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.

292

Album Review

Jason Adasiewicz: Sun Rooms

by Nic Jones
December 10, 2010

It's clear from Sun Rooms, perhaps more than from any of his previous efforts on record, that Jason Adasiewicz is offering something pretty personal. Sure, it's possible to name check both '60s-era Bobby Hutcherson and Walt Dickerson as points of reference, but they serve simply to highlight the fact that Adasiewicz is--for want of a better way of putting it--of a modern persuasion in both his composing and playing. Thus, for all the echoes of Andrew Hill ...

200

Album Review

Mario Romano Quartet: Valentina

Read "Valentina" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
December 10, 2010

Canadian pianist Mario Romano--founder and president of the Castlepoint Group--is well-known in the Toronto Italian-Canadian community--not so much as a pianist, but as a major player in the real estate development industry. Valentina, is Romano's first album as a leader, returning to jazz music after nearly four decades of deferring to development deals. While unfamiliar to most jazz audiences, during the early '70s he was a highly regarded young gun on the Toronto jazz scene. A serious and committed musician, ...

499

Live Review

Geri Allen Quartet at the Kimmel Center

by Victor L. Schermer
December 10, 2010

Geri Allen QuartetJazz Up Close Celebrates Thelonious Monk SeriesKimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Perelman TheaterPhiladelphia, PA December 4, 2010 Once, when asked to define “jazz," Count Basie simply replied, “Tap your feet." At this December, 2010 concert, the fourth member of pianist Geri Allen's quartet turned out to do just that. Maurice Chestnut is a brilliant youthful tap dancer who works with a variety of music ensembles. In this concert performance at Philadelphia's ...

535

Extended Analysis

Oregon: In Stride

by John Kelman
December 9, 2010

OregonIn StrideCam Jazz2010 With a shared history of 40 years amongst three of its four members--and a fourth now rivaling the group's co-founder, the late Collin Walcott, as percussionist with the longest tenure, it's almost redundant to discuss the inherent chemistry shared amongst the members of the genre-busting Oregon. Woodwind/reed multi-instrumentalist Paul McCandless, guitarist/pianist Ralph Towner and bassist Glen Moore go so far back together--predating Oregon in the Paul Winter Consort , ...

353

Album Review

Soren Kjaergaard / Ben Street / Andrew Cyrille: Open Opus

Read "Open Opus" reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard

by Jakob Baekgaard
December 9, 2010

While it may be easy to be daunted by the sheer pyrotechnics of musicians flexing their instrumental muscles, it is sometimes forgotten that the greatest ability of musical art is to let the listener in to be part of the process; in the best of all worlds, pure admiration is replaced by participation. Danish pianist Soren Kjaergaard is one such musician, who is able to navigate safely in the waters of virtuosity while still leaving room for the listener's imagination. ...

194

Live Review

Les Triabolques: Helsinki, Finland, November 23, 2010

by Anthony Shaw
December 9, 2010

Les Triaboliques Tram Workshop “Korjaamo"Helsinki, FinlandNovember 23, 2010 For these three musicians edging closer to retirement, the chance of a European tour seems to have revitalized their creative juices. That their backgrounds include work with such rock headliners as Magazine, The Damned, The Mekons and, at least by close association, Led Zeppelin, might suggest they be excluded from the jazz fraternity--but with professional irreverence born of over 100 collective years in the business, they ...

220

Album Review

Billy White: First Things First

Read "First Things First" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
December 9, 2010

First Things First is as apt a name for a debut album as anybody could come up with. While this marks pianist Billy White's first leader date, he already has plenty of impressive musical experience under his belt: spending his college years earning a degree in ethnomusicology from UCLA; working with a jazz/hip-hop hybrid group Heezbus, while living in Paris; studying Gnawa trance music in Morocco; and writing some music for films. Eventually, the San Francisco native landed in Brooklyn, ...

264

Take Five With...

Take Five With Marco Oppedisano

by AAJ Staff
December 9, 2010

Meet Marco Oppedisano: Marco Oppedisano is a New York City-based composer, guitarist, instructor, and producer with recording and performance experience that spans almost 20 years. Marco started playing guitar at the age of 12. He was primarily a self-taught rock guitarist before beginning his formal music education at Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College, where he studied classical guitar for two years and obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music Composition. Marco continued his music education ...

351

Album Review

Studebaker John’s Maxwell Street Kings: That’s The Way You Do

Read "That’s The Way You Do" reviewed by Nic Jones

by Nic Jones
December 9, 2010

For every facially-contorted string-bender, it sometimes feels like there's a performer who knows the blues on another level; with this release, Studebaker John Grimaldi is one of them. He takes his cues from the Chicago blues in general and from the likes of J.B. Hutto and Hound Dog Taylor in particular. He lives and breathes the primitive sophistication of those artists and the evidence of it is all over this disc, while his band takes its name from that city's ...

389

Album Review

Mario Romano Quartet: Valentina

Read "Valentina" reviewed by Larry Taylor

by Larry Taylor
December 9, 2010

Canadian pianist Mario Romano has an interesting history in jazz. An up-and-coming performer in the 1970s, he took a hiatus from the jazz scene when his Toronto construction business became a big success. Now in 2010, he returns to the scene with the release of Valentina. Playing with gusto and creativity, he seems not to have missed a beat over the years; still, at the keyboard, Romano owes a lot to seventies contemporaries including McCoy Tyner and ...