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.

208

Album Review

Come Sunday: Crosscurrents

Read "Crosscurrents" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
April 26, 2011

American roots music can be divided into four broad genres: blues, jazz, country and gospel. A Venn diagram of the relationship of these four would reveal an area of intersection of all these musical elements. It is in this area that the jazz-gospel group Come Sunday achieves its durable yet delicate goal of divining these spirits in equal measure. Come Sunday's name is derived from the Duke Ellington song of the same name, made famous in his ...

172

Album Review

John Surman: Flashpoint: NDR Jazz Workshop - April '69

Read "Flashpoint: NDR Jazz Workshop - April '69" reviewed by Nic Jones

by Nic Jones
April 26, 2011

In the necessarily modestly expansive booklet note which accompanies this CD and DVD set, Brian Morton sets out the development of jazz in Britain, from its point of origin in the early decades of the twentieth century. He also rightly identifies the musical generation that came of age in the 1960s as having no sense of cultural inferiority, a point which is made most potently on Flashpoint: NDR Jazz Workshop--April '69 in music that reveals a character every bit as ...

181

Album Review

Sonic Liberation Front: Meets Sunny Murray

Read "Meets Sunny Murray" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
April 26, 2011

Sonic Liberation Front--the inheritors of both Sun Ra and the Art Ensemble of Chicago's traditions--teams up with jazz legend, drummer Sunny Murray, to create both a studio and live recording. The music continues SLF's dedicated effort to mine the percussive traditions of Afro-Cuban, Yoruba/West Africa, and American-fostered free jazz. The percussion-heavy band's previous release, Change Over Time (High Two, 2006), included some electronic flavors. Here, the sound is all acoustic, with free jazz drummer Murray providing the inspiration ...

222

Album Review

Harriet Tubman: Ascension

Read "Ascension" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
April 26, 2011

The raison d'être for the band, Harriet Tubman, is an almost aching musical yearning for a complete freedom. It is a freedom from genre and certainly on Ascension, complete freedom from style as well as style. This what the 20th Century Spanish poet and playwright, Federico Garcia-Lorca described as the heart of duende, a holistic alternative to style and mere virtuosity, seeking an elevated level of delving into the depths of the soul so that the music dilates the mind's ...

629

Interview

Bill Frisell: The ECM Years

by John Kelman
April 26, 2011

Nothing trumps right place, right time. Sure, most artists pay plenty of dues-- sometimes in the public eye, oftentimes not--but for some, there's that serendipitous event that leads to greater visibility. Bill Frisell, surely one of the most important and influential guitarists of his generation, undoubtedly deserves all the accolades and artistic freedom he's achieved in a career now in its fourth decade, but there's little doubt about the impact that one recording had for the guitarist, on a label ...

272

Album Review

Julian Siegel Quartet: Urban Theme Park

Read "Urban Theme Park" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
April 25, 2011

The Julian Siegel Quartet epitomizes some of the finest elements of jazz: creativity, virtuosity, collaboration, invention and (the often neglected) fun. As a result, Urban Theme Park, the band's second album, is a positive feast of music. Broadly speaking, this is probably best described as post-bop, but no single definition can encapsulate the breadth of vision Siegel and his fellow players bring to this collection--it's music, let's leave it at that. Reeds player Siegel has been part ...

248

Album Review

Joseph Lepore: Journal

by Mark Corroto
April 25, 2011

Written, arranged, and produced by bassist Joseph Lepore, Journal is one solid and reliable recording with a consistent and upright sound. As a leader, he joins his bass with tenor saxophonist Lance Murphy, vibraphonist Tim Collins, and rock-solid drummer Nasheet Waits. Lepore, born in New York, grew up in Italy, absorbing the jazz scene in Salerno and Rome. First noticed with saxophonist Rosario Giuliani, he was quickly recruited by Greg Osby when he moved to New York, and ...

362

Extended Analysis

Bill Frisell: Sign of Life - Music for 858 Quartet

by John Kelman
April 25, 2011

Bill FrisellSign of Life: Music for 858 QuartetSavoy Jazz2011 Bill Frisell fans attending the 2010 Ottawa International Jazz Festival were given a rare opportunity to catch two groups, for whom the guitarist was planning releases in the coming months: his new Beautiful Dreamers trio, a couple months before the release of its eponymous debut; and his more longstanding 858 Quartet, a full ten months before the release of Sign of Life: ...

224

Album Review

Carlos Franzetti / Allison Brewster Franzetti: Alborada

Read "Alborada" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
April 25, 2011

Pianist Carlos Franzetti's versatility is one of his many virtues. Few artists could pull off a solo piano project like Mambo Tango (Sunnyside, 2009), and then turn right around and create such moving music for orchestra and piano. Fortunately, Franzetti has the talent, drive and discipline to match his ambitions and Alborada is the proof. Both Franzetti and his wife, Allison Brewster Franzetti, alternate between the podium and the piano bench throughout the album, and share a similar ...

353

Album Review

Bill Anschell: Figments

Read "Figments" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
April 25, 2011

Bill Anschell is a lot of things. He is house pianist and mainstay at Origin Arts, showing up on a wide range of projects. He also contributes to this publication, writing with grace on craft of jazz. But, late at night, he is a musical James Joyce, spinning musical thread off the top of his head. And so he does on Figments. Recorded over a series of late nights, after practicing his chosen craft, Anschell clears his ...