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.

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Gnome Notes

Website Design Tips From Max Micheliov

by Chris Rich
February 18, 2011

Max Micheliov sent this to me last week and it is so well done I had to share it. Designing Websites for Musicians We are going to talk about some purely artistic aspects of building websites specifically for musicians. The article is intended for a wide audience interested in the subject. Hopefully this will help to avoid some of the most common mistakes. Musicians will find useful hints allowing them to make a conscious decision when ...

345

Afrobeat Diaries

Part 19 - Chopteeth Afrofunk Big Band: Live

by Chris May
February 18, 2011

Chopteeth Afrofunk Big BandLiveGrigri Discs2011 Washington, DC-based Chopteeth isn't exactly an Afrobeat band, not all of the time anyway. Fela Kuti pieces figure in its set list, but so do “belle epoque" tunes from Guinea's Le Simandou De Beyla, Senegal's Orchestra Baobab, Congo's Tabu Ley Rochereau and other African stars of the period. Chopteeth is best described as a post-independence, African music repertory orchestra, in conception not unlike trumpeter Wynton Marsalis's ...

119

Album Review

Shawn Costantino: Waltz for Anne

Read "Waltz for Anne" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
February 18, 2011

Finally! A collection of Adult Contemporary jazz that has something to say and knows how to say it. Nothing signals oncoming Muzak more than jazz propelled by electric bass, guitar, and piano. Fortunately, multi-reedist Shawn Costantino slays those dragons of jazz prejudice early in his self-produced Waltz for Anne, with an incendiary cover of The Beatles' “Can't Buy Me Love." Costantino takes Art Pepper's comment, “never open the show with a ballad," to heart, blowing the doors off with a ...

241

Take Five With...

Take Five With Majid Khaliq

by AAJ Staff
February 18, 2011

Meet Majid Khaliq:Majid Khaliq is a violinist and composer cut from a different cloth. He has been described by legendary musician Wynton Marsalis as having “a unique blend of improvisation, groove and technical sophistication." Although classically trained, Khaliq's passion and musical palette ranges from the roots of American jazz music to the greats of the progressive jazz scene. He is quickly establishing himself as a rising talent in the world of jazz. In 2002, Khaliq ...

351

Album Review

Matija Dedic Trio: MD in NYC

Read "MD in NYC" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
February 18, 2011

Pianist Matija Dedic's MD in NYC tiptoes into existence on a delicate rhythm, joined in short order by a sprinkling of crystalline notes in the melody, with a whisper of brushes and spare but assertive bass lines. “Her Name" is one of the pianist's five originals in the set, and has a wistful reverence that speaks, perhaps, to a yearning infatuation, bringing to mind the artistry of Bill Evans and Herbie Hancock.The Croatian-born musician has created a superb ...

327

Album Review

Horace Silver: The Cape Verdean Blues

Read "The Cape Verdean Blues" reviewed by Greg Simmons

by Greg Simmons
February 18, 2011

Any review of an XRCD extended resolution CD reissue of hard bop pianist Horace Silver's The Cape Verdean Blues is going to be as much about the success of the format as it is about the music.The music on old recordings, re-released in expensive high-tech format by specialist Elusive Disc (in it's series of Blue Note album transfers from the original master tapes) is presumed to have artistic value, otherwise no one would bother with such an expensive, ...

158

Album Review

Jan Bang: ….and poppies from Kandahar

Read "….and poppies from Kandahar" reviewed by Nenad Georgievski

by Nenad Georgievski
February 18, 2011

Imagination knows no boundaries and, as Einstein has said, more important than knowledge is the imagination that embraces the whole world and all there will be to know and understand. Clearly, a man whose imagination knows no boundaries and embraces opportunities, live sampler Jan Bang's debut is an album of pioneering intensity and diverse expression. A notable producer and collaborator, Bang's ....and poppies from Kandahar is his sprawling introduction to the world at large. The title--as well ...

569

Extended Analysis

Stan Getz: Quintets - The Clef and Norgran Studio Albums

by Chris May
February 17, 2011

Stan GetzQuintets: The Clef & Norgran Studio AlbumsVerve/Hip-0 Select2011 A pleasure to handle and a thrill to play, this limited edition box set brings together all the quintet studio recordings made by tenor saxophonist Stan Getz for impresario Norman Granz's Clef and Norgran labels, soon to be rolled together as Verve, between December 1952 and January 1955. The three discs capture Getz's emergence as a small group bandleader newly at the ...

164

Album Review

Sanda Weigl: Gypsy in a Tree

Read "Gypsy in a Tree" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
February 17, 2011

Romanian singer Sanda Weigl's story is a harrowing one that spans the full length of the Cold War, from pre-Ceausescu Romania to communist East Berlin to West Berlin before arriving most recently in New York City, at a time when many Gotham musicians were investigating Eastern European influences in Western music, making her expertise in Gypsy music immediately popular. A lifelong fan of Romanian Gypsy music, Weigl drank deep from all its influences, pouring her lifetime of musical and political ...

357

Album Review

Sidiki Camara Band: Tolerance

Read "Tolerance" reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard

by Jakob Baekgaard
February 17, 2011

Sometimes music blossoms in the strangest places. For instance, who would have thought that a superior example of Malian funk could be created in Norway? Nevertheless, this is the case with Malian vocalist and master percussionist Sidiki Camara, whose band consists of some of the best jazz musicians on the Norwegian scene. Camara is known as a member of guitarist Bill Frisell's group The Intercontinentals, but he is also a well-established musician in his own right, having ...