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.

272

Extended Analysis

Bill Carrothers Trio: A Night at the Village Vanguard

by Dan McClenaghan
May 30, 2011

Bill Carrothers Trio A Night At The Village Vanguard Pirouet Records 2011 Maybe everything that goes down in New York's Village Vanguard should be documented. The history of live albums recorded at the legendary venue, going back to the early days, includes standout sets by pianist Bill Evans and saxophonists Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon and John Coltrane. An update into the new century finds the likes of pianists Brad Mehldau, Fred Hersch and Jason ...

134

Album Review

Kermit Driscoll: Reveille

Read "Reveille" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
May 30, 2011

Reveille marks bassist and educator Kermit Driscoll's freshman solo outing, and features his longtime associate, guitarist Bill Frisell. As a member of Frisell's dynamic trio with drummer Joey Baron, the term cutting-edge took on notorious implications. Similar forward-reaching concepts are explored throughout this multidimensional program. Mildly surprising is the inclusion of Vinnie Colaiuta, though the all-universe pop, jazz and rock session drummer is quite adroit at handling the freer sojourns, where his polyrhythmic assaults and propelling beats distribute a broad ...

188

Album Review

Deborah Pearl: Souvenir Of You

Read "Souvenir Of You" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
May 30, 2011

Singer, actress, screenwriter and lyricist Deborah Pearl's debut is a souvenir of a very special “you": alto saxophonist and composer Benny Carter. Pearl has taken 13 of Carter's compositions, added her own lyrics, and produced a lovingly-crafted collection that's a worthy addition to the Carter canon. His instrumental presence is also stamped firmly on the album, thanks to the ability of modern technology to combine Pearl's voice with the Benny Carter Big Band on two tracks. Pearl, ...

Album Review

The Brian Landrus Quartet: Traverse

Read "Traverse" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
May 30, 2011

There is a gravitas in the musical intellect of baritone saxophonist/bass clarinetist Brian Landrus that can only come from a wellspring emanating from the depths of a very bluesy soul. His is a singular voice and, as he sings in sensuous, velvet tones, his long magical lines swing and swagger with rhythmic grace. Although his music is, at its heart, conceptually simple, he rarely stays in the linear path of the melody for long, preferring to be seduced by the ...

301

Interview

Evan Weiss: Soundscapes

by Marshall Taylor
May 30, 2011

Stylistically, Evan Weiss, an up-and-coming composer, arranger and player in the jazz idiom, is a hard nut to crack. Weiss' recent release, Math or Magic (Inner Circle, 2010), contains soundscapes produced by an 11-piece ensemble. The tunes, rich and dense in their orchestration, tread through an array of musical environments teeming with subtly placed electronic sound effects, classical composition techniques and suave Norwegian vocals.All About Jazz: Your recent release, Math or Magic, is very dense in recurring themes ...

168

Album Review

Earle Brown: Synergy

Read "Synergy" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
May 29, 2011

Never quite as celebrated as his New York contemporaries Morton Feldman and John Cage, Earle Brown was, nevertheless, a composer of exceeding brilliance. His music bespoke of breathtaking vistas, informed by his undying love of the New England of his birth as much as it was by his exceptional grasp of the immense fluidity of compositional form. A relative concrete expressionist, he is artistically descended from Edgard Varèse in that his work emphasized timbre and rhythm. In fact, the term, ...

Live Review

Louis Hayes Quartet: San Diego CA, May 10, 2011

by Robert Bush
May 29, 2011

Louis Hayes Quartet Saville Theatre, San Diego City College San Diego, CAMay 10, 2011 Jazz legend Louis Hayes, a significant progenitor of modern percussion since the early 1950s, visited San Diego's Saville Theatre on May 10, and, with an elite group of local musicians, delivered a blistering set of post-bop, mainstream classics to an enthusiastic, sold-out crowd. Hayes, 74, a native of Detroit, first gained national prominence as a sideman with ...

118

Extended Analysis

JuJu: In Trance

by Chris May
May 29, 2011

JuJuIn TranceReal World2011 This is the third album from guitarist Justin Adams and singer/ritti player Juldeh Camara, and, as the saying goes, third time lucky. Not that Soul Science (Irl, 2007) or Tell No Lies (Real World, 2009) were disappointing, only that the duo's visceral mix of traditional Gambian music, jam band-informed jazz and avant rock has reached a new level with In Trance. Partly, this is down to the simple ...

472

Album Review

Heniu: Von Hier Nach Dort

Read "Von Hier Nach Dort" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
May 29, 2011

Von Hier Nach Dort is Heniu's debut album; a light, almost ethereal, collection of tunes that draws strongly on jazz but also incorporates influences from folk, classical and ambient genres. The result is a pleasingly fresh and accessible recording, with a positive and unpretentious vibe. Hans Arnold composed all of the tunes on Von Hier Nach Dort and it's his Wurlitzer piano that provides this Berlin-based trio's unique selling point: a warm, organic sound that falls between ...

213

Album Review

Bela Fleck: Rocket Science

Read "Rocket Science" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
May 29, 2011

The musicianship on Béla Fleck and The Flecktones' Rocket Science radiates a sense of play that was missing from the group's last recorded work The Hidden Land (Columbia, 2006). There's also a sense of adventure here that hasn't really been in evidence since Three Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Warner Bros, 1993), the first album recorded after the departure of original Flecktone Howard Levy. After an eighteen-year absence, Levy is back in the fold on this record and ...