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.

145

Album Review

Katchie & Le Monde Cache: Tales & Tongues

Read "Tales & Tongues" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
June 6, 2011

Vocalist Katharine “Katchie" Cartwright is certainly one extremely talented individual. A Ph. D. in ethnomusicology provides a clue of her caliber on Tales & Tongues. An educator, professional singer and musician, her experience with workshops throughout Europe, South America, the Caribbean, Asia and West Africa, has prepared her well for this particular project, where Cartwright--along with her group Le Monde Caché ("the hidden world")--presents a collection of standards from the world stage, using music from what she terms, the “global ...

286

Interview

Jen Shyu and Theo Bleckmann: Breaking the Song Barrier

by Daniel Lehner
June 6, 2011

Before Robert Moog came out with the first synthesizer, before Adolphe Sax invented his famous reed instrument, before the trumpets sounded at Jericho, even before the world's ancient tribes tightened their animal skins to make drums, humanity's first instrument was the voice. Not that this is of particular consequence to Theo Bleckmann. “To me, that argument is completely moot because it doesn't matter what the first instrument was, it's what you make of it. Just because it may be the ...

187

Album Review

Sylvie Courvoisier – Mark Feldman Quartet: Hotel Du Nord

Read "Hotel Du Nord" reviewed by Nic Jones

by Nic Jones
June 5, 2011

Hotel Du Nord is shot through with heightened sensitivity. In the wake of To Fly To Steal (Intakt, 2010), the group did a series of European tours and this experience of playing together has resulted in heightened musical understanding. The quartet's musical currency--with the original lineup intact--is as informed by Twentieth Century chamber music as it is by creative improvised music, which means their work is about deft strokes as much as rhetorical flourishes. Pianist Sylvie Courvoisier's ...

195

Live Review

Dana Lauren: New York, May 22, 2011

by Dan Bilawsky
June 5, 2011

Dana Lauren Metropolitan Room New York, NY May 22, 2011 Sunday night shows are a tough sell to the average music fan. Weekend gatherings, housework and Saturday evening soirees often take their toll and sour people from making their way out to hear live music on a Sunday evening, but diehard jazz fans know that something special might await them. Established artists finishing up week long stints at hallowed New York haunts, like the Village ...

222

Album Review

Rich Halley Quartet featuring Bobby Bradford: Live at the Penofin Jazz Festival

Read "Live at the Penofin Jazz Festival" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
June 5, 2011

Prominent USA West Coast jazz artists, saxophonist Rich Halley and cornetist Bobby Bradford, disseminate a restless spirit, boosted by memorable compositions and compelling improvisational jaunts on this 2010 set. Bradford is a living legend via his affiliations with Ornette Coleman and long-running partnership with pioneering clarinetist John Carter. As anticipated, this band does not disappoint. Sparked by commodious passages, surging exchanges and invigorating free-bop sprees, Live at the Penofin Jazz Festival offers the complete package. Halley leads a ...

132

Live Review

Gerald Clayton Trio: Cologne, Germany, May 15, 2011

by Phillip Woolever
June 5, 2011

Gerald Clayton Trio Altes Pfandhaus Cologne, Germany May 15, 2011 The heralded, emerging Gerald Clayton and his current crew opened their European tour on a beautiful night in a beautiful, jazz specific venue, splitting well-spent time between Bond :The Paris Sessions (Emarcy, 2011), some finely retouched classics, and the pianist's Grammy-nominated Two Shade (Emarcy, 2009). Altes Pfandhaus is an intimate, “in the round" type venue with excellent sightlines. The lucky swarm ...

450

Album Review

lim: lim with Marc Ducret

Read "lim with Marc Ducret" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
June 5, 2011

lim has been active now for more than ten years but the Swedish trio's members share a much deeper history. Saxophonist Henrik Frisk and drummer Peter Nilsson spent part of their adolescence in the same small town in southern Sweden (as did photographer Stefan Lundgren, whose art graces the release's cover), with bassist David Carlsson coming from a neighboring town. The trio has, over the years, developed tight but elastic interplay, despite the complexity of its compositions. ...

152

Album Review

Nelson Montana: Jazz Un-Standards

Read "Jazz Un-Standards" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
June 5, 2011

Nelson Montana wears many hats on Jazz Un-Standards. Playing, bass, drums, guitar and keyboards, providing all of the arrangements, singing, and producing a record is quite a chore. While Nelson brings some guest horn players and pianist Mark Berman into the fold to help flesh out his interpretations of standards and a pair of originals, the record still comes off like a one-man show in many respects. The ability and desire to take on so many roles is admirable, but ...

266

Album Review

Bobby Sanabria / Manhattan School of Music Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra: Tito Puente Masterworks Live!!!

Read "Tito Puente Masterworks Live!!!" reviewed by Alain Londes

by Alain Londes
June 5, 2011

The spirit of Tito Puente comes alive with a riveting live concert, wonderfully recorded, on Tito Puente Masterworks Live!!!. Percussionist Bobby Sanabria fires up the exceptionally talented Manhattan School of Music Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra in an energetic performance, just as he did on Kenya Revisited Live!!! (Jazzheads, 2009), this time showing maestro Puente's depth, majesty, complexity and artistry. Two distinguishing features of this concert are its stylistic variety, and the new arrangements or reconstructions--still recognizable and true to ...

215

Album Review

Larry Goldings: In My Room

Read "In My Room" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
June 4, 2011

Sentimentality gets a raw deal in the eyes of many a jazz fan and journalist. Somewhere along the line, a lot of artists began indulging in overwrought expressions of emotion in an effort to artificially enhance their work with a sense of depth that might not truly exist, but that shouldn't taint the very idea of sentimentality in song. Pianist Larry Goldings' In My Room is the perfect example of music that thrives on small doses of the sentimental, and ...