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.

486

Take Five With...

Take Five With Patty Cronheim

by AAJ Staff
October 27, 2010

Meet Patty Cronheim: Patty Cronheim performs her original jazz and blues tunes with a vivacious, soulful style and uncompromising vocals. Capturing the attention of critics, this New Jersey artist has just completed her first CD, Days Like These. Recently featured in Jazz Inside NY's “Women in Jazz" issue, and selected as a SKOPE magazine “artise 2 watch," her versatility and sensitivity are apparent in every note and getting attention. Patty is a jazz musician who exhibits exciting ...

268

Album Review

Colin Stranahan: Life Condition

Read "Life Condition" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
October 27, 2010

Drummer Colin Stranahan was something of a prodigy, gigging around his home town of Denver, Colorado, aged 11 years and releasing his first album, Dreams Untold (Capri Records, 2004) at the age of 17. Life Condition is his third album--inspired by a trip to India with Herbie Hancock and the Monk Institute Band. It's a mix of originals and standards performed in the main by a trio of Stranahan, alto saxophonist Ben Van Gelder and bassist Chris Smith, with tenor ...

199

Album Review

Tarbaby: The End Of Fear

Read "The End Of Fear" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
October 27, 2010

Virtually every musician deals with fear at one time or another. Perhaps it comes with a first opportunity to perform in an ensemble, or maybe it arrives when first taking flight and leaving the relative comforts of written music, searching for an elusive sound through an improvised medium. Regardless of when it happens, performers have to learn to work through this fear to reach a new level of comfort and artistry in music. The trio known as Tarbaby--pianist Orrin Evans, ...

259

Album Review

Meeco: Perfume e Caricias

Read "Perfume e Caricias" reviewed by Edward Blanco

by Edward Blanco
October 27, 2010

Portuguese for “Perfume and Caresses," Perfume e Caricias offers a relaxing and tender musical experience, perfect for those who appreciate the lighter side of jazz. Written as an intimate statement of music, the eight-song, one alternate take repertoire, has been described as “fragile and introspective" in nature. Composed and produced by German-born Michael Maier aka “Meeco," of Paris, France, the album is a joint effort with Brazilian vocalist, Eloisia, a member of the French group Nouvelle Vague, who penned the ...

500

Interview

Linda Oh: Persevering Against the Odds

by Mark F. Turner
October 26, 2010

In an arena that is overwhelmingly dominated by her male counterparts, bassist Linda May-Han Oh is going to be a force with which to be reckoned. Her auspicious, self-produced debut, Entry (2009), was lauded by critics, and was one of pianist Vijay Iyer's top picks for 2009. Born in Malaysia and living in New York, Oh impresses academically, having received first-class honors at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts for her thesis, A New Approach to Rhythmic Bass Improvisation, ...

285

Album Review

Tarbaby: The End Of Fear

Read "The End Of Fear" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
October 26, 2010

A band name that some might see as confrontational--although the band denies this--an album title that could be wildly optimistic, a statement of faith or simply ironic; some of the fieriest jazz players on the scene and a scary Hieronymus Bosch-style cover design. What kind of music might emanate from such a combination? Free form, loud, frenetic, aggressive? Yes, but this magnificent, multilayered album offers much more. While the packaging--name, title, image--might suggest a set of hard-hitting, ...

1,299

Live Review

Korean Music Shines At Performing Arts Market in Seoul, October 11-15, 2010

by Ian Patterson
October 26, 2010

Performing Arts Market in SeoulNational Theater and selected venuesSeoul, South Korea11--15 October, 2010 The number of festivals, theaters and performance groups in South Korea has grown dramatically in the last twenty years and the tremendous developments in the fields of traditional music, jazz, dance and theater is testament to the vitality of Korean performers. Just as South Korea is increasingly on the itinerary of many international artists, so too, many international festivals are discovering ...

104

Album Review

The Ullmann/Swell 4: News? No News!

Read "News? No News!" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
October 26, 2010

There is a marvelous gravitas that emanates from the musical waves that rush onward and beat the inner ear, spreading colors and textures like brilliant volatile smears on the music's canvas. The awesome density of Steve Swell's trombone carving the air in great circles of sound, swirling around the growling of Gebhard Ullmann's tenor saxophone brings attendant, almost ritualistic graces to cast unexpected spells. Growls alternate with the low bellow of Ullmann's bass clarinet, rousing somnolent aspects of the charts ...

396

Take Five With...

Take Five With David Bixler

by AAJ Staff
October 26, 2010

Meet David Bixler: Alto saxophonist, composer, and educator David Bixler has been steadily garnering attention for his unique playing and writing. Since moving to New York City from his native Wisconsin, David has performed and toured with the orchestras of Lionel Hampton, Toshiko Akiyoshi, and Duke Ellington. In 2000 he joined the Chico O'Farrill Afro Cuban Jazz Orchestra which was the beginning of several musical collaborations with GRAMMY award winning pianist Arturo O'Farrill. In 2008 ...

187

Album Review

Ralph Alessi: Cognitive Dissonance

Read "Cognitive Dissonance" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
October 26, 2010

The jazz community welcomes trumpeter Ralph Alessi's keen compositional and superior technical skills. As a solo artist and first-call session ace, Alessi is adept at fusing disparate jazz-related styles into a singular voice. With his Cam Jazz debut, the trumpeter executes a diverse, polytonal environ, featuring laudable and like-minded jazz instrumentalists--a band that spins a symmetrical panorama, touched with rhythmic complexities and memorable hooks.“Duel" is underpinned with a loping funk-rock groove, augmented by Alessi's off-kilter and, at times, ...