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.

189

Multiple Reviews

I Furiosi: Going for Baroque

by C. Michael Bailey
April 30, 2011

The Kronos Quartet was revolutionary in the respect that it made a conscious effort to appeal to all age groups at once, with tense and anxious performances like Black Angels (Nonesuch, 1990). The ensemble Red Priest did this same thing, reducing Vivaldi and his friends to a bare minimum, creating some very provocative music in the bargain. It has been a standard of practice for younger 21st century chamber players to attempt to add an edge to old and new ...

208

Album Review

Traffic: Traffic: John Barleycorn Must Die Deluxe Edition

Read "Traffic: John Barleycorn Must Die Deluxe Edition" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
April 30, 2011

Traffic reinvented themselves repeatedly over the course of close to three decades together, but perhaps never more dramatically than with John Barleycorn Must Die. The deluxe version of the title suggests the work represents an even more significant turning point for the British band than the only other comparable work in their discography, The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys (Island, 1971) This 1970 album constitutes Traffic's recommitment to itself and its music, in the wake of near-constant personnel ...

247

Take Five With...

Take Five With Fiona Joy Hawkins

by AAJ Staff
April 30, 2011

Meet Fiona Joy Hawkins: Fiona Joy Hawkins is an Australian composer and pianist who crosses genres from contemporary classical, to worldj Jazz and new age. Fiona has four award winning albums Portrait of a Waterfall, Angel Above My Piano, ICE--Piano Slightly Chilled and Blue Dream. She has charted at #1 on the New Age Reporter International Radio Charts achieving the highest ranking in the history of the charts. Fiona performs with a ...

222

Album Review

T.K. Blue: Latin Bird

Read "Latin Bird" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
April 30, 2011

It would seem that the music of Bird has been born anew in 2011. Joe Lovano took to the skies with his expansive take on the music of Charlie Parker with Bird Songs (Blue Note, 2011), and now alto saxophonist T.K. Blue spreads his wings with Latin Bird. Both men take Parker's music in different directions, yet they seem to share a guiding philosophy that reverence for a subject matter needn't result in stale retreads of their work. Artists who ...

235

Album Review

Corea, Clark & White: Forever

Read "Forever" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
April 30, 2011

This Concord Music Group release is identical to that reviewed by John Kelman, previously released on Universal Music Japan. A two-CD set, the first disc is an acoustic piano trio recital from the original rhythm section of the 1970s fusion band Return to Forever, recorded during the 2009 RTF-Unplugged Tour, while the second is an electric survey with RTF's first guitarist, Bill Connors, along with violinist Jean-Luc Ponty and vocalist Chaka Khan, taken from rehearsals for a one- time performance ...

Album Review

Jake Fryer / Bud Shank Quintet: In Good Company

Read "In Good Company" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
April 30, 2011

One of the apparent pitfalls that a young artist such as Jake Fryer finds himself in danger of, while making an album with star such as Bud Shank--especially when playing the same instrument, namely the alto saxophone--is that freedom of expression often gives way to reverence. The younger player might feel obligated to diminish him/herself, so that the mentor can be given his or her rightful place in the proceedings. However, this is certainly not one of the issues that ...

134

Extended Analysis

Rachel Musson's Skein: Flight Line

by Chris May
April 29, 2011

Rachel Musson's SkeinFlight LineF-IRE2011 The London musicians' collective/record label F-IRE can take much of the credit for the emergence of some singular saxophonists during the early to mid-2000s: Peter Wareham (Acoustic Ladyland and Polar Bear), Mark Lockheart (Polar Bear), Finn Peters and Ingrid Laubrock being foremost among the luminaries. In 2011, another batch of reeds talent is gaining attention, led by John Martin and Rachel Musson. Martin's debut album, Dawning, presents ...

129

Album Review

Mike Westbrook Orchestra: The Cortege

Read "The Cortege" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
April 29, 2011

At its richest, pianist/composer Mike Westbrook's work is to jazz what grand opera, in the classical world, is to chamber music. The Cortege is Westbrook at his richest, leading a 17-piece orchestra through an ambitious and brilliantly realized suite, loosely themed around the idea of a funeral procession and its after-party. Thirty years after its first release on Original Records, The Cortege remains one of finest achievements of British orchestral jazz, and has been reissued as a two-CD set to ...

245

Extended Analysis

Caym: The Book Of Angels Vol. 17

by Warren Allen
April 29, 2011

CaymThe Book of Angels Vol .17Tzadik2011 Brazilian master percussionist Cyro Baptista first encountered composer John Zorn back in the early 1980s. Baptista, who has since gone on to work with everyone from singer Paul Simon to cellist Yo Yo Ma, at the time was only recently arrived in New York from Brazil. He and Zorn evidently recognized some common artistic craziness/genius between themselves, and since then Baptista's wide array of traditional ...

163

Album Review

DJ Sniff: EP

by John Eyles
April 29, 2011

EP is a fascinating disc on several levels. Its title is not short for “extended play"---how many people today remember those?--but for Psi proprietor Evan Parker. The disc is an elaborate hommage to Parker. Its front cover photograph shows DJ Sniff holding up an LP; close inspection of its label reveals that it is Parker's Monoceros (Incus, 1978). Inside, a second photograph (both by Caroline Forbes) shows Sniff against a pale background, with the mouthpiece of a sax arranged behind ...