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.

581

Album Review

Eric Harland: Voyager Live by Night

Read "Voyager Live by Night" reviewed by Mark F. Turner

by Mark F. Turner
November 8, 2010

The long wait for Eric Harland's debut release is understandable. One of modern jazz's most dynamic and in-demand drummers, he's been a little preoccupied: early stints with Terence Blanchard and Wynton Marsalis; high profile gigs with Kurt Rosenwinkel, McCoy Tyner, and The Monterey Quartet; and tenures with the SFJAZZ Collective and Charles Lloyd's ensembles, are just a few of his many endeavors. Possessing consummate skills defined by superlative timing, propulsion, finesse and flexibility, it's no wonder it's taken him so ...

588

Live Review

Dave Liebman Big Band At Chris’ Jazz Café

by Victor L. Schermer
November 8, 2010

Dave Liebman Big BandChris' Jazz CaféPhiladelphia, USAOctober 30, 2010 On this night, bringing together some of the best and most creative musicians in the business, the Dave Liebman Big Band exceeded any and all expectations from a large group, in sharp contrast with many which, today, simply offer a potpourri of loud and flashy clichés. Liebman's troops are capable of a great deal more musical inventiveness and subtlety than most of the large ensembles, yet ...

214

Album Review

Danielle Eva: Road And Moon

Read "Road And Moon" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
November 8, 2010

What do you get when you mix one part Lizz Wright, one part Alyssa Graham and a dash of Chiara Civello? The answer is vocalist Danielle Eva. Eva's music could be characterized as roots-infused jazz with a pop spin on the production, but plenty of other influences seep into the mix. A large cast of musicians joins her for Road and Moon--her own personal travelogue--and her diverse tastes are reflected in the songs she chooses to cover. ...

552

Extended Analysis

Swamy Haridhos & Party: Classical Bhajans

by Raul d'Gama Rose
November 8, 2010

Swamy Haridhos & PartyClassical BhajansCountry & Eastern2010 It is impossible to traverse the ocean of Indian music in one go. First there is the thriving classical music tradition that keeps the ancient collection of ragas alive. Then there is the burgeoning tradition of popular film songs, and the poetry and song tradition of ghazals, both of which sometimes use ragas as the musical basis for composition. Then there is the line--albeit ...

318

Album Review

Robin Holcomb and Talking Pictures with Wayne Horvitz: The Point of It All

Read "The Point of It All" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
November 8, 2010

An unspoken rule amongst musicians is: don't date someone in the band, let alone marry them. Still, there are exceptions, one of the most notable being the husband/wife team of singer/songwriter Robin Holcomb and keyboardist Wayne Horvitz. Together for three decades, they've intersected when the time is right, while still maintaining absolute independence through their rich, individual discographies. Holcomb first came to attention with two records for Elektra/Nonesuch--Robin Holcomb (1990) and the especially fine Rockabye (1992), which married an affinity ...

426

Album Review

Lea Delaria: Be A Santa

Read "Be A Santa" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
November 8, 2010

Christmas can do strange things to musicians: there are plenty of artistic car crashes littering the road to Santa's Grotto. But sometimes an artist gets it right, by luck or by design, and a Yuletide project endures for many years. Vocalist, comedian and Broadway performer Lea DeLaria is, happily, in the latter camp with Be A Santa, an album full of festive standards that swings like a sleigh bell on a Christmas tree and entertains in stylish fashion.

307

Album Review

Claudio Scolari: Colors of Red Island

Read "Colors of Red Island" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
November 8, 2010

There is a wonderful, sweeping cinematic quality to Colors of Red Island. With ghostly bass drum bombs and the clack of steady rim-shots that precedes an ethereal undulating piano lick mimicked by an equally ethereal trumpet, the music unfolds; a soundtrack that accompanies an artist's journey towards a Utopian setting, not far from earth, but at the same time, separate enough to be free of its everyday preponderances of the rat race. Leaving the rats above ground, the musician retreat ...

625

Interview

Randy Weston: African Stories, African Rhythms

by Ian Patterson
November 8, 2010

In over 60 years as a leader, pianist Randy Weston has achieved an incredible amount. He has recorded nearly 50 albums and has been hailed in the process as the natural heir to Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk. Three times he has been voted Downbeat's composer of the year, and his compositions have been recorded by the likes of Ahmad Jamal, Cannonball Adderley, Roland Kirk, Dexter Gordon, Abbey Lincoln, Abdullah Ibrahim and Jimmy Heath amongst others. In 2001, his significance ...

732

Live Review

Tampere Jazz Happening 2010: Day 2, November 5, 2010

by John Kelman
November 7, 2010

Day 1 | Day 2 | Days 3-4 Tampere Jazz HappeningTampere, FinlandNovember 4-7, 2010 Day two of Tampere Jazz Happening kicked the festival into high gear, with a terrific line-up at both the festival's primary venues: Pakkahuone's Old Customs House Hall, which seats upwards of a thousand people and is used for the larger, primarily international acts; and Telakka, a smaller club that seats a couple hundred--though the standing room only crowd that gathered well ...

184

Album Review

Mats Eilertsen Trio: Elegy

by John Kelman
November 7, 2010

He's best-known internationally for his work on ECM recordings by artists including guitarist Jacob Young, pianist Wolfert Brederode, and, most recently, pianist Tord Gustavsen, with whom he's been touring in support of Restored, Returned (2010). But while these associations might suggest a bassist disposed to gentler forms and understated freedom, they're only two of Mats Eilertsen's many sides. A busy bassist in his native Norway, Eilertsen's broader reach can be heard on singer/songwriter Solveig Slettahjell's Tarpan Seasons (Universal, 2010), Hardanger ...