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.

289

Live Review

Barry Harris: Setting The Standard On Standards

by Dan Bilawsky
February 8, 2010

The Barry Harris Trio Iridium New York, NY February 4, 2010Barry Harris has been a major force in jazz and jazz education for well over half a century. Now in his 80s, Harris seems to have lost none of his charm, wit, knowledge and skill, as he clearly held the crowd in the palm of his hand during his stay at the Iridium—just north of Times Square in Manhattan. This 75-minute set emphasized well-known songs ...

880

Profile

Vanguard Jazz Orchestra: A Band in the Vanguard

by George Kanzler
February 7, 2010

Not only is this the 75th anniversary of the Village Vanguard, this month also marks the 44th anniversary of the Monday night residency of the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra (VJO), begun in 1966 as the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra. Those Monday nights are a very significant part of the Vanguard's legacy as THE premier jazz club in history. Before cornetist, flugelhornist, composer and arranger Jones and drummer Lewis brought their big band into the Vanguard, ...

291

Album Review

Will Campbell: Think Tank

Read "Think Tank" reviewed by Raul d'Gama Rose

by Raul d'Gama Rose
February 7, 2010

Every once in awhile there emerges a record that is brimful with sinewy, simply honest music that reverberates from one song to another and leaves echoes of melodies or twists and turns in the musicians' solos long after the last notes of the record have died down. This is how alto saxophonist Will Campbell's debut as leader, Think Tank, runs the gauntlet in the tough and crowded musical world where post-bop alto saxophonists have been competing ever since Bird left ...

726

Profile

Harris Eisenstadt

by Clifford Allen
February 7, 2010

One normally thinks of the drummer-bandleader chair in this music as easily given to a mentality that embraces “more is more." Whether bombastic or just plain full, drummers' bands often focus on mass, rhythm and time. In the post-free arena, leaders like Gerry Hemingway, John Hollenbeck and Harris Eisenstadt have learned not only that every instrument can be a drum, but that the drum can be every instrument and that the drummer's role in creative music is as guide, follower, ...

308

Album Review

Robin Verheyen: Starbound

by J Hunter
February 7, 2010

After studying in his native Belgium and in the Netherlands, expatriate saxman Robin Verheyen spent a year at the Manhattan School of Music, where one of his teachers was soprano sax wizard Dave Leibman. Anyone familiar with Leibman's work knows the ex-Miles Davis sideman's musical feet are planted firmly on the ground... although which planet that ground is located on has never been determined. That being said, the astounding music on Starbound proves Verheyen is either a native of that ...

518

Album Review

Flux: Peninsulator

Read "Peninsulator" reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard

by Jakob Baekgaard
February 7, 2010

Uniting musicians from several parts of Europe, Copenhagen-based band Flux has the kind of restless cosmopolitan energy that its name seems to suggest. On Peninsulator the group plays its very own brand of postmodern jazz, referencing a wealth of styles from post-bop to classical, rock, and world music, while still being able to forge its own sprawling identity. At the heart of the group's sound lies the interplay between guitarist Per Arne Ferner and flutist Mikkel Breck. ...

418

Take Five With...

Take Five With Kathy Sanborn

by AAJ Staff
February 7, 2010

Meet Kathy Sanborn: Known for her velvet voice, Kathy Sanborn performs her own original smooth jazz and adult contemporary songs with an elegance that can take your breath away. A keyboard and pianist, Sanborn composes and produces both jazz instrumentals and vocal tunes. She released her first CD, Peaceful Sounds, to critical acclaim in 2008. Peaceful Sounds, a jazzy-new age blend of philosophical songs, was a best seller on the CD Baby web site. ...

391

Album Review

John Stein: Raising the Roof

Read "Raising the Roof" reviewed by Matthew Warnock

by Matthew Warnock
February 7, 2010

Raising the Roof is a hard-swinging and thoroughly enjoyable album by Boston-based guitarist John Stein. Featuring an all-star quartet, with keyboardist Koichi Sato, bassist John Lockwood and drummer Zé Eduardo Nazario, the group plays together with a sense of cohesion that borders on the realm of ESP. While this level of communication and familiarity is to be expected by world-class jazz musicians such as these, what is surprising is that they were able to play in this fashion with such ...

437

Album Review

Ted Nash: Portrait in Seven Shades

Read "Portrait in Seven Shades" reviewed by David Adler

by David Adler
February 7, 2010

The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (JLCO) is often derided as a bastion of conservatism, although it's not clear what is conservative about an epic like trumpeter Wynton Marsalis' Congo Square (Blue Note, 2007), with its volleys of Ghanaian percussion and ensemble-singing in the Ga and Fante dialects. For that matter, the JLCO accommodates boundary-pushing musicians like Ted Nash, who holds a multi-woodwinds chair while still doing offbeat work with the likes of bassist Ben Allison and pianist Frank Kimbrough--not ...

313

Album Review

Vincent Gardner: Three-Five

Read "Three-Five" reviewed by George Kanzler

by George Kanzler
February 7, 2010

The title here refers to both trombonist Vincent Gardner's age and the time signatures (3/4 and 5/4) of the majority of the tracks on this CD. Gardner says the “idea for the date was to try these pieces in a different meter. It's amazing that when you drop a beat and take a tune usually played in 4/4 down to 3/4 its character changes and therefore you respond differently." It's not really that straightforward; Gardner doesn't simply cast pieces in ...