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.

251

Album Review

Gary Husband: Dirty & Beautiful Volume One

Read "Dirty & Beautiful Volume One" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
December 3, 2010

It's almost a shame that Gary Husband's follow-up to the excellent Hotwired (Abstract Logix, 2009) did not take that exciting young ensemble to the next stage, were it not for the fact that Dirty & Beautiful brings together an exceptional line-up of some of the most innovative and influential musicians of the last forty years. Although Husband has formed decades-long musical relationships with guitarist Allan Holdsworth and Level 42 bassist Mark King, his projects as a leader have generally been ...

249

Album Review

Christian Weidner: The Inward Song

Read "The Inward Song" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
December 2, 2010

The Inward Song is hardly the quiet, introverted recital of music that might be expected, given the album's title. While alto saxophonist Christian Weidner does throw in a few pieces that fit nicely under this banner, the music on this CD also demonstrates a great deal of range. A case in point is the way the album begins. “St. Paul" starts off with Weidner and pianist Colin Vallon delivering angular unison lines on a blank canvas. Bassist ...

449

Big Band Caravan

John Burnett Swing Orchestra / University of Missouri Concert Big Band / Either-Orchestra

by Jack Bowers
December 2, 2010

John Burnett Swing OrchestraDown for DoubleDelmark2010 John Burnett, an Englishman who now lives and works (as a morning host at WDCB Radio) in suburban Chicago, is a great admirer of the golden age of big bands in the U.S., which spanned roughly three decades, from the 1930s through the early 1960s. So when Burnett decided after arriving in the States to form his own orchestra, it was only natural that he would ...

129

Album Review

Sebastian Liedke Trio: To Walk In The Past

Read "To Walk In The Past" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
December 2, 2010

It's possible to identify some of the more acoustic elements of the late Esbjörn Svensson's trio, e.s.t., in Berlin-based, Sebastian Liedke Trio's debut. The bassist's group appears ready to step into a creative breach, uniquely combining a strong sense of melody with imaginative variations. Within its creative process, the trio may be on its way to setting up a template for subsequent hybrids of Euro-jazz. Unlike the pioneering e.s.t., Liedke's trio is devoid of synthesizer effects and rock influences, but ...

307

Album Review

Giovanni Maier: The Talking Bass

Read "The Talking Bass" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
December 2, 2010

Students of jazz have long known that the bassist can be the hippest musician on the bandstand, constantly listening, and rarely featured. That's why, when a first class bassist like Giovanni Maier gets a chance to lead and present his compositions, it should be a special event. That is just what The Talking Bass is: a vehicle to feature not only his playing, but his writing as well.Maier is a constant sideman to the likes of Stefano Battaglia, ...

313

Album Review

Chico Pinheiro: There's a Storm Inside

Read "There's a Storm Inside" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
December 2, 2010

The near falsetto vocals of Chico Pinheiro perfectly offset the voluptuous music that he has created on There's a Storm Inside. However narrow his vocal range, Pinheiro is a master storyteller and weaves his lines like an elaborate tapestry, a sort of patchwork quilt that tells the story his way. Pinheiro has a softness that seems to accelerate and retard his very breath, which increases the dramaturgy of his vocal gymnastics in both English and Portuguese, but more so in ...

151

Album Review

The Dave Liebman Group: Turnaround: The Music of Ornette Coleman

Read "Turnaround: The Music of Ornette Coleman" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
December 2, 2010

2010 has been a busy year for Dave Liebman, though not always one in which the saxophonist sits in the featured chair: he is the horn man on Contact's highly collaborative Five in One (Pirouet Records, 2010), a superb all-star outing; sits in on half of rising star Bobby Avey's A New Face (Jay Dell Records, 2010); and stars as the featured soloist on Live/As Always (Mamma Records, 2010), with his Dave Liebman Big Band.Liebman explores the classic ...

192

Genius Guide to Jazz

AAJ Needs A Solid

by Jeff Fitzgerald, Genius
December 2, 2010

Hey kids, remember when the Internet was shiny and new? Back before YouTube and Wikileaks, before Google and Facebook, back when the World Wide Web was only 84% pornography and 16% dancing hamsters? Those were the days, eh, kids? The whole thing seemed filled with such promise of a world where one day, all content would be free and everyone would share intellectual property in some Utopian vision of what socialism would be like if it actually worked.

421

Live Review

Henry Grimes at The Stone: Alive at 75

by Gordon Marshall
December 1, 2010

Henry Grimes, Newman Taylor Baker, Lee Mixashawn Rozie and Connie CrothersThe StoneEast VillageNew York, NY John Zorn honored the great Henry Grimes, bassist and violinist, with “a month of 75th birthdays" this November, consisting of a curatorship of his venue, The Stone, together with his wife, Margaret. A long weekend spent in New York City gave me a window on this important event, which marks a benchmark in the extraordinary and miraculous resurrection of the ...

Album Review

Bryan and the Haggards: Pretend It's The End of the World

Read "Pretend It's The End of the World" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
December 1, 2010

The legend of Merle Haggard is probably as large as the life of the folk music star. Only Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash have a larger legend than Haggard. The writer of “Okie from Muskogee" is the star of this album, Pretend It's The End of the World by this ensemble led by tenor saxophonist, Bryan Murray. Haggard's music has always been earnest and soulful and like the best contemporary music, was in fact, somewhat ...