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.

195

Album Review

Dan Wilensky: Group Therapy

Read "Group Therapy" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
May 15, 2011

Group therapy involves a collection of individuals coming together to work things out and sort through their thoughts in the same room. The same can be said for saxophonist Dan Wilensky's Group Therapy. Wilensky's wide-ranging career has involved everything from street playing and studio sessions to Broadway and a stint in Ray Charles' band. All of his experiences have helped him flesh out a personal sound that touches on everything from loose swing and free jazz to faux-Arabian fare.

193

Album Review

Mr. Rencore + Tim Berne: Intollerant

Read "Intollerant" reviewed by Jerry D'Souza

by Jerry D'Souza
May 15, 2011

Mr. Rencore was formed in 2006 by baritone guitarist Gabrio Baldacci and drummer Daniele Paoletti, who had been playing together for 15 years in other bands. Three years later, they added baritone saxophonist Beppe Scardino. All three musicians are at ease in several genres, with careers that have traversed rock, folk jazz and free improvisation, making them comfortable bedfellows. Adding chameleon-like alto saxophonist Tim Berne--who came in specially for this project--the music on Intollerant is a salivating blend ...

204

Album Review

The David Leonhardt Jazz Group: The David Leonhardt Jazz Group Plays Cole Porter

Read "The David Leonhardt Jazz Group Plays Cole Porter" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
May 15, 2011

A towering figure in American musical history, Cole Porter's music has been performed by countless people and groups for decades, enduring to this day. Pianist/composer David Leonhardt is the latest artist to interpret the work of the legendary songwriter with a smart and snappy presentation on The David Leonhardt Jazz Group Plays Cole Porter. With plenty of music to choose from, Leonhardt selects six compositions from the 1940s and '50s, but was wise enough to fill the balance of the ...

293

Extended Analysis

The Waitiki 7: Waitiki In Hi-Fi

by Chris May
May 14, 2011

The Waitiki 7Waitiki In Hi-FiPass Out Records2011 It must have been hell being a young adult in the US in the 1950s. Imagine it: the government was headed by a five-star general; nuclear Armageddon was a constant threat; race relations were bitter going on murderous; demands for workers' rights were seen as communistic subversion; working women were viewed as abnormal; gays were agents of the devil; you could spend years in ...

Album Review

The Remote Viewers: To The North

Read "To The North" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
May 14, 2011

The ongoing saga of The Remote Viewers entails personnel changes that are neatly fitted into a particular program or stream of consciousness. On To The North, saxophonists Adrian Northover and David Petts extend the band's distinct methodology via a four-sax attack, with marimba and a standard rhythm section. True to form, the musicians pursue off-kilter rhythmic underpinnings, extended note choruses and contrapuntal contrasts. The group's identity partly resides within its penchant for executing staggered phrasings and semi-structured motifs ...

216

Live Review

Saxophone Summit: New York, April 20, 2011

by Ryan Lippell
May 14, 2011

Saxophone SummitJazz Standard, Impulse! Nights--Africa/BrassNew York, NYApril 20, 2011 For Dave Liebman, it was the orange spines. For others, it was the laminated, emblematic covers with gatefolds. For everyone, Impulse! was the record label that best committed to vinyl the golden age of jazz: a fertile crescent between the late '50s and early '70s that simultaneously showcased all the branches of the jazz evolutionary tree, from Satchmo to Duke to Coltrane. To commemorate the ...

155

Album Review

Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis, featuring Norah Jones: Here We Go Again: Celebrating the Genius of Ray Charles

Read "Here We Go Again: Celebrating the Genius of Ray Charles" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
May 14, 2011

After the success of Two Men With the Blues (Blue Note, 2008), Here We Go Again: Celebrating the Genius of Ray Charles is a welcome inevitability. The addition of the like-minded Norah Jones to the mix is just gravy, properly augmenting a Ray Charles tribute. With the possible exception of Van Morrison, only Willie Nelson exists as the logical heir to Charles' mantle. Like Charles, Nelson's aptitude has been promiscuous, gobbling up and transforming genres previously not ...

242

Take Five With...

Take Five with Lynn Veronneau

by AAJ Staff
May 14, 2011

Meet Lynn Veronneau: Quebec native Lynn Veronneau has been tearing through mid-Atlantic listening venues with her band, “Veronneau," like a force of nature with 50 shows in their first year, a new CD, and shows scheduled for the US, UK and Canada.As a child in suburban Montreal (Sherbrooke), Veronneau was influenced by the world of Francophone music as well as the Beatles, and the big band jazz beloved by her father, a lifelong employee of the O'Keefe brewing ...

106

Album Review

Tania Gill: Bolger Station

Read "Bolger Station" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
May 14, 2011

a recording that sounds uncomplicated and effortless might actually be a more difficult task than presenting an impenetrable maze of writing and arrangements. Pianist/composer Tania Gill does just that with Bolger Station, an unadorned minor classic that gets stuck in the heart, while tugging at the soul. Gill's music has an uncluttered yet sometimes quirky style, one that can echo Thelonious Monk, as heard on “Magpie," a fitful angular romp that she shares with the expressive trumpeter Lina ...

110

Album Review

Ernest Dawkins' New Horizons Ensemble: The Prairie Prophet

Read "The Prairie Prophet" reviewed by Nic Jones

by Nic Jones
May 14, 2011

The Prairie Prophet is the fifth release on Delmark from reed player Ernest Dawkins and his band. It's clear that over the course of that association both leader and band have evolved to the point where they can be considered as one of the more vibrant, most urgently alive outfits on the scene. This album pays homage to the late and lamented tenor saxophonist and fixture on the Chicago scene, Fred Anderson, in whose Velvet Lounge these guys have also ...