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.

333

Album Review

Los Angeles Philharmonic, Esa-Pekka Salonen; Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Tonu Kalijuste: Arvo Part: Symphony No. 4

Read "Arvo Part: Symphony No. 4" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
September 18, 2010

It is entirely too easy to look at the past and wonder where the greatness is today. In 1734 George Frideric Handel was composing operas at London's Covent Garden. Domenico Scarlatti was in Madrid, serving as music master to Princess Maria Barbara, for whom he composed many of his 555 keyboard sonatas. Johann Sebastian Bach was toiling away in Leipzig as Cantor at Thomasschule and Kapellmeister at Thomaskirche, composing his Mass in B minor. Does musical firepower like this exist ...

440

Live Review

Bill Frisell At The Stone

by AAJ Staff
September 18, 2010

Bill FrisellThe StoneNew York CitySeptember 7, 2010 Bill Frisell has captured the imagination of music fans of many types, since his first records in the 1980s. He is the world's favorite alternative take on guitar. Yet, he may be, instead, the next step in guitar rather than another side of the very popular instrument. Arguably, very little music of originality has come forth since the beginning of the '80s, but Frisell is one beacon ...

261

Album Review

Richard Sussman: Live At Sweet Rhythm

Read "Live At Sweet Rhythm" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
September 18, 2010

Life has few certainties, but the constant and ever-moving nature of time is one of them. Events, both miniscule and monumental, pass by and usually leave nothing more than a memory or, in the case of music, a record. Such was the case with pianist Richard Sussman's Free Fall (Inner City Records, 1978). Joined by some burgeoning young talent in 1978, Sussman's album became an underground classic and that seemed to be the end of it. All the players involved ...

356

Album Review

Bruce Williamson Quartet feat Art Lande: Standard Transmission

Read "Standard Transmission" reviewed by James Henry Smith

by James Henry Smith
September 18, 2010

Woodwind multi-instrumentalist Bruce Williamson features his longtime compatriot and mentor, pianist Art Lande, in this collection of mostly standards, breathing new life into old melodies. Except for “Large Barge," a Williamson original tune reflecting his impressions of a lazy barge on the Ohio River, this quartet outing contains only material that will be well-known to seasoned jazz listeners. But these Williamson/Lande arrangements, each contributing roughly half, produce results far beyond standard. Reharmonization, uncommon time signatures, and unlikely combinations and treatment ...

315

Take Five With...

Take Five with Tomisheep

by AAJ Staff
September 18, 2010

Meet Tamas Barany (aka Tomisheep):I am a pianist/keyboardist, arranger and sound designer, based in Montreal, Canada, working predominantly as a composer of theme music and soundtracks for cinema, television, and advertising. I am also an independent artist/composer--just released Rhodes Trip under my own name--and perform sometimes as a guest pianist-keyboardist for other artists. I inherited my love of music and performing from my mother, Gizella Dallos, a Hungarian folk singer, and from my father, Gyula ...

169

Album Review

Richard Sussman Quintet: Live at Sweet William

Read "Live at Sweet William" reviewed by Larry Taylor

by Larry Taylor
September 18, 2010

In 1979, pianist Richard Sussman's recording Free Fall was released on Inner City to some acclaim. Now, over three decades later, Sussman brings back his band mates from the seventies to perform on Live at Sweet William. Chief among them is trumpeter Tom Harrell, who gives further evidence that he is a genius of improvisation. Besides Harrell, Jerry Bergonzi contributes much with his powerful John Coltrane-influenced tenor saxophone. All are empowered by the estimable work of bassist ...

329

Album Review

Thomas Hulten: Slide Side

Read "Slide Side" reviewed by Chris Mosey

by Chris Mosey
September 18, 2010

Thomas Hultén is a versatile, extremely busy and, presumably, God-fearing and honest young/youngish trombonist who started playing the instrument with the local Salvation Army band in his home town of Katrineholm, Sweden, at the age of 10. Displaying a healthy disrespect for musical categorization, he went on to play with various symphony orchestras in Sweden and Norway before, in 1997, moving to Houston, Texas. where, in addition to becoming principal trombonist with the Grand Opera/Ballet and an ...

397

Multiple Reviews

Tatsuya Nakatani: Essences and Abiogenesis

by Clifford Allen
September 17, 2010

What is improvised music without visuality? While the music of improvising composers can be felt and picked apart aurally, the physical act of making music in an un- preconceived setting is something rather extraordinary and easily lost through the audible distance of a recording. It's not just the dynamic, theatrical high jinks of a player like percussionist Han Bennink or ferociously deft fiddling of bassist Barry Guy (with his table of accoutrements at the ready). That visualness can be in ...

177

Album Review

Steve Davis: Images

Read "Images" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
September 17, 2010

It is easy to mistake trombonist Steve Davis for an aesthete--which he is, possessing an undying sense of lyricism to show for it. But he is a deeper musician than one who merely subscribes to the aesthetical philosophy. Each of Images' ten compositions far transcends warmth and lyrical beauty, standing out as astute forms of modal music that recall the finest of their kind. Davis' ability to enrich the tonal palette of the trombone is commendable. He may not bend ...

543

Film Review

Mellodrama: The Mellotron Movie

by Jack Huntley
September 17, 2010

Various ArtistsMellodrama: The Mellotron MovieBazillion Points2010 Few instruments in modern music have endured such a tormented life as the Mellotron. In the mid-1960s, the analog, tape-driven keyboard was hailed by rock 'n' roll artists as an expansive musical tool in their arsenal of sound. Especially beloved in progressive rock circles, the Mellotron's rise to fame came rapidly, only to succumb to near irrelevance just as quickly with the shift in taste to ...