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.

422

Live Review

Leigh Sutherlin at Tango Del Rey, San Diego, CA

by Dan McClenaghan
September 7, 2009

Leigh Sutherlin QuartetTango Del ReySan Diego, CaliforniaAugust 16, 2009San Diego may not have the most robust of jazz scenes, but there are clubs out there doing their share to shine a bright light on artists local and national. Dizzy's In Downtown has been a local mainstay, featuring artists as diverse as trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, free jazz dynamo Satoko Fujii, and the quirky, rock-tinged Seattle band Matt Jorgensen + 451. The Athenaeum in La Jolla has ...

571

Take Five With...

Take Five With Trey Wright

by AAJ Staff
September 7, 2009

Meet Trey Wright: Trey Wright is a jazz guitarist, composer, and recording artist based in Roswell, Ga. While studying Sociology at the University of Georgia, Trey studied jazz improvisation with pianist and composer Steve Dancz. In 1994, he co-founded the Athens/Atlanta based jazz band Squat. The group is a six-time winner of Best Jazz Band at the Flagpole Athens Music Awards and has been at festivals and clubs throughout the Southeast. Several of Trey's compositions with the group have received ...

190

Album Review

Klang: Tea Music

by Lyn Horton
September 7, 2009

Four musicians from Chicago, led by clarinetist James Falzone, call themselves Klang, which is the German word for “sound." But Klang's debut, Tea Music, projects more than just sound; it goes deeper than that. The music is a re-examination of Jimmy Giuffre's combination of vibes and clarinet in his late-1950s ensembles. Bassist Jason Roebke and drummer Tim Daisy join vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz and Falzone to create an album that alternates between fast and moderate rhythms; and haunting and colorful tunes. ...

348

Album Review

Ray Brown Jr.: Friends and Family

Read "Friends and Family" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
September 7, 2009

A solid pedigree does not necessarily guarantee talent, but in the case of Ray Brown Jr. it clearly has, which makes Friends and Family even more disappointing. Brown has an evocative baritone and an impeccable mastery over the art of singing that rivals the best classically trained opera performers. His delivery on this record, however, is monotonous and varies little from song to song. The presence of different guest artists is the only differentiator among the tracks. ...

374

Album Review

Gunter Hampel: Vibes Vibes (Vibrafon Solos 2008)

Read "Vibes Vibes (Vibrafon Solos 2008)" reviewed by Marc Medwin

by Marc Medwin
September 7, 2009

Glass, shimmer, impressionism and cool all vie for prominence throughout these excursions into the multiplicitous world multi-instrumentalist Gunter Hampel creates on every solo . Logical proportions are exposed only to disappear; tones glisten, swell and fade, either in rapid succession or in glacial dance. This is only the second solo release from the prolific improviser on his own label, a company which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year and a more fitting one would be hard to imagine.

172

Album Review

John Stetch: TV Trio

Read "TV Trio" reviewed by Graham L. Flanagan

by Graham L. Flanagan
September 7, 2009

With TV Trio, pianist John Stetch lays the groundwork for reinstituting jazz as part of the mainstream: pop-culture consciousness. Stetch, bassist Doug Weiss and drummer Rodney Green interpret 12 vintage TV theme songs. Some are instantly recognizable due to the faithfulness of the arrangements. Others are a little harder to decipher, Stetch taking inspiration from a basic element of the composition and molding it into his own, unique creation. Stetch's approach on some of the selections might ...

931

Live Review

Punkt Festival 2009: Day 4, Kristiansand, Norway, September 5, 2009

by John Kelman
September 7, 2009

Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 For its fifth year, Punkt Festival's evening programming was, more than any other, organized around clearer thematic lines, although that still meant a considerably broader purview than most other festivals--and, of course, there was the occasional exception. The first day spotlighted up-and-coming talent; the second, largely more experimental improvisation; and the third, singer/songwriters. For Punkt 2009's final day, the emphasis was more decidedly on jazz, in conventional ...

990

Interview

John Patitucci: Celebrating Jazz Heroes

by R.J. DeLuke
September 7, 2009

As sayings go, “One man's trash is another man's treasure" is pretty straightforward, especially for those enamored with garage sales. For lovers of jazz music, it may hold a bit more significance, for it played a fateful role in the life of one of today's superlative artists in the genre. John Patitucci is one of the finest bass players in jazz. A mainstay of the Wayne Shorter quartet for years, he's also blessed the world of music by ...

280

Album Review

Nick Hempton Band: Nick Hempton Band

Read "Nick Hempton Band" reviewed by David A. Orthmann

by David A. Orthmann
September 6, 2009

After a few years of knocking about in New York City's jazz underground, the Nick Hempton Band is getting a toehold in venues like Smalls, Zinc Bar, and Fat Cat. Hempton's satirical account of the rigors of a “combined eight hours of work in a single month" is posted on the band's website in an entry dated 6/9/09. Throughout a self-titled debut recording, they're an unusually sharp, cohesive unit. Stylistically speaking, Hempton and his cohorts operate in the bop-to-hard bop ...

453

Album Review

Darwin Noguera's Evolution Quartet: The Gardener

Read "The Gardener" reviewed by Matthew Warnock

by Matthew Warnock
September 6, 2009

The Gardener is an expressive and experimental take on the Latin jazz vernacular by talented, Chicago-based pianist Darwin Noguera. With his tongue-in-cheek Evolution Quartet, Noguera is not only referencing the famed father of modern evolutionary theory, with whom he shares a name, he is also referring to the evolutionary nature of his music. The music here represents a new branch on the tree of jazz; Noguera's music grows out of a strong understanding of what has come before, while creating ...