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.

539

Big Band Caravan

Ray Brown's Great Big Band / NYJO / Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra

by Jack Bowers
January 12, 2011

Ray Brown's Great Big BandKayakBrown Cats Productions2010 Sixteen years have passed since Ray Brown's Great Big Band (love that name!) recorded Impressions of Point Lobos, one of the stellar albums of 1994. Brown has ended that prolonged hiatus with Kayak, which should brighten many a listener's catalog of Top Ten albums for 2010-11. Whether the emphasis is on great or big, Brown's California-based band proves time and again that neither avenue ...

587

Live Review

Winter Jazzfest, New York City, Day 1: January 7, 2011

by Gordon Marshall
January 12, 2011

Day 1 | Day 2 Winter JazzfestNew York, NYJanuary 7-8, 2011 What with the snow, the lines, the standing-room-only crowds, New York City's Winter Jazzfest can be a hectic, hectoring hell of force-feeding, a speed-read tasting menu of mad musical difference, as hard to digest in the instant as to coalesce in one's mind after the fact. It takes maneuvering at the right moments, in and out of clubs, and elbowing one's ...

284

Album Review

Ratko Zjaca / Simone Zanchini: The Way We Talk

Read "The Way We Talk" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
January 12, 2011

Little more than a year ago, the great Croation guitarist, Ratko Zjaca, released the terrific Continental Talk (In + Out Records 2009) with his longtime collaborator, saxophonist, Stanislav Mitrovic, and some all-star American support. Not content to follow even a highly successful formula, Zjaca has teamed with Italian accordionist Simone Zanchini, Macedonian bassist Martin Gjakonovski and American drummer Adam Nussbaum for The Way We Talk. Zjaca's new--but still global--quartet represents a change, not only in group structure, but in its ...

214

Album Review

Doug Webb: Renovations

Read "Renovations" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
January 12, 2011

Doug Webb, a seasoned saxophonist who is equally comfortable recording soundtracks in studios or swinging on a bandstand, teamed up with heavy hitters like bass legend Stanley Clarke and pianist Larry Goldings on Midnight (Posi-Tone, 2010). That collection was an expertly crafted, all-standards affair, and the eight classic tunes that make up Renovations were culled from the same session. While it might be easy to assume that these are second-tier, inferior performances that didn't make the cut ...

315

Album Review

Noah Preminger: Before The Rain

Read "Before The Rain" reviewed by Jerry D'Souza

by Jerry D'Souza
January 12, 2011

Sensitivity and an ear for aural sophistication are the hallmarks of tenor saxophonist Noah Preminger. His eloquent ruminations magnify the context of a tune and he is instinctive enough to keep the emotional context within focus. He showed this in abundance on his debut, Dry Bridge Road (Nowt Records, 2008), and he retains all the traits of that outstanding recording on this project as well. Preminger has pared his group to a quartet, a move that strengthens the ...

515

Gnome Notes

What To Do About Music Piracy

by Chris Rich
January 11, 2011

My examination of music piracy has been quite an eye opener. The online theft of what is generally called Intellectual Property has gotten to the point of triggering backlash which began in November, 2010, when the Department of Homeland Security began to implement significant legal actions against a motley of online sites and counterfeit goods vendors. The whole problem is exacerbated by safe harbor rulings dating back to the waning days of the Clinton administration, ...

276

Album Review

Mike DiRubbo: Chronos

by Dan Bilawsky
January 11, 2011

Piano has always been part of the package on saxophonist Mike DiRubbo's albums. Still, when DiRubbo made his Posi-Tone debut with Repercussion in 2009, he left the piano behind, relying instead on some harmonic underpinnings from vibraphonist Steve Nelson. Now, on his follow-up disc for the label, he moves into different piano-less territory with his first organ trio record. DiRubbo digs in on these nine original tracks, which shy away from organ group stereotypes. DiRubbo penned two-thirds ...

546

Live Review

Winter Jazzfest, New York City, Day 2: January 8, 2011

by Daniel Lehner
January 11, 2011

Day 1 | Day 2 Winter JazzfestNew York, NYJanuary 7-8, 2011 Kirk Knuffke Quartet Trumpeter Kirk Knuffke certainly has an enthusiasm for the “hot" jazz of the 1920's, even if it isn't straight from the source. Knuffke's quartet--co-fronted by trombonist Brian Drye, and backed by bassist Mark Helias and drummer Jeff Davis--demonstrated the rollicking playfulness of Louis Armstrong's early groups, and Knuffke's robust trumpet tone, coupled with the Drye's ...

374

Album Review

Athanasopoulos-Pin Jazz Quartet: Modern Money Mechanics

Read "Modern Money Mechanics" reviewed by Mark F. Turner

by Mark F. Turner
January 11, 2011

Guitarist Marcos Pin and saxophonist Thanos Athanasopoulos show their passion for jazz and social consciousness in Modern Money Mechanics, their second release on the Spanish-based Freecode label. To paraphrase Dicken's famous novel, this release might be dubbed a A Tale of Many Cities, as its diversity juxtaposes jazz's roots and modernism. Highly accomplished artists who met years ago at a music conservatory in Holland, Pin and Athanasopoulos formed the quartet with drummer LAR Legido and bassist/Free Code ...

224

Album Review

Nathaniel Smith: Quartet

Read "Quartet" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
January 11, 2011

Quartet, the debut album from drummer Nathaniel Smith, has been a long time coming. Recorded in March 2007, almost four years before its release, the album features tunes which Smith began performing following his graduation from the Manhattan School of Music in 2003. In a music scene that often seems to view immediate access as a virtue above talent, seven years may resemble an eternity: but the music on Quartet is of a quality that makes it worth the wait. ...