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.

289

Album Review

Hugh Hopper: The Gift of Purpose

Read "The Gift of Purpose" reviewed by Mark Redlefsen

by Mark Redlefsen
October 10, 2010

Posthumously released under the name of late ex-Soft Machine/Soft Machine Legacy bassist Hugh Hopper, The Gift of Purpose captures a live studio performance from early 2008, featuring a trio project called Bone, along with guitarist Nick Didkovsky and drummer John Roulat. Rreleased as a benefit for Hopper's family--to which all proceeds of the sale of the disc will go--it serves as one last look back upon the playing, and compositional skills of this highly influential artist. The ...

401

Album Review

Jan Garbarek / The Hilliard Ensemble: Officium Novum

Read "Officium Novum" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
October 10, 2010

At first blush, there is really no reason the eutection of early a capella music and modern saxophone should work. It is antithetical, it makes no sense. However, wizards like Manfred Eicher, saxophonist and ECM stalwart Jan Garbarek, and early music mavens The Hilliard Ensemble not only defy the odds, they redefine them with a bit of creative musical alchemy. An adjective that meets at the intersection of ECM, Garbarek, and the Hilliards is atmospheric. Witness the reception of Officium ...

108

Album Review

Mike Pride’s From Bacteria to Boys: Betweenwhile

Read "Betweenwhile" reviewed by Nic Jones

by Nic Jones
October 10, 2010

Drummer Mike Pride is nothing if not busy, as a list of past collaborators including Milford Graves, George Lewis and Mary Halvorson shows. Such collaborations inevitably testify to his range, as does Betweenwhile, the second release by his working quartet. The trouble might be, however, that this very range dilutes the group's identity. Thus the two Monkian minutes of “Rose" are in contrast with the knottily Braxtonian “It Doesn't Stop," where alto saxophonist Darius Jones has to ...

498

New York Beat

Jazz International

by Nick Catalano
October 9, 2010

More and more recordings from offshore jazz musicians keep arriving in my mailbox each month and they are beginning to outnumber domestic releases. This is an obvious sign of the exponential growth of internationalism in the music and a signal to American jazz critics that their reviewing responsibility must include ample coverage of this phenomenon. Anthony Brown and his Asian American Orchestra have just released their latest CD India & Africa: A Tribute to John Coltrane on ...

640

Book Review

The Eagles: An American Band

by Doug Collette
October 9, 2010

The Eagles: An American BandAndrew VaughanHardcover; 288 pagesISBN: 1402777124Sterling Publishing2010 With its metallic foil-decorated dustcover, The Eagles: An American Band is the definition of a coffee-table book. The density of its content matches its size and physical weight. It might well have been subtitled “An Illustrated History," as it overflows with striking images of its subject matter as well as photos of other musicians of the time, ...

113

Album Review

Joe Alterman: Piano Tracks, Volume 1

Read "Piano Tracks, Volume 1" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
October 9, 2010

The late Miles Davis had a hand in pushing the standard-playing piano trio out of fashion. The iconic trumpeter's Bitches Brew (Columbia Records, 1970) moved jazz in new and bold directions, and it didn't take long for the piano/bass/drums format to slip into the quaint and old fashioned--and very un-hip--category.Then along came Keith Jarrett--a Davis modern music alum--and his Standards, Vol. 1 (ECM, 1983) and Vol. 2 (ECM, 1985), shining a light on a concept that had slipped ...

431

Film Review

Jackson Browne: Going Home

by Doug Collette
October 9, 2010

Jackson BrowneGoing HomeEagle Vision2010 Jackson Browne remains the most compelling of the singer/songwriters from the 1970s because his more recent work, such as I'm Alive (Elektra, 1993)--in the wake of which this documentary was produced--resonates as profoundly as his earliest releases, such as Late For The Sky (Asylum, 1974). Originally produced for The Disney Channel, Going Home dazzles with its creative mix of live performance footage, conceptual videos and interview segments ...

184

Album Review

Tommy Meier Root Down: The Master And The Rain

Read "The Master And The Rain" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
October 9, 2010

Swiss-born reed man Tommy Meier's immersion into African jazz dips into a body of music covering three continents touched by the African diaspora of people and sound. A follow-up to Root Down (Intakt, 2008), his Root Down orchestra's The Master And The Rain, once again, offers a large ensemble update on the music of Fela Kuti and Chris McGregor, along with nine of Meier's own compositions.The pulse of Africa is at the heart of this disc; from the ...

125

Album Review

David Bixler and Arturo O'Farrill: The Auction Project

Read "The Auction Project" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
October 9, 2010

Cuba and Ireland are worlds apart in virtually every way, but the universal language of music--is often culture-blind. The Auction Project was born out of a marriage between two longtime musical partners--saxophonist David Bixler and pianist Arturo O'Farrill--and a marriage between, well...two married people. Bixler and O'Farrill, longtime band mates and label mates on Zoho Music, came together in 2006 to play a fundraiser at Bixler's daughter's school. Around the same time, Bixler's wife, Juilliard trained violinist Heather Martin Bixler, ...

342

Album Review

Steve Coleman and Five Elements: Harvesting Semblances and Affinities

Read "Harvesting Semblances and Affinities" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
October 9, 2010

Celebrated and highly influential alto saxophonist Steve Coleman reenters the progressive jazz context with his cutting-edge Five Elements band. A purveyor of M-Base processes, which are centered upon a synchronous balance between structure and improvisation, Coleman's odd-metered metrics revert to kaleidoscopic sentiment on “Clouds."Trombonist Tim Albright launches the track with warmly stated choruses, underscored by Thomas Morgan's bulging bass lines and Jen Shyu's instrumental-like vocalizations. Slightly intensified by Coleman's darting sax lines and trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson's contrasting statements, ...