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.

2,018

Live Review

Copenhagen Jazz Festival 2010

by Jakob Baekgaard
July 26, 2010

Copenhagen Jazz Festival Various Venues Copenhagen, Denmark July 2-11, 2010With the current crisis of the major record labels and the folding of venues all over the world, it could be argued that jazz, as an art form, has entered the age of survival where it is simply a basic matter of keeping the music alive, rather than trying to let it flourish and expand. However, there are also signs that the so--called crisis of the ...

1,230

Interview

Don Aliquo: The Man, The Music, The Journey

by Ludwig vanTrikt
July 26, 2010

Geography is a central theme in the life and artistry of Pittsburgh's native son, Don Aliquo. The saxophonist, educator and bandleader is part of a rich steel town jazz lineage which includes his father, Don Aliquo Sr., a performing artist and teacher in his own right. There is also a metaphorical geography, in which Aliquo covers virtually all aspects of the jazz experience, from daunting mainstream swing to edgy, modernistic genres.All About Jazz: As a Professor of Saxophone ...

1,054

Live Review

Norwegian Road Trip, Part 6: Molde Jazz, Days 3-4

by John Kelman
July 25, 2010

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 [Editors Note: From July 6 to July 26, 2010, All About Jazz Managing Editor John Kelman will travel throughout Norway to cover both the Kongsberg Jazz Festival (also participating in Silver City Sounds) and Molde Jazz. He'll also spend a week between the two famous festivals in Oslo, where he'll check out the scene, talk to musicians and labels, ...

284

Album Review

Erik Truffaz: Rendez-Vous

Read "Rendez-Vous" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
July 25, 2010

At first sight, everything is wrong about this 3CD set, recorded by the fusion and ambient trumpeter Erik Truffaz in Paris, Benares and Mexico--via a heap of international file-sharing--with help from the locals. “Wrong" like that table in the New York nightclub in 1971's The French Connection. Except that the bagmen portrayed in the movie were somehow, indefinably but unmistakably, bad news. There's nothing indefinably troubling about Rendez-Vous, however; it's there clear as a pikestaff and twice as nasty. It ...

898

Profile

Introducing Booker Little

by Robert Levin
July 25, 2010

[Editor's Note: This interview last appeared in Jazz & Pop, 1970. Little died in 1961, just a few months after it was originally published in Metronome.] Booker Little, twenty-three year-old composer, arranger and trumpet player (the order is arbitrary, each role has equal importance to him), has lately come to demonstrate, in recordings and as the musical director of the Max Roach group, a talent that promises size. As is true of many jazz players of ...

368

Album Review

Nadav Snir-Zelniker: Thinking Out Loud

Read "Thinking Out Loud" reviewed by John Barron

by John Barron
July 25, 2010

Israeli-drummer Nadav Snir-Zelniker approaches straight-ahead, swinging jazz with a joyful spirit on his debut recording Thinking Out Loud. From the opening notes of “Pizmon Layakinton (Song for Hyacinth)" anchored by veteran bassist Todd Coolman, the disc presents a trio sound sensitive to group communication and exceptional individualism. Pianist Ted Rosenthal guides the trio through an exquisite ride through ten tracks comprised of well-known standards and originals. Demonstrating a thorough understanding of the jazz drumming tradition, Snir- Zelniker creates ...

212

Live Review

Giant Step 20th Anniversary: Aloe Blacc + Raphael Saadiq, Central Park Summerstage, July 17 2010

by Ernest Barteldes
July 25, 2010

Giant Step 20th AnniveraryAloe Blacc + Raphael SaadiqJuly 17, 2010Central Park SummerstageNew York, NYFor his first appearance in New York, Los Angeles-based singer Aloe Blacc came on stage backed by a solid nine-piece band, showcasing his take on the classic soul revival that harkens back to the likes of Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye and others from that time, whose influence Blacc openly acknowledged during his set. Though most of his tunes had more ...

162

Album Review

Tom Rainey Trio: Pool School

Read "Pool School" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
July 24, 2010

Though there are more substantial things to observe about Brooklyn-based drummer Tom Rainey's Pool School, let's start by saying that the disc's hand-tinted, faux 1930s cover art is among the more stylish to have emerged so far in 2010. And even if the imagery is most immediately resonant of summer in Portugal, the Clean Feed label's home turf, intentionally or not, there is a connection to the music on the metal (yes, it does have something to do with deep ...

756

Book Excerpts

Cecil Taylor at the Take 3, 1962-'63

by Robert Levin
July 24, 2010

The following is a chapter from “Going Outside: Fiction * Commentary * Jazz." robert-levin.com. In the summer of 1962, Cecil lands a three-month, four-night-a-week gig at The Take 3, a coffee house on Bleecker Street. It's right next door to The Bitter End where Woody Allen had performed just weeks before. (Allen was second on the bill and I'd thrown him a quick couple of lines in the Village Voice column--something about how this ...

230

Album Review

Shez Raja: Mystic Radikal

Read "Mystic Radikal" reviewed by George Mitton

by George Mitton
July 24, 2010

Shez Raja has described his band's sound as “a real kaleidoscope," an idea reflected in Mystic Radikal's psychedelic cover art. Raja studied Indian classical tabla drumming with virtuoso Sharda Sahai, but now applies these rhythms to the electric bass. On the album there's a fusion of eastern sounds, with synthesizer drones used to reference the music of the Indian subcontinent. But there's also a riotous African influence on songs such as “Carnival of Colour," where violinist Pascal Roggen duels exuberantly ...