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.

372

New York Beat

The New Paquito D'Rivera

by Nick Catalano
November 7, 2010

Several years ago I attended a performance at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola starring Paquito D'Rivera and a new ensemble that he had organized dubbed the Panamericana orchestra. It was a notable evening and I was very enthusiastic about the music and eagerly wrote about it in New York Beat.I had had some history with D'Rivera starting in the early '80s soon after he had defected from Cuba. He had arrived in New York with his alto sax blazing multi-noted ...

398

Album Review

Yelena Eckemoff: Cold Sun

Read "Cold Sun" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
November 7, 2010

Cold Sun could readily be considered as a concept album, if that term hadn't been so abused over the years. Pianist Yelena Eckemoff has taken her inspiration for these ten original tunes from the winter season--perhaps in her native Russia, perhaps from her adopted homeland of North Carolina--and conjures up many different images of winter in her sparse and delicate trio arrangements. The starkly beautiful photographs on the CD cover give a clear indication of the music within, while the ...

595

Live Review

Bad Reputation Live At Barbes

by AAJ Staff
November 7, 2010

Bad ReputationBarbesBrooklyn, NYAugust 26, 2010 Singer and songwriter Pierre de Gaillande's group Bad Reputation played a humorous and musically elevating two-set gig at Brooklyn's famous Barbes, the tiny venue with the enormous selection of music. Bad Reputation plays the songs of French poet/singer George Brassens (1921-1981) in English, with translations by de Gaillande.Brassens is famous in France, with this generation being as familiar with his music as the last. His lyrics, provocative ...

Album Review

Georg Breinschmid: Brein's World

Read "Brein's World" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
November 7, 2010

Austrian bassist/composer Georg Breinschmid is a rare phenomenon who continues to amaze, not simply with his outstanding virtuosity, but with his acute sense of American blues and jazz music. If that sounds like an unlikely mouthful, it is, because the facts far outweigh the fantasy. He has sat in with Archie Shepp, the late Charlie Mariano, Kenny Drew Jr., Biréli Lagrène, the Vienna Art Orchestra, and many others, when he turned his back on his regular gig with the Vienna ...

342

Album Review

Matt Savage: Welcome Home

Read "Welcome Home" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
November 7, 2010

Pianist Matt Savage, a child prodigy if ever there was one, recorded his first album as leader of the Matt Savage Trio (with adult rhythm section) when he was nine years old (he'd recorded for the first time at age seven while studying at the New England Conservatory in Boston). In 2004, when he was twelve, Matt received his first ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Award for his composition “The Wild Rose" (from the CD Cutting Loose). Later, he received the ...

271

Album Review

Danielle Eva: Road and Moon

Read "Road and Moon" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
November 7, 2010

Danielle Eva emerges a fully formed jazz vocalist on her debut, Road and Moon (Devour Music, 2010). She has assimilated the influences of the finest jazz vocal talent of the last 20 years: Cassandra Wilson, Cheryl Bentyne, Tierney Sutton, Karrin Allyson, and nominally, Norah Jones. Drawing equally from Wilson's organic approach, Allyson's timbre-perfect pitch, and Jones' country sensibility, Eva crafts a diverse collection of songs that densely demonstrate her elastic and adaptable talent. Rarely have artists like Joni Mitchell ("Both ...

474

Live Review

Earshot Jazz Festival 2010, Part 1

by Nathan Bluford
November 6, 2010

Earshot Jazz FestivalSeattle, WAOctober 15-November 7, 2010 Part 1 | Part 2 Now in its 22nd year, the 2010 edition of Seattle's Earshot Jazz Festival presented audiences with a healthy mix of local musicians from Seattle and the greater Pacific Northwest in addition to the performers that made the trip from locations as diverse and far-reaching as New York, Europe, and Central Asia. Indeed, this year's list of performers featured MURAL, a trio ...

187

Album Review

Mario Pavone Orange Double Tenor: Arc Suite t/pi t/po

Read "Arc Suite t/pi t/po" reviewed by Nic Jones

by Nic Jones
November 6, 2010

This release is something of a milestone for bassist and leader Mario Pavone. Now in his 70th year, he's also in his 45th year in music, which in a lot of cases would understandably mark a slowing down or restatement of established values. But Pavone is nothing if not forward-looking. So while looking back to the 1960s for inspiration for this music, he's succeeded in putting together a program alive with contemporary values.In order for this to happen, ...

528

Live Review

Tampere Jazz Happening 2010: Day 1, November 4, 2010

by John Kelman
November 6, 2010

Day 1 | Day 2 | Days 3-4 Tampere Jazz HappeningTampere, FinlandNovember 4-7, 2010 Winter may be approaching in Tampere, Finland, and the days getting shorter, but that only provides a better reason to stay inside and check out some of the country's most forward-thinking jazz artists at Tampere Jazz Happening. Now in its 29th year, TJH is part of a trifecta of Tampere music festivals that also includes Tampere Biennale (and New Music ...

Album Review

Meg Okura and the Pan Asian Chamber Jazz Ensemble: Naima

Read "Naima" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
November 6, 2010

John Coltrane's original recording of “Naima" is extraordinarily beautiful, and it's possible that he never envisioned such a breathtaking version being played so many years after it had been composed. So hats off to the Japanese-born violinist and erhu player, Meg Okura, for conjuring up that version. As wave after wave of the song's melody unfolds like repeated sighs that send shivers of emotion down the spine, Okura's violin does the reverse, soaring like it has caught the draft of ...