald Cleaver have the ability to produce work that's never stale. But saying that they always come to play doesn't do them justice: individually and collectively, they have a knack for carving out their ...