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.

Radio & Podcasts

Remembering Ray Brown and Lou Donaldson on their centennial

by Larry Slater
October 2, 2026

The bassist Ray Brown had one of the most prolific and successful careers in jazz. He did it all, playing in the 40s with Charlie Parker, Art Tatum and Dizzy Gillespie, before becoming a founding member of the early Modern Jazz Quartet. He was a member of Oscar Peterson's trio for 14 years as well as recording with the LA 4 for many years.The alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson came close to celebrating his centennial, but missed it by ...

Radio & Podcasts

Chapter 8: Bombed in Guadalcanal, but big in Auckland

by Larry Slater
October 2, 2026

Artie Shaw was an enigma. A self-taught, brilliant clarinetist blessed with movie-star good looks, he became one of the defining musicians of the Big Band era. Yet at the height of his fame, he walked away from the music business, leaving behind a legacy as fascinating as it was influential.In the early 1990s, Ted Hallock--a passionate jazz scholar and former Oregon State Senator--spent a week with Shaw recording an extraordinary series of in-depth conversations about music, life and ...

Radio & Podcasts

New Music From Sylvie Courvoisier, FROTAE, Michael Dease & More

by Bob Osborne
October 2, 2026

This playlist brings together a wide-ranging collection of brand new and forthcoming releases across disparate sub-genres, avant-garde experimentation, contemporary grooves, big band arrangements, and free improvisation. Spanning fifteen fresh tracks, the sequence showcases dense harmonic layers, complex rhythmic explorations, cinematic textures, and forward-thinking modern jazz where each piece carves out its own unique territory offering a snapshot of cutting-edge creative expression where contrasting sonic worlds constantly shift perspectives and challenge expectations.Playlist Sylvie Courvoisier “At Risk" from Amalthea (Pyroclastic ...

Radio & Podcasts

The Art Ensemble Of Chicago, Mark Isham, John Coltrane And Others

by Lawrence Peryer
October 2, 2026

John Coltrane would have turned 100 last week. So this hour closes with 15 minutes of him live at the Village Vanguard in 1961. On the way there, we open in Paris in 1970, with the Art Ensemble of Chicago and Fontella Bass. In between, mostly new records: my podcast guest Mark Isham's first solo album in 15 years, harp and tape loops from Lara Somogyi, megiapa's Sun Ra tribute, a four-track Radiator Hospital song, and Olaf Rupp alone with ...

Interview

Boney James: A Simple Man And A Lifetime Study

by Sherry Rubel
October 2, 2026

Thirty-five years and twenty albums into his career, saxophonist Boney James is still thinking about melody, sound and how to get better at his instrument. On A Simple Man (Concord Jazz, 2026), he draws on the R&B and soul music that shaped him while continuing to explore the jazz vocabulary that has long been part of his musical life. In this conversation, James discusses the labels that have followed him throughout his career, the singers and saxophonists who ...

In Tribute To...

Points of View: Celebrating Dave Holland

by Ludovico Granvassu
October 1, 2026

Birthdays offer an annual opportunity to celebrate. Milestone birthdays offer something more: a chance to take stock. But when a towering figure in jazz turns 80 after six decades of music-making, how do we even begin to take the measure of a musical life so rich, so wide-ranging, and so influential? A comprehensive interview could tell part of the story. An in-depth analysis of a discography could tell another. But perhaps the most tangible, and personal, way to ...

Musician 2 Musician

Steve Coleman on Dave Holland

by Anthony Tidd
October 1, 2026

Prologue On September 16, 2026, I sat down with groundbreaking saxophonist and composer Steve Coleman at a penthouse apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Coleman was four days shy of his 70th birthday, which itself was just three days before the great John Coltrane's centennial birthday. However, our conversation focused largely on another musician, and a relationship that had played an important role in Steve's development: bassist, composer and bandleader Dave Holland.This conversation holds particular significance for me. ...

Interview

A Language of His Own: Bill Frisell on Dave Holland

by Ludovico Granvassu
October 1, 2026

As part of our Celebration of Dave Holland, we invited Bill Frisell to share a few thoughts about a musician who has been an important part of his musical world for decades. Bill had rather a lot to say, and it seemed a shame to stop at a few thoughts. So, rather than squeezing Bill's reflections into the format of the other contributions to this tribute, we decided to let the conversation unfold. All About Jazz: ...

Multiple Reviews

Dave Holland: Freedom Call

by Angelo Leonardi
October 1, 2026

On the occasion of Dave Holland's 80th birthday, Edition Records releases Freedom Call, a box set comprising six LPs and three CDs, also available for streaming, bringing together previously unreleased live recordings by three pivotal formations in his career: the sextet with Mulgrew Miller, Alex Sipiagin, Antonio Hart, Robin Eubanks and Eric Harland; the quintet with Chris Potter, Robin Eubanks, Steve Nelson and here in the configuration with Nate Smith on drums; and the Prism quartet with Craig Taborn, Kevin ...

Play This!

A Dave Holland Primer

by Ludovico Granvassu
October 1, 2026

Here is an audio-companion to Points of View: Celebrating Dave Holland. The playlist contains songs by, or featuring, Dave Holland, selected by those who contributed to that article. It's actually a quite interesting thing to see who selected what (click on the above link and under each individual contribution the selected song is listed). You'll find Dave Holland in every shape and form here, solo, duo, trio, quartet, quintet, sextet, Big Band... and a wide range of his ...