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.

335

Album Review

Bohuslan Big Band: Don't Fence Me In

Read "Don't Fence Me In" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
April 7, 2011

Some of the finest compositions in The Great American Songbook, one of Europe's most talented big bands and one of the best arrangers Britain has produced. Put them all together on one CD, and it doesn't disappoint. The Cole Porter songs on Don't Fence Me In are among the most familiar in popular music, but while the Bohuslän Big Band's versions, arranged by Colin Towns, are instantly recognizable they are also innovative and exciting. Nils Landgren, the ...

321

Take Five With...

Take Five With Roy Powell

by AAJ Staff
April 7, 2011

Meet Roy Powell:Roy Powell studied piano and avant-garde composition at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester England, before defecting to jazz. He first came to prominence in 1994 with his debut recording, A Big Sky, which was hailed as “a real benchmark in British contemporary electric jazz" by Jazz on CD. He then emigrated to Oslo, Norway, where he collaborated on an album of free improvised music, Holus, which was described as “an outstanding success" by ...

711

Album Review

Danielle Reich: This Year’s Kisses

Read "This Year’s Kisses" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
April 7, 2011

There is something strange going on in Houston, Texas. It must be the heat and humidity, stimulating the fecund creative jazz spirits that give rise to the likes of Larry Slezak (No Worries (Self Produced, 2009)), Jacqui Sutton (Billie & Dolly (Self Produced, 2010)), Henry Darragh Tell Her More Me (A-Train Creative, 2010)), and, now vocalist Danielle Reich with This Year's Kisses. There is an intersection where all this Texas talent meets, in yet another Texan, transplanted ...

187

Album Review

Pitom: Blasphemy and Other Serious Crimes

Read "Blasphemy and Other Serious Crimes" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
April 7, 2011

The sophomore release of Pitom, of one of John Zorn's Radical Jewish Culture series outfits, symbolizes a dead-end in this important musical and cultural movement that began in early nineties. Pitom, led by guitarist Yoshie Fruchter, is influenced by iconic musical figures from visionary seventies fusion bands like Frank Zappa and John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra, as well as early nineties grunge/punk bands including Nirvana and The Melvins. Blasphemy and other Serious Crimes is even supposed to be a sonic homage ...

294

Album Review

Captain Black Big Band: Captain Black Big Band

Read "Captain Black Big Band" reviewed by Mark F. Turner

by Mark F. Turner
April 7, 2011

Pianist Orrin Evans has been on a roll, with the release of a couple of diamond Posi-Tone releases in 2010: Faith in Action -- dedicated to friend and mentor, saxophonist Bobby Watson--and the old school yet highly progressive thinking of The End of Fear , with Tarbaby trio-mates, drummer Nasheet Waits and bassist Eric Revis. But the truth of the matter is that Evans has been an active participant in the game for awhile, with numerous roles (leader, educator, and ...

376

Forgotten Finds

Great Sidemen - Great Leaders

by Greg Simmons
April 7, 2011

Being a sideman can be a thankless job. Sure, you might get to play regularly, but you rarely get to call the tune. If your boss is a big star, the gig might even pay pretty well, but if the band is going to Fargo, North Dakota in January, brother, so are you, and you weren't even consulted on travel arrangements.Of course, most jazz musicians--including the ones now thought of as great leaders--have to start out as sidemen ...

306

Album Review

Pablo Held: Glow

by Dan Bilawsky
April 6, 2011

German piano wonder Pablo Held was only 23 years old when he entered the studio to record the music on Glow, but he had already earned his place in the pantheon of modern day piano trio leaders. Held's first two albums--Forest Of Oblivion (Pirouet, 2008) and Music (Pirouet, 2010)--helped put him on the map, but Glow might go down as his real breakthrough record. Held leaves the trio format behind, though he retains the services of drummer Jonas Burgwinkel and ...

529

Interview

Hendrik Meurkens: Harmonica Virtuoso

by Victor Verney
April 6, 2011

Although at first Hendrik Meurkens' primary instrument was the vibraphone, he has garnered an international reputation as a jazz harmonica player since picking up that difficult-to-master instrument. Born in Germany, Meurkens came to the U.S. to study at Boston's Berklee School of Music. After returning to Europe for a time, he decided to go live in Brazil to immerse himself in that county's brand of jazz, which he had heard and grown to love. Living in Rio de Janeiro (and ...

256

Album Review

Clarence Johnson: Low Down Papa

Read "Low Down Papa" reviewed by Nic Jones

by Nic Jones
April 6, 2011

Pianist Clarence “Jelly" Johnson recorded for the Paramount label between 1923 and 1925. He was also accompanist to Chicago blues singers Sodarisa Miller and Edna Taylor amongst others, and recorded piano rolls in New York for the QRS label alongside James P. Johnson and Fats Waller. But, apart from that, very little is known about him, which of course makes this restoration of his nickelodeon piano rolls a cause for celebration. Originally captured for posterity by the ...

117

Album Review

Brian Carpenter’s Ghost Train Orchestra: Hothouse Stomp

Read "Hothouse Stomp" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
April 6, 2011

One of the beauties of long-lived music genres is if a current one becomes boring and the future looks, well, too futuristic, we can always go backwards, investigating earlier forms we may have not paid attention to earlier. And herein lies the value of Brian Carpenter's Hothouse Stomp: The Music of 1920 Chicago and Harlem. The music Carpenter concentrates on is big band music other than Duke Ellington and Count Basie, during the Jazz Age of F. Scott Fitzgerald and ...