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.

286

Album Review

Kneebody: You Can Have Your Moment

Read "You Can Have Your Moment" reviewed by Troy Collins

by Troy Collins
August 7, 2010

Following in the wake of Twelve Songs by Charles Ives, a 2009 collaboration with avant-garde vocalist Theo Bleckmann, You Can Have Your Moment is Kneebody's second album for the enterprising German label Winter & Winter, and the quintet's fourth full-length release since its self-titled 2005 debut on Greenleaf records. Similar to the band's sophomore effort, Low Electrical Worker (Colortone Media, 2007), this heavily amplified session finds the young ensemble delving further into electronic territory, eschewing the partially acoustic instrumentation of ...

1,226

Film Review

Weather Report: Live in Germany 1971

by John Kelman
August 7, 2010

Weather Report Live in Germany 1971 MVD/Gonzo Distribution 2010 While technology has made audio and video recording a much easier thing in the 21st century, there's still the problem of where to broadcast it. Sure, there's the internet, and YouTube, for example, has become a treasure trove of archival live footage from bands that might otherwise have been forgotten. But it's chaos, with no real order or theme to the footage--just an overwhelming amount that, ...

214

Album Review

Nate Wooley / Paul Lytton: Creak above 33

Read "Creak above 33" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
August 7, 2010

Just how much improvisation is possible by manipulating consoles and electronic buzz is evident in the ingenious experimentation of Nate Wooley and Paul Lytton on Creek above 33. Of course, there is also that small aspect of performance on trumpet and percussion, by Wooley and Lytton respectively, that almost goes unnoticed. It is so spare, and emerges in such brilliant flashes of light, that the music has a blinding effect on the ear as though it were a question of ...

650

Extended Analysis

Sun Ra: College Tour Vol. 1

by Raul d'Gama Rose
August 7, 2010

Sun Ra College Tour Vol. 1ESP Disk2010 There is nothing quite as breathtaking as one of the early recordings of Sun Ra and his Arkestra. After his explosive and historic recordings The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra Vol. IVol. II were first released in 1965 and 1966, modern music was never the same. It is, in fact, debatable that guitarist Jimi Hendrix was an early acolyte, as were so many musicians of the ...

266

Album Review

Dino Saluzzi: El Encuentro

Read "El Encuentro" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan

by Dan McClenaghan
August 7, 2010

On El Ecuentro, Argentine bandoneon master Dino Saluzzi teams with saxophonist brother Felix Saluzzi and cellist Anja Lechner in a meeting with Holland's Metropole Orchestra. It is Saluzzi's first recorded encounter with an orchestra, and his first ever live recording. More familiar ground for Saluzzi is his work with Lechner, on Ojos Negros (ECM, 2007), and Felix, on Juan Condori (ECM, 2006).The initial impression of El Encuentro is: this is serious stuff. The four compositions, all by Saluzzi, ...

312

Album Review

Hilario Duran Trio: Motion

by Jerry D'Souza
August 7, 2010

Hilario Duran continues to essay his skills as a pianist and composer of remarkable virtuosity on Motion. The compositions open a vista of stylistic opportunities, into which he delves with relish and focus, as he drives his creative forces to a new high. Duran's father, Hilario Duran Sr., was part of the “Movimiento del 'Feeling'" (The Feeling Movement) in Cuba, and regularly met with other musicians including Omara Portundo. The younger Duran, who began playing the piano by ...

501

Live Review

Doug Wamble / Charlie Hunter / Bernard Purdie at The Iridium, July 2010

by AAJ Staff
August 7, 2010

Doug Wamble / Charlie Hunter / Bernard PurdieThe IridiumNew York City, USAJuly, 2010 Iridium in summer. It's 10:00PM and simmering outside. A Broadway building announced the temperature as being 82 degrees. But inside the club it was about to get bluesy... and funky. The featured performer was guitarist and singer Doug Wamble, who was appearing in an all-star trio with seven-string guitarist Charlie Hunter (combining bass and lead capabilities, frets aimed in opposite directions at ...

244

Album Review

Evan Parker: Whitstable Solo

Read "Whitstable Solo" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
August 6, 2010

The music on Whitstable Solo flows like a force of nature. It reaches gale force at times, and finds saxophonist Evan Parker traversing myriad topographies with deft fingering and counterpoint so magical, despite the music's inevitable flow towards a conclusion. Parker also uses an extraordinary palette of colors that turn so vivid at times that the emotion of the music may turn on a dime, and yet he retains a tone that is controlled, only becoming mellow if the saxophonist ...

277

Extended Analysis

Aki Takase: A Week Went By

by Raul d'Gama Rose
August 6, 2010

Aki TakaseA Week Went ByPsi Records2010 This is audacious music. In the emerging drama, pianist Aki Takase plays just a ripple away from bassist John Edwards, who is, in turn, a ripple away from percussionist Tony Levin. Each relates to the other through the glacial topography of something such as kryptonite. Thus the whole idea of the trio is turned inside out as new musical structures emerge from the prodding of ...

247

Album Review

Ernesto Cervini: Little Black Bird

Read "Little Black Bird" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
August 6, 2010

Wit and wisdom are doled out in equal measure throughout many of drummer Ernesto Cervini's compositions. Whether he is writing a piece in honor of his grandmother ("Nonna Rosa") or musically reliving a bad bird-related experience on his honeymoon ("Little Black Bird"), his music always comes across as smart, with an occasional tongue-in-cheek element at play. On Little Black Bird, Cervini serves up eight of his own delectable musical dishes, along with his arrangement of Radiohead's “2 ...