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.

209

Album Review

Sheryl Bailey 4: For All Those Living

Read "For All Those Living" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
April 12, 2011

While guitarist Sheryl Bailey's A New Promise was a tribute to another tremendously talented female guitarist--the late Emily Remler--For All Those Living touches on a wide variety of figures, both here and gone. Bailey's music pays direct tribute to fellow guitarists, like Jack Wilkins ("Wilkinsburg"), Masa Sasaki ("Masa's Bag") and the late Jimmy Wyble, but she also looks beyond her own instrument with an homage to the great Hank Mobley, the man that jazz critic Leonard Feather dubbed “the middleweight ...

330

Album Review

Pipoka: Veto

by Anthony Shaw
April 12, 2011

Pipoka is a Finnish trio, with its roots firmly entwined around its two active founder members, accordionist Veli Kujala and guitarist Jarmo Julkinen. Veto is still anchored in the original conception of chamber jazz, with highly structured pieces that provide ample opportunities for exploration and development, as well as a considerable dose of Latin America. Key to this concept is versatility of approach and participants. Whereas its self-titled, 2004 debut (also on Rockadillo) featured compositions by original ...

274

Album Review

Gunter Baby Sommer: Live In Jerusalem

Read "Live In Jerusalem" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
April 12, 2011

Legendary German jazz and improvising drummer Gunter Baby Sommer's boundless creative sparks and superior technical ability are well-documented. He's a quintessential innovator, largely within the European progressive jazz and avant-garde strata. On Live in Jerusalem, he aligns with an alternating ensemble that ignites a veritable firestorm amid some temperately organized passages. On “Yo Yo Yo," Sommer's adventurism is prolifically accentuated. Bass clarinetist Yoni Silver's deep intonation and edgy intro is followed by the quartet's' tension-building motifs, firmly nestled ...

373

Live Review

The Back-Talk Organ Trio at Le Petit Chicago

by Mark Sabbatini
April 12, 2011

Don Cummings is a glacial geologist by day, making the Canadian's night job as a jazz organist of considerable interest to a reviewer who can (really) see the flowing masses of ice from the back yard. On the other hand, Cummings says his work focuses on “groundwater resources and mineral resource exploration," so he's not getting any favoritism here. Fortunately, Cummings' prowess on the Hammond A100 is solid enough that environmentalists and entrepreneurs can ...

598

Interview

Billy Childs: The Perfect Picture

by Esther Berlanga-Ryan
April 12, 2011

There is a somewhat-still-virgin musical territory that rests its innocent heart where classical music ends and jazz commences. Many have beautifully tiptoed on its smooth surface before, mixing, experimenting, creating and even challenging its balance with both improvised and organized notes. Music is in constant evolution, and jazz has always, in one way or another, embraced those who take each step a little further ahead every time. Taking risks makes the magic worthwhile, and the experience always promises to be ...

188

Album Review

Jaki Byard: A Matter of Black and White

Read "A Matter of Black and White" reviewed by Charles Walker

by Charles Walker
April 11, 2011

Curious title for this album. Sure, it's a nice pun on the pianistic adventures included, but with the possible exception of Duke Ellington or Mary Lou Williams, there was hardly another jazz pianist of the mid-20th Century who saw more gray areas in the music's broad landscape than the late Jaki Byard. In his trio sessions for Prestige, his work with Charles Mingus, or in his late-period solo recitals, anything from James P. Johnson's charging stride figures to Earl Hines' ...

264

Extended Analysis

Julian Siegel Quartet: Urban Theme Park

by Chris May
April 11, 2011

Julian Siegel Quartet Urban Theme Park Basho Music 2011 Now of an age which places him at the crossing point between Young Turk and seasoned older statesman, London reeds player Julian Siegel's progressive classicism is growing more compelling with every new album. Siegel's first Basho Music release, the helter-skelter Live At The Vortex, made with his “American trio," featuring bassist Greg Cohen and drummer Joey Baron, was a highlight of 2009. Urban Theme Park, ...

268

Album Review

Dave Douglas Brass Ecstasy: United Front: Brass Ecstasy At Newport

Read "United Front: Brass Ecstasy At Newport" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
April 11, 2011

Brass bands, like wild animals are best viewed in their native habitats. Watching a lion on the savanna is a much different experience than seeing it caged in a zoo. Likewise, hearing Dave Douglas' Brass Ecstasy live is superior to any studio recording. Not that the band's Spirit Moves (Greenleaf, 2009) was a subpar Douglas recording; it's just that any band inspired by the trumpeter Lester Bowie and the New Orleans brass band tradition should be heard in public.

195

Album Review

Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers: The Sesjun Radio Shows

Read "The Sesjun Radio Shows" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
April 11, 2011

The old and irksome “but is it jazz" argument has probably never been brought into play when it comes to drummer/bandleader Art Blakey (1919-1990) and his ever-changing line-up of Jazz Messengers. The music Blakey and his usually young players made was most certainly jazz, of the hard bop, hard-charging variety--brash and brightly hued, and joyously swinging. The Jazz Messengers, active from the early 1950s until the mid-'80s, was an on-the-job Jazz university, graduating such luminaries as Clifford Brown, ...

219

Album Review

Delfeayo Marsalis: Sweet Thunder

Read "Sweet Thunder" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
April 11, 2011

Was Delfeayo Marsalis undertaking a task too challenging when he recorded music from one of Duke Ellington's most beloved albums to make Sweet Thunder? Gunther Schuller offers a doctrine that seems to suggest this has been so. Apparently the size and composition of the ensemble lead to this mishap. Would it have been remiss, to replicate the tonal colors that Ellington brought forth when he recorded Such Sweet Thunder (Columbia, 1957)--his jazz musical interpretation/relocation of the iambic pentameter of William ...