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.

168

Album Review

Mark Isaacs Resurgence Band: Aurora

Read "Aurora" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
March 8, 2011

The last artistic musical movement in jazz to be given a meaningful name was the post-bop movement. Arising out of the mid-1960s as a unifying response to hard bop, modal, the avant-garde and free jazz, post-bop has fairly well dominated the most creative jazz made in the last 30 years. If post-bop has a ground zero, it is the recordings of the second great Miles Davis Quintet (Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock and Tony Williams), either collectively or separately. ...

324

Mix Tape

ECM 1980s: Part 2

by John Kelman
March 8, 2011

1970s Part 1 | 1970s Part 2 | 1980s Part 1 | 1980s Part 2 While the 1970s are often looked upon as ECM's glory days, every decade has more than enough to maintain its position as one of the most innovative and forward-thinking record labels in the history of jazz. Two parts, 46 songs in total, demonstrate the label's singular vision, in the context of tremendous stylistic breadth, during the 1980s. Once again, some tracks are ...

302

Album Review

The Jasper Blom Quartet: Dexterity

Read "Dexterity" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
March 7, 2011

With the impossible volume of music released each and every week, there's always that sinking feeling that something's being missed. When saxophonist Jasper Blom and his quartet delivered their showcase performance at Dutch Jazz & World Meeting 2010, it became immediately clear that this was a contemporary group well worth investigating. Blom is a part of the second generation of Dutch musicians, following the emergence of now iconic countrymen like drummer Han Bennink and pianist Misha Mengelberg in the 1960s, ...

575

Interview

Loose Tubes: Tomorrow Night is Your Last Chance Ever

by Bruce Lindsay
March 7, 2011

Twenty years after legendary British big band Loose Tubes played its farewell gigs at Ronnie Scott's Club in London, its first live album, Dancing On Frith Street (Lost Marble Records, 2010), became Jazzwise magazine's Archive Album of 2010. In the intervening decades, the band's members had spread across the British and international jazz scenes to become some of the most influential players around. The quality and power of the music on the album served as a welcome reminder of the ...

203

Album Review

Landon Knoblock / Jason Furman: Gasoline Rainbow

Read "Gasoline Rainbow" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
March 7, 2011

Pianist Landon Knoblock and drummer Jason Furman share a decade-long history of function bands; playing church meetings, weddings and corporate events across Florida before relocating to New York State. They also share a love of improvised music and experience with a wide-ranging collection of musicians including Michael Blake, Kevin Mahogany, Rosemary Clooney, and the Four Tops. Gasoline Rainbow is their second duo album of improvisations, following the self-produced “Uncarved Block" (2007). It may lack the immediate familiarity of a typical ...

156

Old, New, Borrowed and Blue

Jazz Takes To The High Seas

by Dan Bilawsky
March 7, 2011

Explorers, of the musical and non-musical variety, always seem to be fascinated by the bountiful bodies of water that cover the earth. Long before jazz ever existed, treasure hunters, adventurers, and those in search of the unknown would risk their lives and spend incredible amounts of time and energy traversing the globe, on a quest to discover what might (or might not) exist on the other side of those blue waters. Predators of the pirate variety found ...

311

Album Review

Jamaaladeen Tacuma: For the Love of Ornette

Read "For the Love of Ornette" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
March 7, 2011

This is almost too good to be true: an “almost" Ornette Coleman album, blowing in out of the blue. Coleman isn't the leader on the set, but he's here, sounding as strong and true as ever. Bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma joined the alto saxophonist/free jazz pioneer's electric Prime Time Group in the mid-'70s, contributing to Dancing in Your Head (Polygram, 1976) and Body Meta (Verve, 1976). With For the Love of Ornette, he teams with and pays tribute to ...

275

Album Review

Jake Fryer / Bud Shank Quintet: In Good Company

Read "In Good Company" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
March 7, 2011

On April 2, 2009 the world lost another giant of jazz when alto saxophonist great Bud Shank died peacefully in his Tucson, Arizona home. But the master chose not to pass away with a whimper but, rather, with a bang, blowing his last notes the day before at Studio West in San Diego. Shank was one of Jake Fryer's greatest influences on the alto saxophone. Fryer, a British composer and alto saxophonist, had dreamed of pairing up with Shank for ...

285

Mix Tape

ECM 1980s: Part 1

by John Kelman
March 7, 2011

324

Big Band Report

A Memorable Evening with Andy Martin

by Jack Bowers
March 6, 2011

After several months of inactivity, big-band jazz in Albuquerque sprang vibrantly to life for one memorable evening February 19 as Andy Martin, one of the world's most accomplished trombonists, flew in from Los Angeles to team with the Albuquerque Jazz Orchestra for an electrifying concert at the Eldorado High School Performing Arts Center, crowning the city's annual two-day schools-oriented Jazz Festival. For those who need to “bone up" on Martin (pun intended), he's not only a sought-after ...