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.

176

Album Review

Becca Stevens Band: Weightless

Read "Weightless" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
May 12, 2011

There is an artistic point where Jacqui Sutton (Billie & Dolly (Toy Blue Typewriter Productions, 2010)), Gretchen Parlato (The Lost and Found (ObliqSound, 2011)) and Norah Jones (Feels Like Home (Blue Note Records, 2004)) intersect, giving rise to Becca Stevens, whose creative arc gains traction in a direction different from, but informed by, those singers. By combining Parlato's coquettish, diaphanous singing style, Sutton's rootsy, organic acoustic approach and Jones' tuneful composing, Stevens charts a course all her own in a ...

109

Live Review

Wynton Marsalis: Cambridge, MA, April 28, 2011

by Andrew J. Sammut
May 12, 2011

Wynton MarsalisHarvard Sanders TheatreCambridge, MA April 28, 2011 A capacity crowd filled Harvard University's Sanders Theatre for “Music as Metaphor," featuring trumpeter, composer and Artistic Director for Jazz at Lincoln Center Wynton Marsalis. Thursday night's event launched a two-year series of programs by Marsalis at Harvard entitled “Hidden in Plain View: Meanings in American Music," organized by university President Drew Faust as part of an expansion of the arts at the nation's oldest institution ...

142

Album Review

J.D. Allen: Victory!

Read "Victory!" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
May 12, 2011

Many artists seem to move rapidly through different ensemble configurations, as if they're trying to finish off a career to-do list. While it's true that artistic reinvention using various instrumental formats--whether it be an organ group, big band project or Jazz Messengers-style outing--can help an artist gain notice in the trade magazines, using these formats as quick pit stops along the press trail can make for a shallow career that lacks in artistic depth. When an exceptional artist is willing ...

339

Interview

Zim Ngqawana: Sound, Song, and Humanity

by AAJ Staff
May 12, 2011

(Ed. note: we're celebrating the life and music of Zim Ngqawana by reprinting this 2002 interview. Ngqawana passed away in Johannesburg, after suffering a stroke on May 10th. He was 52.) For Zim Ngqawana, citizenship is a relative concept. He may be a South African, but he insists that he is first and foremost a citizen of humanity. The 42 year old saxophonist and composer makes a distinctive kind of music which draws heavily from the jazz tradition--yet ...

160

Album Review

Artwork: Two of a Kind

Read "Two of a Kind" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
May 12, 2011

Two of a Kind seeks to embody in musical terms the best of two possible worlds: those of Sweden and the United States. Artwork is a sextet composed of three Swedes (Jan Allan, Hans Backenroth, Johan Lofcrantz Ramsay), two Americans (Jack Wilkins, Tamara Danielsson) and a Swedish expatriate (Per Danielsson). The music it has chosen is a seductive bilingual blend, comprising as it does five compositions by tenor saxophonist Wilkins, four by the acclaimed Swedish bassist Georg Riedel (who was ...

142

Album Review

Grana Louise: Gettin’ Kinda Rough

Read "Gettin’ Kinda Rough" reviewed by Nic Jones

by Nic Jones
May 12, 2011

Blues singer Graná Louise has the kind of authoritative voice that broaches no contradiction, and on Gettin' Kinda Rough she delivers a batch of songs which nicely showcases her range. In view of the sublime authority of the original, she plays with fire in covering what was Slim Harpo's “I'm A King Bee" as “Queen Bee." The original version was topped off by a killer one-note guitar solo and Harpo's chromatic harp. The overwrought guitar solo on ...

175

Album Review

Szilard Mezei: Februari Fadontes

Read "Februari Fadontes" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
May 12, 2011

Serbian-born, Hungarian violist Szilard Mezei leads a quartet of his countrymen through a satisfying program of three multi-sectioned compositions on this limited edition LP. Mezei has become increasingly visible on the international scene, with a string of releases from ensembles of different sizes, and a guest appearance with the Fonda/Stevens Group. This new foursome features the attractive frontline blend of viola and Peter Bede's tenor saxophone, recalling the pairing of Billy Bang and Frank Lowe in the Jazz Doctors, but ...

113

Album Review

Terrence McManus / Mark Helias / Gerry Hemingway: Transcendental Numbers

Read "Transcendental Numbers" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
May 11, 2011

Guitarist Terrence McManus helms a stellar trio on Transcendental Numbers, through six collective concoctions recorded in New York City's The Stone, straddling and blurring the line between textural improvisation and the more traditional sound of guitar and rhythm section. Brooklyn-born McManus is carving a niche for himself on the scene. Having worked with drummer/composer Tyshawn Sorey, and performed with fellow guitarist Bill Frisell and saxophonist John Zorn, McManus is currently a member of drummer Gerry Hemingway's quintet, and finds his ...

291

Afrobeat Diaries

Part 23 - Ghariokwu Lemi: The Art of Afrobeat

by Chris May
May 11, 2011

Ghariokwu Lemi--"born, bred and buttered" in Lagos, Nigeria, where he continues to live--is an artist and graphic designer who created 26 of Fela Kuti's album covers, including many of his most powerful ones. Since his Kuti debut, for 1974's Alagbon Close, Lemi's art has been an integral part of Afrobeat's Pan African message, working hand in hand with the music to identify injustice, educate, galvanize protest and bring about change. Among Lemi's other Africa 70, Afrika 70 ...

121

Album Review

Sam Trapchak's Put Together Funny: Lollipopocalypse

Read "Lollipopocalypse" reviewed by Mark F. Turner

by Mark F. Turner
May 11, 2011

Bassist Sam Trapchak's debut, Lollipopocalypse, is inspired by a character who experiences some very unsavory candy in the Toni Morrison novel Song of Solomon. But Trapchak and his curiously named group, Put Together Funny, dish out some palatable music with a release that is equally accessible and stimulating. Replete with infectious melodies, risk-taking compositions, and cohesive variety, the seven compositions are delivered by Trapchak's potent band members Trapchak's lists Dave Holland as one of his influences in ...