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.

430

Mr. P.C.'s Guide to Jazz Etiquette and Bandstand Decorum

Best of 2010

by Mr. P.C.
December 6, 2010

Mr. P.C. Picks His Favorite Columns from 2010 Dear Mr. P.C.:What's with the joke, “More cowbell"? I got to watch a jazz recording session, and the musicians kept saying it to the engineer, then everyone would laugh. Does jazz even use a cowbell? David T., New Orleans

Dear David:Not all jazz is bucolic, but certainly much of the music on the ECM label fits that description. So, while you might not ...

157

Album Review

Ehud Asherie: Organic

Read "Organic" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
December 6, 2010

Organic is Israeli-born Ehud Asherie's fourth album as leader on the Posi- Tone label. It's also his second release of 2010, following the excellent Modern Life, although it was actually recorded two years before that album, back in 2007. It's another quartet recording of predominantly straight-ahead jazz and shows, once again, the young musician's affinity with and talent for this musical genre. As with Modern Life, this album is a pleasing combination of Asherie's original tunes and ...

419

Book Review

Herman Leonard: Jazz

by Ian Patterson
December 6, 2010

JazzHerman LeonardHardcover; 320 pagesISBN: 9781848870741Atlantic Books2010 Jazz is billed as the definitive collection of photographer Herman Leonard's jazz photos. When record companies use ths term to promote box sets, appealing to the completist in many jazz fans, it is often not the case, and lo and behold, a few years later “newly unearthed" recordings emerge, much to the chagrin of those who shelled out first time around. ...

282

Album Review

Dennis Gonzalez Yells at Eels: Cape of Storms

Read "Cape of Storms" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
December 6, 2010

Texas-based trumpeter Dennis Gonzalez's distinctive alliance of composition, structure and technique has blossomed into an elevated art form within the global jazz and improvisation circles. The trumpeter's compositions periodically spawn a few nods to Ornette Coleman's harmolodic methodology, largely founded within cyclical themes built on tonal shifts and punctuated rhythmic lines. The artist also incorporates massive attacks and uses density and space as additional instruments. On Cape of Storms, featuring his sons Aaron Gonzalez (bass), and Stefan Gonzalez (drums, percussion), ...

332

Take Five With...

Take Five With Barry Cleveland

by AAJ Staff
December 6, 2010

Meet Barry Cleveland: Barry Cleveland's guitar playing is rooted in progressive and psychedelic rock, branching into ambient, experimental, funk, and various ethnic styles--enhanced by cutting-edge electronics and unorthodox playing techniques. He's also a deft engineer and producer with an iconoclastic approach to recording and mixing. Cleveland released his first commercial album--Mythos--on Larry Fast's Audion Recording Company label in 1986, followed by the more electronic Voluntary Dreaming in 1989. Most of the material on these two albums was ...

439

Album Review

Salzburger Bachchoir / Salzburger Barockensemble, Howard Arman: Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber - Marienvesper 1693

Read "Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber - Marienvesper 1693" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
December 6, 2010

Heinrich Biber (1644-1704) was a Bohemian fiddler with a serious Marian fixation (or at least his supporters had such a fixation). He is best known for a series of 16 violin sonatas, Mysterien Sonaten, Die Rosenkranz-Sonaten (Mystery Sonatas, Rosary Sonatas), dedicated to the Catholic Archbishop of Salzburg, that he composed between 1670 and 1676. Biber--a show-off predating meister-show-off Nicolo Paganini--originally composed these sonatas so devilishly that only he could perform them. Not so his sacred choral music. His Marian Vespers, ...

243

Album Review

Miles Davis: Bitches Brew: 40th Anniversary Collectors' Edition

Read "Bitches Brew: 40th Anniversary Collectors' Edition" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki

by Chris M. Slawecki
December 6, 2010

Historic debate over the relevance and merits of trumpeter Miles Davis' seminal jazz-rock fusion masterwork Bitches Brew (Columbia), especially upon this year's 40th anniversary of its original 1970 release, could fill every page of even a paperless internet jazz e-zine (a body of work to which Greg Tate's companion essay adds: “Bitches is a multi-clawed, multi-tentacled, multi-brained creature whose center of gravity never stays preoccupied with one body part for too long"). But one point seems certain: two live performances ...

703

Interview

Nik Bartsch: Rhythmically Dancing Around Fugato Fires

by Ian Patterson
December 6, 2010

Hungarian composer and pianist Béla Bartók once said, “In art there are only fast or slow developments. Essentially it is a matter of evolution, not revolution." Pianist and composer Nik Bärtsch would be the first to recognize that he is no revolutionary, as his aesthetic vision draws inspiration from multiple sources, ranging from 20th century classical music to funk, and from Japanese ritual music to minimalism. The distillation of all these sounds results in a music that invites meditation and ...

661

African Jazz

Compilations: Doing The Right Thing

by Chris May
December 5, 2010

Double-albums of classic Congolese and South African recordings demonstrate the right and the wrong ways to go about compilations. Tabu Ley RochereauThe Voice Of Lightness Vol. 2: Congo Classics 1977-1993Sterns2010 From its inception, everything about Sterns' compilation program has been pitch-perfect. Curated by enthusiasts with deep knowledge of their subjects, who assemble collections which balance greatest hits with more obscure material, Sterns' compilations are exemplary. The care with which they ...

241

Album Review

Brian Drye: Bizingas

Read "Bizingas" reviewed by Troy Collins

by Troy Collins
December 5, 2010

Bizingas is the self-titled debut of trombonist Brian Drye's quartet of the same name. A versatile stylist whose resume includes stints with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, Slavic Soul Party and indie rock stars like Arcade Fire, Drye's eclecticism is a common trait in the fertile Brooklyn scene he calls home, where his protean sensibility is best realized as sideman to artists like drummer John Hollenbeck, trombonist Curtis Hasselbring and cornetist Kirk Knuffke.Though he has recorded frequently with the ...