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.

315

Album Review

Various: Magic Moments 4: Jazz Is Cool

Read "Magic Moments 4: Jazz Is Cool" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
August 29, 2010

Germany's ACT Music is an innovative and adventurous label with an international roster that includes some genuinely cutting-edge musicians including Vijay Iyer and Dan Berglund's Tonbruket. Magic Moments 4: Jazz Is Cool is the fourth in ACT's sampler series and a great place to begin exploring the music it has to offer. The majority of the tracks here come from Northern European artists and demonstrate the range of talent that is emanating from that relatively small part ...

337

Album Review

Fay Claassen: Sing!

Read "Sing!" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
August 29, 2010

Dutch singer Fay Claassen doesn't necessarily push beyond the musical house, but she does occasionally rearrange the furniture. Her surveys of the Chet Baker catalog Two Portraits of Chet Baker (Jazz'n Pulz, 2006) revealed an abiding respect for the jazz canon, while also giving hint to a playful and creative attitude toward the music. This is never in more evidence than on her cover of Björk's “Cover Me," from the Icelandic pop singer's Post (Elektra, 1995). Under the ...

347

AAJ PRO

Dennis Sandole and Guitar Lore

by Chuck Anderson
August 29, 2010

Guitar Lore by Dennis Sandole was not originally published by Theodore Presser. I published the book and distributed it through my school Modern Music Studios Inc. A second edition paperback was published later by Pressers. There has always been controversy about the origins of the book. Dennis had conceived and organized this material long before it was published. At my urging (and I'm sure the urgings of others), he finally agreed to proceed with the production of the ...

218

Live Review

Gov't Mule & Jackie Greene: Live at the Lake

by Doug Collette
August 28, 2010

Gov't Mule/Jackie GreeneMaritime FestivalWaterfront Park, Burlington VTAugust 13, 2010 The bulk of Gov't Mule's August 13 performance at the Burlington Vermont Maritime Festival was, in its predominantly heavy, hard rock thrust, a perfect foil for the light breezy summer atmosphere at Waterfront Park on the shores of Lake Champlain.By the time the quartet took the stage after dark, the crowd had swelled considerably from the minimal audience present for opener Jackie Greene. ...

326

Album Review

Dave Liebman: Live/As Always

Read "Live/As Always" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
August 28, 2010

Dave Liebman, whether in the role of leader or sideman, works across styles and genres with an open mind and inventive approach. Live/As Always finds the saxophonist in top form, working with his 18-piece Big Band on a set of six original compositions. The band, directed by Gunnar Mossblad, is also at the top of its game and the arrangements, produced by five different arrangers including Mossblad, are fresh and stylistically varied. The album was recorded live--four ...

503

From Far and Wide

August 2010

by Fradley Garner
August 28, 2010

Two East Coast Big Bands specialize in music of the 1920s and '30s. Vince Giordano and His Nighthawks share the pre-Swing era with Long Island trombonist Ray Osnato and his South Shore Syncopators, a 10-piece band with five singers whose performances mimic a 1930s radio show, complete with honey-tongued announcer. Like Giordano, Osnato started young, collecting original arrangements and later transcribing vintage recordings. His book holds some 150 tunes, many associated with the youthful Bing Crosby, Paul Whiteman and Fletcher ...

361

Album Review

Elisabeth Lohninger: Songs of Love and Destruction

Read "Songs of Love and Destruction" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
August 28, 2010

Austrian-American Elisabeth Lohninger is emerging as a major creative force in jazz vocals. Her previous release, The Only Way Out is Up (Lofish, 2007), was well-received and displayed a talent both fully formed and evolving. Her first recording, Beneath The Surface (Lofish, 2004) was noted for the singer's “stylistic fluency and versatility." Versatile might be the key operative in describing Lohninger. Polyglot in language and jazz styles, she is at home in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and, ...

380

Album Review

Hadley Caliman / Pete Christlieb: Reunion

Read "Reunion" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
August 28, 2010

Reunion showcases a couple of old saxophone pros diving deep into the jazz mainstream, backed by an energized rhythm section. Tenor men Hadley Caliman and Pete Christlieb worked together on the Los Angeles Central Avenue jazz scene back in the 1960s, at a club called Marty's, where Caliman was the mentor. Forty-plus years later, they're back together again, on an absolute jewel of a straight-ahead offering.Caliman's recording career went dormant for thirty years--a drug problem, jail time, rehabilitation, ...

146

Album Review

Gato Libre: Shiro

Read "Shiro" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
August 28, 2010

The elemental sadness of Natsuki Tamura's trumpet, as it ascends the temperate scale he has created in “Dune and Star," defines the desolate beauty of Shiro, the fourth album from duo-turned-quartet, Gato Libre. Tamura also evokes the soft colors and textures of dawn, dusk, and the time in between, as if it has been caught in a frieze. His horn--and the manner in which he paces himself on it--recalls Miles Davis' memorable collaborations with Gil Evans. Davis eventually turned his ...

179

Album Review

Roberto Magris Quintet: Mating Call

Read "Mating Call" reviewed by Jerry D'Souza

by Jerry D'Souza
August 28, 2010

Pianist Roberto Magris has never shied away from exploring, whether bringing European and American jazz musicians into the ambit of his Europlane Orchestra, or merging hip-hop, new age music and new jazz with his Alfabeats Nu Jazz. For Mating Call, Magris set his sights firmly on mainstream jazz, with three of his originals and four other tunes making up the program. Magris writes with flair. “Europlane Blues," which swings breezily, features an arrangement expansive enough to allow his ...