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.

325

Album Review

William Parker Organ Quartet: Uncle Joe's Spirit House

Read "Uncle Joe's Spirit House" reviewed by Lyn Horton

by Lyn Horton
October 31, 2010

Defining his direction is one recognizable talent that composer/musician William Parker constantly demonstrates, though not in so many words; but within his art, the direction is clear as day. The musicians he chooses to fulfill his intentions are also exactly whom he needs, for he understands how they operate to blend in joyous confluence that is the realization of his music. In Uncle Joe's Spirit House, Parker's Organ Quartet constructs an aural Space addressing his own personal ...

128

Album Review

Grateful Dead: Grateful Dead: Road Trips Vol. 3 No. 4: Penn State-Cornell 1980

Read "Grateful Dead: Road Trips Vol. 3 No. 4: Penn State-Cornell 1980" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
October 31, 2010

Taken from two college stops on the Grateful Dead's spring tour of 1980, the latest edition of Road Trips is a three-disc set that, like the very first entry in the series, features the band's lineup with Brent Mydland. At this point a year into his decade-long tenure with the iconic group, the keyboardist's presence helped in various ways to consolidate a new chemistry within the Dead. Neither scintillating nor celebratory, Vol. 3 Number 4 is nonetheless worth ...

307

Extended Analysis

Karl Jannuska: Streaming

by Pascal-Denis Lussier
October 30, 2010

Karl Jannuska Streaming Paris Jazz Underground Records 2010 Studies demonstrate that everyone pays more attention to a female voice--the more alluring, the better the attention--and this, regardless of gender. Singer Sienna Dahlen has an extremely alluring voice, one that could sell rainwater in a snowstorm. This may be partially responsible for Streaming's extreme attractiveness and its ability to garner attention even from those who tend to shy away from vocals. However, ...

336

Album Review

Kris Davis: Good Citizen

Read "Good Citizen" reviewed by Mark F. Turner

by Mark F. Turner
October 30, 2010

It's just a coincidence that pianist Kris Davis has had three stunning trio recordings released in 2010. There are the two on Clean Feed Records--Paradoxial Frog, a brilliant joint collaboration with drummer Tyshawn Sorey and saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock; and Three by the SKM trio, with Davis joined by saxophonist Stephen Gauci and bassist Michael Bisio. But it's no coincidence that Davis' percussive style and edgy invention is also present in Good Citizens, another clear visage of her abilities as a ...

659

Extended Analysis

Grateful Dead: Formerly The Warlocks

by Doug Collette
October 30, 2010

Grateful DeadFormerly The WarlocksRhino2010 Formerly The Warlocks is an ingeniously packaged set of six CDs and assorted memorabilia that documents two “stealth" shows by the Grateful Dead in the autumn of 1989 at the Hampton Coliseum in Virginia. Due to the increasing difficulty in managing the group's live appearances in the wake of its 1987 entry into the mainstream with “Touch Of Grey"--from In the Dark (Arista, 1987)--the Dead had been ...

221

Album Review

Andy Farber and His Orchestra: This Could Be The Start Of Something Big

Read "This Could Be The Start Of Something Big" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
October 30, 2010

The sight and sound of one of the classic big bands in full flight must have been something to behold. For those fans of big band jazz who never got to experience such a thing, as well as for those who did and remember it fondly, Andy Farber And His Orchestra bring the sound back with a bang on This Could Be The Start Of Something Big. Saxophonist Farber arranged and conducted all of the tunes, as ...

295

Live Review

Phoenix at Madison Square Garden with The Dirty Projectors and Wavves

by Mike Perciaccante
October 30, 2010

Phoenix at Madison Square Garden with The Dirty Projectors and WavvesMadison Square GardenNew York, New YorkWednesday, October 20, 2010In what was undoubtedly the biggest show of the 2010 CMJ Music Marathon and Film Festival, French rockers Phoenix brought the Madison Square Garden faithful to its screaming, jumping and cheering feet on October 20th. Phoenix continues to prove that it is more than just that band from the Cadillac commercial ("1901") and from the movie trailers ...

169

Album Review

Footprints: When You Dream

Read "When You Dream" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
October 30, 2010

Dreams can be vivid or cloudy, mellow or intense, and everything in between. Ditto for the music on When You Dream, the debut release from Footprints. This New York City-based band might bear the name of one of Wayne Shorter's most popular songs--and take inspiration from none other than Miles Davis, Shorter's longtime employer--but their music is of their own creation. Like dreams themselves, the music of Footprints lives in an uncertain, ever-evolving plane of existence. Its ...

473

Take Five With...

Take Five With Fede4real

by AAJ Staff
October 30, 2010

Meet Fedee4real:It's difficult to write my bio down to 200 words. I'm a singer/songwriter/keyboardist.I write, compose, arrange and produce all my material. I'm half Spanish and Equatoguinean (Africa). I have lived in both countries and I love both. My music has many different influences, jazz being the biggest. I started playing music at six years old, jazz and blues with my father, and classical with a private teacher as a hobbie. I didn't decide make music my priority ...

246

Album Review

Orlando le Fleming: From Brooklyn with Love

Read "From Brooklyn with Love" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
October 30, 2010

From the very first hearing it becomes clear that From Brooklyn with Love--Orlando Fleming's hard-swinging debut as a leader--is likely to be the start of a long upwardly mobile career for this young, Birmingham, England-born bassist, demonstrating all the makings of a pilot project that heralds the unfolding of a major talent with the keenest of ears, deeply expressive technique and penchant for challenge, all couched in a somewhat self-effacing personality, as Le Fleming plays with a quietness that belies ...