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.

152

Take Five With...

Take Five With Todd Clouser

by AAJ Staff
September 16, 2010

Meet Todd Clouser:A young, genre-defying guitarist, composer, and writer, Berklee graduate Todd Clouser is an accomplished musician across the modern jazz and rock spectrum, leading a unique path to recognition as an up-and-coming act, finding his own voice performing with musicians from Keb' Mo' to Downtown NYC jazz legend, Steven Bernstein.Clouser's impassioned performances run from piano balladry to dense jazz and groove, exciting audiences with an approach meant to bend the rules of artistic labeling. A ...

352

Album Review

Florian Ross: Mechanism

Read "Mechanism" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
September 16, 2010

Florian Ross has been a contributing member of the international jazz community since 1998, when he released three provocative discs on the Naxos Jazz label (Seasons and Places (1998), Suite for Soprano Sax and String Orchestra (1999), and Lilacs and Laughter (2000)) that showed the German pianist/composer as a composer of great depth and breadth. A decade and several recordings later, Ross has made his way to perhaps his best-suited label, Pirouet. Mechanism is a solo piano recording that occasionally ...

430

Album Review

Charles Lloyd: Mirror

Read "Mirror" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
September 16, 2010

Charles Lloyd's Mirror is an intensely personal almost autobiographical work. This is apparent from the opener, a deconstructing of the standard “I Fall in Love Too Easily," where the saxophonist's urgent and pleading tone accurately conveys the feeling of unrequited love. The first track bleeds into the next, the traditional gospel tune “Go Down Moses," rearranged by the leader. His alto--backed by Eric Harland's pulsatile drumming, Reuben Rogers' arco bass and Jason Moran's sparse piano--creates a dense, spiritual atmosphere. Moran ...

204

Album Review

Jim Guttmann: Bessarabian Breakdown

Read "Bessarabian Breakdown" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
September 15, 2010

Surely Bessarabian Breakdown is a contender for one of 2010's most interesting albums . It has been a year for a sort of mini-revival of roots music, and klezmer has received wide attention--as much as the blues and other folk music. Against that backdrop, Jim Guttmann's Bessarabian Breakdown must be well received. It is a sleek production that sings passionately of a music that arguably originated among the Levites in Biblical times. However, the repertoire that has been handed down ...

618

Interview

Kit Downes: You Have to Be What You Are

by Bruce Lindsay
September 15, 2010

Kit Downes' career as a jazz musician has, indeed, taken off in a very short time. He's still in his mid-20s, but such is his talent and appetite for music that Downes has become one of the most sought-after keyboardist in Britain, and he's a key presence in a series of cutting-edge bands, with The Golden Age Of Steam, Troyka, Big Cat and his own Kit Downes Trio all springing readily to mind. While the intelligent but ...

384

Multiple Reviews

Michael Dease, Mike Fahie: Attack of the Killer Trombones!

by J Hunter
September 15, 2010

The trombone: long locked into a stereotypical role formed by Dixieland, and only occasionally broken since. Fortunately, the last few years have seen more and more trombonists following J.J. Johnson's lead and bringing the instrument out front. Four discs with trombones at their center have stood out so far in 2010; two are reviewed here, two more will follow in a sequel. Michael DeaseGraceJazz Legacy Productions2010 Michael Dease was ...

170

Album Review

Tomas Fujiwara & The Hook Up: Actionspeak

Read "Actionspeak" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
September 15, 2010

Actionspeak, by drummer Tomas Fujiwara & The Hook Up, operates as an updated take on Miles Davis' 1960s quintet idea. As a working band, the combination of Fujiwara with bassist Danton Boller, trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson, guitarist Mary Halvorson and saxophonist Brian Settles presents musical entertainment, more than intellectual device, while advancing the ideology of jazz as a viable commodity. This is new music and very easy to love.While this is Fujiwara's first recording as leader, he has been ...

354

Take Five With...

Take Five With Michael Lowenstern

by AAJ Staff
September 15, 2010

Meet Michael Lowenstern:Michael Lowenstern, widely considered one of the finest bass clarinetists in the world, has performed, recorded and toured as a soloist and with ensembles of every variety. Michael has written music for concert, film, dance and various other new media over the span of his 20-year career. Actively involved with technology in sound and music, Michael has been a pioneer in the field of interactive computer music, having created or performed over a hundred works for ...

386

Album Review

Mitchel Forman: Lost and Found

Read "Lost and Found" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
September 15, 2010

This wonderfully strange disc, Lost and Found is the result of a confluence of spirits. Recorded in 1979, pianist Mitchel Forman was performing with Gerry Mulligan's quartet. Forman was invited to the Tuscan villa of Franca Mulligan's parents, Gerry's in-laws. There, Mulligan recorded the young pianist performing originals and Mulligan compositions. Besides a church-arty “Jeru," Forman performed Mulligan's “Butterflies with Hiccups." The composition possesses elements of 1920s jazz piano, stride, ragtime, and mainstream. Forman's playing captures the ...

177

Album Review

Doug Webb: Midnight

Read "Midnight" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
September 15, 2010

If one is truly judged by the company they keep, then saxophonist Doug Webb is immediately well thought of, even before hearing his music. While Midnight marks his recorded debut as a leader, he's performed and/or recorded with a long list of jazz greats, including Horace Silver, Freddie Hubbard and Billy Higgins, and appeared on over 150 jazz recordings. Though Webb isn't a household name, millions of people have heard his solos on the soundtracks for Clint Eastwood-directed films like ...