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.

Album Review

Exploding Star Orchestra: Stars Have Shapes

Read "Stars Have Shapes" reviewed by Nic Jones

by Nic Jones
November 10, 2010

This release by the Exploding Star Orchestra is one of those rare examples of a present day unit able to travel to other places. Under the direction of cornet player and composer Rob Mazurek they've come up with a program of music which incorporates advances outside of the jazz tradition even while it strikes an extraordinary balance between established precedents and developments still in the process of fruition. Thus the collective voices on “Ascension Ghost Impression #2" ...

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From Far and Wide

The $100 Guitar Project: Act 1

by Pascal-Denis Lussier
November 10, 2010

An online listing for a “no name," threadbare guitar; musicians with a distinct sense of humor; an idea, and one credit card... And a few emails later we've got something that combines the honest-but-struggling underdog, the ugly duckling, Pygmalion, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Kaspar Hauser, a Cinderella rags to riches, Herbie the Love Bug... and over forty first-rate guitarists to boot. This story has it all. It's the story of one “homely" guitar and its journey.

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Live Review

Tampere Jazz Happening 2010: Days 3-4, November 6-7, 2010

by John Kelman
November 9, 2010

Day 1 | Day 2 | Days 3-4 Tampere Jazz HappeningTampere, FinlandNovember 4-7, 2010 While most festivals aim to keep the energy, commitment and creativity levels high, few succeed at starting with a high bar and raising it continuously throughout the course of the event. While the first two days of Tampere Jazz Happening 2010 were strong, the final two days continued an upwards curve that culminated in two of its most memorable performances. Still, ...

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Album Review

Dom Minasi String Quartet: Dissonance Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

Read "Dissonance Makes the Heart Grow Fonder" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
November 9, 2010

Although the titles of this set of miniature concerti are admittedly quirky it is this very character that gives the music of the Dom Minasi String Quartet's Dissonance Makes the Heart Grow Fonder startling precision as well as emotion. Often one or the other characteristic is largely absent from music of this nature: that which has been composed and improvised upon as well. Did the Brandenburg Concertos not have bubbling emotion? And yet were they not so mathematically precise. Or ...

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Live From New York

Big Bands: Wayne Horvitz, Satoko Fujii, Steve Lehman, Kenny Werner & Andrew D'Angelo

by Martin Longley
November 9, 2010

The New York Composers OrchestraUniversity Of The StreetsOctober 23, 2010 Even for local residents, an appearance by the New York Composers Orchestra has become a rarity. Its guiding forces, the pianists Wayne Horvitz and Robin Holcomb, have long been living in Seattle (they moved in 1989), so get-togethers have been very scarce over the last two decades. Although he visits NYC regularly, Horvitz has lately taken to appearing with his Sweeter Than The ...

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Album Review

Keith and Julie Tippett: Live at the Purcell Room

Read "Live at the Purcell Room" reviewed by Sid Smith

by Sid Smith
November 9, 2010

Recorded at the London Jazz Festival in 2008 and originally broadcast on Radio 3's admirable Jazz on 3 series, Keith and Julie Tippett are in fine form on Live at the Purcell Room. A musical partnership that was always remarkable from the outset, the duo is in a reflective, introspective mood for the bulk of this continuous suite. In the early sections, whilst Julie cautiously enunciates the words of a self-penned poem, embers of slow-burning chords, and ...

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Live Review

Mark Dresser Quintet Live at Dizzy's, San Diego

by Robert Bush
November 9, 2010

Mark Dresser QuintetDizzy'sSan Diego, CAOctober 10, 2010 Double bass virtuoso Mark Dresser is a player whose expertise in multiple genres defies categorization. His is the story of the student becoming the maestro. Growing up, he was inspired by rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix, and bassist/composer Charles Mingus, and he began his formal studies with a classical music education--soon with Nat Gangursky, a pupil of Herman Rheinshagen, the man who mentored Mingus.When it comes ...

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Album Review

Roscoe Mitchell and the Note Factory: Far Side

by John Kelman
November 9, 2010

It's been over a decade since reed and woodwind multi-instrumentalist Roscoe Mitchell--a veteran of Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), which he helped establish in the mid-1960s, in addition to co-founding the groundbreaking Art Ensemble of Chicago, around the same time--released Nine to Get Ready (ECM, 1999), with his Note Factory group. Far Side, Mitchell's first Note Factory session since The Bad Guys (Around Jazz, 2003), pares the group back to a double-quartet, with six members from ...

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Album Review

Scanner with the Post Modern Jazz Quartet: Blink of An Eye

Read "Blink of An Eye" reviewed by Lyn Horton

by Lyn Horton
November 9, 2010

From the very first sounds heard on Blink of An Eye's “Shadow Splice," a ground is gradually established with bass piano chords, a minor-key string bass arco line, a floating vibe resonance and steady pulse rising from the cymbals. As the Ellingtonian “Blues In C" evokes, the source of improvisational music is the tradition of jazz. No argument. But over time, the tools feeding into that tradition change and become a go-to part of the instrumental inventory, ...

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Album Review

Kellylee Evans: Nina

Read "Nina" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
November 9, 2010

Every once in a while an homage project comes along actually doing what it sets out to do: pay homage. That the object of the present homage is the enigmatic Nina Simone makes Canadian Kellylee Evans' Nina that much more a definitive statement of a courageous cultural career. Add to this that Evans thoughtfully does not cover Simone's “Mississippi Goddamn," and this collection is properly frames not only Simone, but also Evans, whose musical vision, already established, is a formidable ...