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.

284

Album Review

Bob Gluck: Something Quiet

Read "Something Quiet" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
February 5, 2011

Julliard-trained pianist Bob Gluck's heart lies within the adventurous free jazz uprising of the 1960s and electronic music. This harmonically appealing acoustic date subliminally intimates his penchant for both genres, an album framed in a cunning fusion of ambient, jazz improvisation and concrete song forms. Gluck and bassist Christopher Dean Sullivan engage for a subtle, introspective and largely temperate spin on Herbie Hancock's classic, “Dolphin Dance." The pianist launches the piece with an animated sequence of chord ...

329

Album Review

George Benson: White Rabbit

Read "White Rabbit" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
February 5, 2011

After three late-1960s A&M albums with mastermind Creed Taylor prior to the creation of CTI Records, guitarist George Benson hit 1971 running with two CTI debuts, issued a few months apart. Beyond the Blue Horizon was closer, in complexion, to his A&M recordings--harkening back, even, to his impressive 1966 Columbia Records two-punch, It's Uptown and The George Benson Cookbook--although the virtuosic, soul- drenched guitarist was clearly evolving as a player and maturing into one whose firebrand, virtuosic tendencies were becoming ...

148

Album Review

Jerry Bergonzi: Three Point Shot

Read "Three Point Shot" reviewed by Greg Simmons

by Greg Simmons
February 5, 2011

Musicians often benefit from the stimulus provided by a interacting with a new group of cohorts. If nothing else, personnel changes can remake the creative process and offer dramatically altered results. In an art form like jazz, that leans heavily on improvisation, this can only be a good thing. It is, therefore, a pleasant surprise to hear tenor saxophonist/educator Jerry Bergonzi working with an altogether different rhythm section in Europe, consisting of two Polish musicians. Better still, this trio has ...

299

Live Review

Punt a del Este Jazz Festival, January 15-19, 2011

by Gerardo Stawsky
February 5, 2011

15th International Festival of Punta del EsteJanuary 5-9, 2011Punta del Este, Uruguay Over the last 15 years, dozens of today's top jazz musicians--the McCoy Tyner's and Joe Lovano's--have continued to return to the Punta del Este Jazz Festival, in Uruguay. The Festival is celebrated on a dairy farm in an idyllic countryside, set in a hilly valley, where it's a struggle to hear the subtleties of a bass solo over the sound of crickets ...

334

Album Review

Arturo O'Farrill: 40 Acres And A Burro

Read "40 Acres And A Burro" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
February 5, 2011

Bandleader Chico O'Farrill created a template of sorts, fusing big band bravura with Latin sounds in his Afro Cuban Jazz Orchestra. While his son followed in his footsteps, Arturo O'Farrill has demonstrated a broader vision, looking past the island of his origins and developing a pan-Latin approach to jazz repertoire for his appropriately named Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra. With this in mind, O'Farrill finds inspiration in music from Brazil (Pixinguinha's “Um A Zero" and Hermeto Pascoal's “Bebê"), ...

285

Big Band Report

Let's Give Thanks for the DVD

by Jack Bowers
February 4, 2011

As there isn't much to report--well, nothing, actually--about big bands this month, I'll use the space to say a few words in praise of the DVD. Yes, I know there aren't a whole lot of jazz DVDs on the market, especially big band videos, but there are a few, and I'm grateful for every one of them, as they enable me to see as well as hear some of my favorite bands, past and present. Not that I have the ...

515

Album Review

Al Cohn: Four Classic Albums Plus

Read "Four Classic Albums Plus" reviewed by David Rickert

by David Rickert
February 4, 2011

Saxophonist/clarinetist Al Cohn could have spent his life as either an arranger or a player, but fortunately he chose to do both, creating a series of records that weren't classics, but nevertheless reached the sublime and poetic elements of jazz. In this collection of four sessions, one is an orchestral session from the fifties, with charts by Cohn; the others are from partnerships, where Cohn tended to do his best work: one from his celebrated collaborations with Zoot Sims; and ...

263

Multiple Reviews

The Guitar Stylists of CTI Records

by Dan Bilawsky
February 4, 2011

In many ways, the guitarists who recorded for the CTI label owe a great debt to the late Wes Montgomery. Guitarist Montgomery's last recordings, before his untimely death from a heart attack, were like a laboratory test for producer Creed Taylor. At the time, Taylor was still trying to work out a formula to balance the jazz-meets-commercial potential of his sessions, but the mixture wasn't quite right. This pop-leaning material, which appealed to a larger audience than most jazz releases ...

286

Album Review

Sean Parsons: Introduction

Read "Introduction" reviewed by Sean Coughlin

by Sean Coughlin
February 4, 2011

Pianist Sean Parsons has put together an eclectic album of originals, offering the opportunity for an unpredictable listening journey. Introduction kicks off with the modern, 12-tone “Skylines," effectively setting the stage for the next eight tracks. Parsons distinguishes himself early on, with a driving solo that is both controlled and free, with crystal-clear articulation. Bop trumpeter James Moore flies through the changes with long phrases and attention to stylistic detail that compliments Parsons. Saxophonist Craig Treinan takes a different approach ...

185

Album Review

Ron Carter: All Blues

Read "All Blues" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
February 4, 2011

In the 1960s and 1970s, few bassists were as ubiquitous as Ron Carter, from the experimental post/free bop of trumpeter Miles Davis's 1960s quintet to straight-ahead swing with guitarist Kenny Burrell and the greater extremes of saxophonist Archie Shepp. With the emergence of CTI Records, Carter became something of a house bassist for the label; on the recent four-CD retrospective box that launched CTI Masterworks, 2010's CTI Records--The Cool Revolution, the bassist appears on no less than 29 of its ...