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.

303

Album Review

Luther Hughes / Cannonball-Coltrane Project: Things Are Getting Better

Read "Things Are Getting Better" reviewed by Woodrow Wilkins

by Woodrow Wilkins
January 23, 2011

Match the stylings of two of the most revered jazz saxophonists, and you're likely to come up with The Cannonball-Coltrane Project. This five-piece ensemble pays homage to Julian Cannonball" Adderley and John Coltrane. Bassist Luther Hughes says the idea came to him as he was listening to The Cannonball Adderley Quintet in Chicago (Mercury, 1959), the only time Adderley and Coltrane recorded an album together, when they weren't backing up Miles Davis. To make it work, Hughes brought ...

164

Album Review

Charlotte Hug / Fred Lonberg-Holm: Fine Extensions

Read "Fine Extensions" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
January 22, 2011

Viola and cello have coexisted in splendid harmony on the concert stage for hundreds of years, both instruments bolstering powerful orchestral settings for every composer, even before Haydn, Bach, Mozart and Beethoven employed violin and cello in compositions with vivid effect. What delights the inner ear, however, especially on the brazen Fine Extensions, is the fact that these instruments transcend all earlier sonic relationships between the strings. Locked in the embrace of a tonal adventure, jousting with one another, egging ...

329

Album Review

Joe Lovano / Us Five: Bird Songs

Read "Bird Songs" reviewed by Troy Collins

by Troy Collins
January 22, 2011

An inquisitive musician with a reverence for tradition, Grammy-winning saxophonist Joe Lovano has recorded a number of unique tributes to artists who have inspired him, including Enrico Caruso and Frank Sinatra. But none of his previous homages, not even 52nd Street Themes (Blue Note, 2000), his love letter to the bebop era, are as relevant to his artistic development as Bird Songs, Lovano's modernistic reinterpretation of tunes written by and associated with the great Charlie Parker.Reevaluating these revered ...

174

Take Five With...

Take Five With Tim Collins

by AAJ Staff
January 22, 2011

Tim Collins is a vibraphonist/drummer originally from NY, now living in Munich, Germany. He's played with Ingrid Jensen, Aaron Parks, John Ellis, Aaron Goldberg, Charlie Hunter, John Hollenbeck, George Porter, and Mike Moreno. His two albums, 'Valcour and Fade received 3 and 4 stars respectively in Downbeat Magazine. Look for a third album in 2011, featuring Danny Grissett, Matt Clohesy, and Tommy Crane.Instrument(s):Vibraphone, drums.Teachers and/or influences? Gordon Stout, Steve Brown, Joe Locke, John Riley, ...

237

Album Review

Adam Pieronczyk: Komeda: The Innocent Sorcerer

Read "Komeda: The Innocent Sorcerer" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
January 22, 2011

Polish saxophonist Adam Pieronczyk pays tribute to his to his country's jazz pioneer, Krzysztof Komeda (b.1931, d.1969), with Komeda: The Innocent Sorcerer.Pianist/composer Komeda is better known for his film work, in the United States, than for his jazz work. The title of the CD is taken from the soundtrack he composed for the 1960 Andrezej Wadjda film of the same name. He also wrote music for films of Ingmar Bergman and, most famously Stateside, for Roman Polanski films ...

167

Album Review

Jane Ira Bloom: Wingwalker

Read "Wingwalker" reviewed by Wilbert Sostre

by Wilbert Sostre
January 22, 2011

There is not a dull or cliché moment on Jane Ira Bloom's fourteenth album, Wingwalker. Her sound has been described as futuristic, and there is certainly some of that on tracks like “Frontiers in Science" and “Live Sports." But, most of all, Bloom is a master composer and musician with a truly unique sound. All compositions on the release are by Bloom, except for the standard, “I Could Have Danced All Night."Even though there are brilliant moments of ...

359

Album Review

Grace Kelly / Phil Woods: Man With the Hat

Read "Man With the Hat" reviewed by Larry Taylor

by Larry Taylor
January 22, 2011

Jazz veteran Phil Woods carries the alto sax torch from Charlie Parker, following in the footsteps of Art Pepper, Cannonball Adderley and Lee Konitz. Now he bestows the honor on 18-year-old altoist/vocalist Grace Kelly, its light shining on Man With A Hat. Woods, 80, with over a half-century of playing, first met Kelly in 2006 when she was 14 and attending the Stanford Jazz Residency Program in California, where Woods was an instructor. He encouraged her and, ...

429

Live Review

Peter Nero and the Philly Pops: Philadelphia, December 31, 2010

by Victor L. Schermer
January 22, 2011

Peter Nero and The Philly Pops“Swinging in the New Year"The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts Philadelphia, PA December 31, 2010 Peter Nero is that rare musician who can negotiate between classical forms, the jazz idiom, popular music and light-hearted humor, generating great energy in his co-musicians and audiences. So it was an inspired touch for him to add a New Year's Eve concert to the already packed schedule of performances of the Philly ...

372

Website News

All About Jazz's Year in Review: 2010

by Michael Ricci
January 21, 2011

2010 proved to be another highly productive year for All About Jazz as we further expanded our award-winning platform to reach a greater jazz audience and developed new tools to help jazz artists promote their music to our readership. For our readers/members, AAJ continued to deliver daily news and coverage, we improved site functionality and we celebrated our 15th anniversary online with a relaunch. Our goal was to simplify AAJ navigation, and we made great strides by ...

319

Album Review

Joe Lovano / Us Five: Bird Songs

Read "Bird Songs" reviewed by Andrew J. Sammut

by Andrew J. Sammut
January 21, 2011

Sax giant Joe Lovano has blown next to a bevy of jazz greats, and been applauded as soloist and leader throughout his nearly 40-year career. While it might seem surprising that audiences had to wait until his 22nd album for a tribute to Charlie Parker, Bird Songs demonstrates, once again, that Lovano does things his own way, and that great things are worth waiting for. Lovano and his Us Five band cover tunes that “Bird" penned and ...