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.

326

Multiple Reviews

Drip, Drip, Drip: A Celebration of Drip Audio

by John Eyles
March 17, 2011

Violinist Jesse Zubot's record label Drip Audio released its first CD, Zubotta, in March 2005. As it reaches its sixth anniversary, the latest releases on the Vancouver-based label show it continuing to display the strengths that have made it unpredictable and distinctive throughout its existence. Alongside releases featuring Jesse Zubot and his violinist brother Joshua, standout discs in the label's catalogue include The Ultimate Frog by LA guitarist Jim McAuley and Way Out Northwest by English saxophonist John Butcher with ...

622

Extended Analysis

Motif: Facienda

by John Kelman
March 17, 2011

Motif Facienda Jazzland Records 2010 Just because there's nearly a three-year gap between recordings, it doesn't mean an artist hasn't been busy. Norwegian free bop-meister Motif was last heard from in 2008, on the tradition-twisting Apo Calypso (Jazzland), closing yet another gap from the previous Expansion (AIM, 2005). Released in late 2010, Facienda demonstrates, in the clearest possible terms, that this freewheeling, mostly five-piece lineup--exploring in, out and around the structures defined by bassist ...

230

Album Review

Matt Nelson Trio: Nostalgiamaniac

Read "Nostalgiamaniac" reviewed by Alex Marianyi

by Alex Marianyi
March 17, 2011

According to The Oxford English Dictionary, nostalgia is defined as “a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past," and a maniac is “an obsessive enthusiast." Chicago pianist Matt Nelson embodies both qualities on Nostalgiamaniac. The sentimentality of his ballad playing and the keen musical citation of past generations of jazz musicians clearly display the conversation he's having with his own past, and his dedication to music. Without losing momentum in his constant foray into modernity, Nelson ...

182

Album Review

Brian Landrus: Traverse

Read "Traverse" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
March 17, 2011

Saxophonist/composer Brian Landrus' Traverse is a mature, cohesive and intensely personal musical opus that reflects his various influences. Although adept at playing multiple reed instruments. Landrus is best-known for being a baritone saxophonist, an instrument he mostly sticks, along with some bass clarinet, with on this, his third CD. His creative and personal approach to blending the past and the future is best reflected in the solo improvisation, “Soul and Body," which is in the spirit of ...

287

Live Review

Fred Hersch Trio + 2: New York City, March 5, 2011

by Victor L. Schermer
March 17, 2011

Fred Hersch Trio + 2Jazz Standard,New York CIty, NYMarch 5, 2011 Fred Hersch is one of today's most prominent jazz pianists, extending the limits of the jazz idiom with rare finesse and a sense of meaning and implication in every note he plays. This was one of five consecutive evenings featuring Hersch at New York's Jazz Standard, each with different personnel--itself, a creative variance from traditional series, featuring the same group. On this and ...

173

Album Review

Benjamin Drazen: Inner Flights

Read "Inner Flights" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
March 17, 2011

Benjamin Drazen has been on the New York scene for over 15 years, working with established players including Lew Soloff, George Garzone and Rashied Ali. The saxophonist cannot be accused of being in a hurry to get his name on a CD cover: a 15-year wait to release a debut is a lifetime in today's scene, where graduation can, all-too-often, take place after a young player's CD launch party. Inner Flights has been, however, worth the wait. Drazen and his ...

184

Album Review

Monty Alexander: Uplift

Read "Uplift" reviewed by Dr. Judith Schlesinger

by Dr. Judith Schlesinger
March 16, 2011

Virtually everyone who plays with pianist Monty Alexander loves the challenge of keeping up with his mischievous music-making and sudden changes in direction. Then there are those quotes--splashes of everything from bugle calls and nursery rhymes to Duke Ellington and “Meet the Flintstones"--that challenge the listeners' repertoire, as well as adding delight and surprise to each track. Who else, for instance, would begin “Sweet Georgia Brown" with a tongue-in-cheek reference to the opera “Carmen"--and make it work? Uplift ...

125

Album Review

The Rempis Percussion Quartet: Montreal Parade

Read "Montreal Parade" reviewed by Troy Collins

by Troy Collins
March 16, 2011

Since joining the Vandermark 5 in 1999, saxophonist Dave Rempis has maintained a high profile in the fertile Chicago scene. In addition to his role as a presenter and organizer of numerous music festivals, he can be heard as leader, co-leader and collaborator in more than a half dozen different projects in the Windy City, with The Rempis Percussion Quartet being one of his most consistently engaging and adventurous. The ensemble's personnel have remained unchanged since its inception ...

236

Jazz That Scratches, Swings and Pops

Love Is Just Around The Chorus

by Andrew J. Sammut
March 16, 2011

In Lost Chords (Oxford University Press, 1999), Richard M. Sudhalter describes a humorous but powerful image of the working class jazz musician circa 1933: That most broadcast work was surely, in [Artie Shaw's] words, “boring, mind- numbing garbage" is more than substantiated by a photograph recently unearthed by the Institute of Jazz Studies, at Rutgers University. It shows an orchestra led by veteran saxophonist Bennie Krueger...it's the brass, in the back row that catch the eye. Trumpeters ...

326

Live From New York

Taj Mahal, Raúl Malo and Marc Ribot

by Martin Longley
March 16, 2011

The Taj Mahal Trio The Allen Room February 25, 2011 If an audience is in the mood for psychoanalysis, they can always attend a Taj Mahal performance. Perhaps thrown by the intimate nature of an Allen Room appearance, this veteran bluesmaster was in an enquiring, self-conscious mood for this first of the weekend's four shows in the Lincoln Center venue. He peppered his relatively short (though very pointed) set with thoughts on the ...