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.

318

Album Review

Uou: Home

by Mark F. Turner
September 28, 2010

The long and interesting road for five students--from Japan to Berklee College of Music in Boston, and then to New York's exhilarating jazz scene--arrives at their splendid group recording, aptly titled Home. The band, named UoU, consists of members who have garnered numerous individual recognitions and awards, and studied/performed with a who's who's list of today's jazz leaders. Yet, as collective, this debut exudes a polished distinctiveness, clear abilities and original compositions. It would be easy to ...

377

Live Review

Wadada Leo Smith at Cafe Oto in London

by John Sharpe
September 28, 2010

Wadada Leo SmithCafé OtoLondonJuly 24, 2010Following the unprecedented acclaim for AACM trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith's appearance at London's Freedom of the City Festival in May, Cafe Oto had quickly invited him back to town for a two night residency in north London. Unable to replicate Smith's celebrated set with twin drummers, tonight he was scheduled to perform first in a duo with Mark Sanders behind the trapset, and second as part of a quintet. However ...

372

Album Review

Jason Adasiewicz: Sun Rooms

Read "Sun Rooms" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
September 28, 2010

Jason Adasiewicz is making the vibraphone a necessary ingredient for music making in this century. His mallets have been featured in recordings by Josh Berman, Jason Ajemian, Harris Eisenstadt, the Lucky 7s, and Rob Mazurek's Exploding Star Orchestra.As a leader, his two recordings with Rolldown, the self-titled 2008 disc on 482 Music and Varmint (Cuneiform, 2009) feature Josh Berman, Aram Shelton, Jason Roebke, and Frank Rosaly playing his original compositions. Here, he pares things down to a simple ...

178

Album Review

Eric Felton: Seize the Night

Read "Seize the Night" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
September 28, 2010

Eric Felten's Seize the Night is a throwback to the tradition of Jack Teagarden, that has carried forward through Wycliffe Gordon and Vincent Gardner; that is, the tradition of the singer-trombonist. A talented songwriter, Felten, is also quite the instrumentalist in composing and performing, as evidenced by his original ,"Three-Martini Lunch." More swing than bebop, but bebop nevertheless, this piece showcases Felten on a muted horn, jousting with Don Braden's sleek and serpentine tenor saxophone. Kenny Barron's ...

149

Album Review

Fabiana Cozza: Quando O Ceu Clarear

Read "Quando O Ceu Clarear" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
September 28, 2010

Comparisons are odious, even in the most mundane circumstances, but there is a recording of a rare performance of Elis Regina's Saudades Do Brasil, filmed and recorded in 1980, and directed by the great Cesar Carmago Mariano, that reverberates with energy, even when it is not playing. The mere recollection of it can make the heart dance interminably. Quando O Céu Clarear, by the extraordinary paulista and sambanista Fabiana Cozza, bustles with the same level of energy. Cozza's wholesome contralto ...

753

Interview

Matthew Charles Heulitt: Sonic Magician

by Ian Patterson
September 28, 2010

Guitarist/composer Matthew Charles Heulitt has been around for a while, gigging for over a decade in drumming master Zigaboo Modeliste's funk band. Heulitt is also a member of ex-Weather Report and Mahavishnu Orchestra drummer Narada Michael Walden's band; it is therefore no surprise that he displays an acute rhythmic sense in his playing. In fact, Heulitt's approach to the guitar stems from the way he hears other instruments; he adapts the agility of the piano and horns into his playing, ...

614

Interview

Christian Howes: Blues for the Blues Violin

by Ian Patterson
September 27, 2010

It's not difficult to think of great blues artists--there's a roll call of honor as long as that of great jazz artists--and every sizeable town in the world has a blues band or two. So where is the violin? Great blues guitarists and vocalists have never been in short supply, but the great blues violinist, once such an important part of the blues group, has all but disappeared.Eighty or so years ago, dozens of blues recordings featured fiddle ...

349

Album Review

Christian Howes: Out of the Blue

Read "Out of the Blue" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
September 27, 2010

The violin is widely considered as the most expressive of instruments, closely approximating the human voice. It depends, however, to a large degree, on whose hands the instrument is in. Christian Howes is that rare breed of musician who makes the violin talk; using the idiom of the blues on Out of the Blue, Howes gives a virtuoso performance, as full of emotion as it is technically dazzling. Joined by guitarist Robben Ford , who lends his jazz-inflected accent to ...

179

Album Review

Elton Dean's Ninesense: Happy Daze + Oh! For The Edge

Read "Happy Daze + Oh! For The Edge" reviewed by Mark Redlefsen

by Mark Redlefsen
September 27, 2010

This reissue of two Ninesense recordings, from the late British saxophonist Elton Dean, creates a gateway back to the London jazz scene of the 1970s. Digging into bands that he played with previously outside of his work with Soft Machine, he formed the nine-piece Ninesense with Keith Tippett, along with several other members of that pianist's bands, as well as other players that passed through the ranks of late South African pianist Chris McGregor's band, Brotherhood of Breath, like drummer ...

657

JazzLife UK

Am I "Jazz People?"

by Bruce Lindsay
September 27, 2010

I rarely write anything too serious in a JazzLife UK article and, for the most part, this month's missive will be no different. However, the summer of 2010 started very sadly for UK jazz with the deaths of four popular, talented and influential musicians, and it seems appropriate to write a few words to remember each of them before I return to the more inconsequential things in life. Drummers Chris Dagley, Martin Drew and Jack Parnell and ...