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

Mike Rood: The Desert And The City

Read "The Desert And The City" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
June 2, 2011

The music on guitarist Mike Rood's debut recording straddles two different worlds. Sparse settings of relative quietude represent the isolation and beautiful spaciousness of the desert, while lively demonstrations of technical sophistication and motion paint a vivid picture of the non-stop energy of the city. The title of this recording points to these opposing sound locales, but it also references the origins of this music. Rood--the son of two symphonic violinists--wrote some of this music while summering in Sante Fe, ...

144

Album Review

Uz Jsme Doma: Caves

by Glenn Astarita
June 2, 2011

Uz Jsme Doma, (pronounced oosh-smeh-dough-ma), hails from the Czech Republic, and may not be a familiar entity for USA progressive-rock advocates. With its origins in 1985, the unit evaded bans against free expressionism during the Communist-dominated era of Eastern Europe. Now, with its seventh release and debut for Cuneiform Records, amid some glowing press in the States, they may loom as an imminent force to global progressive-rock factions. Loose comparisons to Frank Zappa and The Residents have been ...

147

Album Review

Steve Lacy: School Days

Read "School Days" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
June 1, 2011

As the title suggests, School Days is both ironic--because the ingenuity of these musicians might have actually been the best schooled at the time of the recording--and iconic, as well. The reason? Steve Lacy and Roswell Rudd formed one of the great, seminal repertory ensembles of all time, playing the music of Thelonious Monk and Herbie Nichols. Moreover, this reissue includes two tracks of Monk's group that included Steve Lacy. While the recordings with Monk have been issued previously, on ...

165

Extended Analysis

David Sylvian: Died In The Wool - Manafon Variations

by John Kelman
June 1, 2011

David Sylvian Died In The Wool: Manafon Variations samadhisound 2011 As the world becomes a smaller place, so, paradoxically, do musical communities expand to reach around it. British singer/composer David Sylvian--first of 1980s pop group Japan, but then a solo artist taking increasing chances with each successive album--has been busting down boundaries of geography and genre since 1984, when he released his first solo album, Brilliant Trees (Virgin), bringing together Fourth World progenitor, trumpeter ...

344

Album Review

Mike Rood: The Desert and the City

Read "The Desert and the City" reviewed by Greg Simmons

by Greg Simmons
June 1, 2011

Mike Rood's The Desert and the City opens with an eerily ambient groove employing some unusual techniques--repetitive picked chords and some almost techno rhythmic phrasing--to create a fascinating soundscape. What's noteworthy about this effect is that it's accomplished with a very straightforward ensemble: Rood, accompanied by acoustic bass, drums, and saxophone. The effect of the opening title track sets the pace for what unfolds as a measured, beautifully crafted date of quietly insistent tracks. Rood is clearly more ...

161

Live Review

Peter Brotzmann Chicago Tentet +1: London, UK, April 18-20, 2011

by John Sharpe
June 1, 2011

Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet +1Café OtoLondon, UKApril 18-20, 2011 Since its inception in 1997, Peter Brötzmann's Chicago Tentet has become one of the foremost large groupings in free jazz, not least because of its unrivalled roster of talent and its durability as a unit. When asked how he had kept such an exceptional group of musicians together, German reed iconoclast Brötzmann replied: “Doing it for such a long time tells me that they want to ...

201

Album Review

Steve Khan: Parting Shot

Read "Parting Shot" reviewed by Mark F. Turner

by Mark F. Turner
June 1, 2011

It's tough for artists to remain viable in a fast-paced environment in which hype is focused on the latest flavor of the week or whatever technology and media is creating a buzz. As usual, jazz gets caught in the flux, but guitarist Steve Khan continues to demonstrate that it's not just about the technology or complexity, but the music and who's playing it. Off the heels of the superb live recording The Suitcase (Tone Center, 2008), Khan continues his love ...

200

Album Review

Jamie Ruben: Groove-O-Ly-O-Scene

Read "Groove-O-Ly-O-Scene" reviewed by Douglas Payne

by Douglas Payne
June 1, 2011

The musical path of Canadian guitarist Jamie Ruben is surely the story of the road less traveled. Rather than gigging regularly in some urban jazz hotbed, the Toronto-based guitarist made his living for seven years performing jazz full time in the Far East in such places as Katmandu, Bangkok, Shanghai and the even more remote regions of Siem Reap and Koh Samui, among others. Taking the musical sounds of the West over to the Far East ensured that ...

251

Album Review

Travis Reuter: Rotational Templates

Read "Rotational Templates" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
June 1, 2011

Influences by contemporary classical composers within progressive-jazz frameworks do not always yield fruitful results, but New York City-based guitarist Travis Reuter goes against the grain on the exhilarating Rotational Templates. An impressionable young composer and guitarist, Reuter divulges a conspicuous approach to hybrid genres as if it were meant to be. The band was up for the occasion and generates sympathetic support amid a democratic mindset. These pieces convey a pulsating set of odd-metered rhythmic structures, abetted by ...

153

Album Review

Ralph Alessi and This Against That: Wiry Strong

Read "Wiry Strong" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
May 31, 2011

Born out of the jazz laboratory of Brooklyn's M-Base experiments of the 1990s, trumpeter Ralph Alessi has always seemed to be a farouche player. Never hankering for the spotlight, he always seems satisfied to turn in solid deliberate efforts that don't court flattery. Maybe it is his subtle nature, but what some might have missed has always been picked up by his fellow musicians. He has been called upon by the likes of Fred Hersch, Uri Caine, Jason Moran, Don ...