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.
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Hermon Mehari: American Jazz, Eritrean Echoes
by Nicholas F. Mondello
Award-winning trumpeter, composer and educator Hermon Mehari is a modern day Renaissance Master. Born in the United States of Eritrean parents who were refugees, Mehari has brilliantly crafted a musical presence and branding that melds American jazz and its deep traditions with Eritrean overtones. A true visionary, Mehari has recorded a handful of highly-acclaimed albums, including Asmara (Komos Records, 2022) hosts a live radio show, teaches and tours worldwide as both leader and sideman. He currently resides in Paris, France. ...
Continue ReadingBela Fleck: Rhapsody In Blue
by Doug Collette
It's a long way from India to Broadway, but Bela Fleck makes the journey in high style for Rhapsody in Blue. It follows the altogether exotic As We Speak (Thirty Tigers, 2023), the combination of which further a case for the banjoist/composer/bandleader as an eclectic musical explorer comparable to Pat Metheny. Beginning in the slow-but-sure, occasionally fitful way this album's concept came together, “Rhapsody in Blue (grass)" features seemingly conventional banjo voicings alternated with George Gershwin's inimitable progressions. ...
Continue ReadingElan Mehler: Trouble In Mind
by John Chacona
There's a scene in Michael Cimino's 1978 film The Deer Hunter where five friends celebrate a successful hunt at the bar owned by their older companion. The mood is celebratory, but as John (George Dzundza), the bar's owner, sits down at the piano to play Chopin's G-Minor Nocturne, the room grows quiet. Three of the younger men are shipping out to Vietnam, and while they don't know what the future holds, the music hints at the cataclysm to come.
Continue ReadingWalt Shaw & Jim Tetlow: Inner Skull Trail
by Glenn Astarita
This is a fascinating audio expedition crafted by the collaborative talents of Walt Shaw and Jim Tetlow. This album is a sequel to their previous work Cartography of Dreams, for the same record label. Each track is a testament to the duo's spontaneous improvisational prowess. Recorded in one live session, the music is executed via a raw and unfiltered creative process. It is a production which is as much an auditory experience as a performance art piece, blurring ...
Continue ReadingNew Releases From Giorgia Hannoush, Yuhan Su, Amanda Gardier, Mary Halvorson, Eugenie Jones & More
by Mary Foster Conklin
This broadcast includes new releases from guitarists Giorgia Hannoush and Mary Halvorson, vibraphonist Yuhan Su, saxophonist Amanda Gardier, pianist Myra Melford and vocalist Eugenie Jones, with birthday shoutouts to Marc Cary, Lil Hardin Armstrong, Jutta Hipp, Jeanne Lee, Cindy Scott, and Caili O'Doherty, among others. Thanks for listening and please support the artists you hear by seeing them live and online. Purchase their music so they can continue to distract, comfort, provoke and inspire.Playlist Marc Cary “Music Is ...
Continue ReadingA Classic Jazz Curriculum with Label M's Joel Dorn
by Chris M. Slawecki
This article was first published at All About Jazz in April 2001. Ah, the classics. In every art form painting, literature, architecture, dance, music there are works which possess timeless beauty, works with themes that resonate emotionally across decades, through centuries, and are masterfully presented. Joel Dorn's name is indelibly written in the book of jazz classics, though he's never written, hummed, strummed, blown, or otherwise struck a single musical note. He produced albums, in the ...
Continue ReadingBlue Note Series of Rare Summer Grooves
by Chris M. Slawecki
This article was first published at All About Jazz in September 2002 under the old Combing the Blue Note Catalog column. The Rascals knew all about it. They expressed it perfectly in one of their biggest hit singles: Ain't nothing like groovin' on a Sunday afternoon. Not much serves the purpose of that groove better than the right music. To enjoy an exceptional groove, you often need some exceptionally groovin' music. Exceptional grooves--or, if you prefer, Rare Grooves. ...
Continue ReadingJohnny Smith featuring Stan Getz: Moonlight In Vermont
by Chris May
The last word in glacial serenity, this version of Karl Suessdorf's “Moonlight In Vermont" was, as a single on the Roost label, a bigtime jukebox and radio hit for Johnny Smith and Stan Getz in 1952. At the time both musicians were salaried musicians at NBC radio and TV studios in New York. In all, in 1952 and 1953, Smith and Getz recorded eight tracks for Roost, which were included on the 1956 compilation album Moonlight In Vermont. Perhaps the ...
Continue ReadingJosh White: You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To
by Ian Patterson
Josh White could probably have made a career just as a singer, but for his wonderful guitar playing. Good job he refused doctors' advice to have his left hand amputated after a bar fight when he was just 22. An influence on everyone from Peter Seeger to Elvis Presley and Harry Belafonte, and from John Fahey and Ry Cooder to John Renbourn. This clip from 1962 finds him in spellbinding form. According to Village Vanguard owner Max Gordon, “The greatest ...
Continue ReadingMoppa Elliott's Acceleration Due To Gravity: Jonesville
by Mike Jurkovic
Whatever 'script renegade bassist/composer Moppa Elliot takes on a daily basis, he should be made to share with the rest of the world. Whatever that tonic, whatever that pill, whatever that gumbo scented elixir is, let us have it now. Elliot may not want to open up his private stash to the public, but he sure knows how to let it fly in the music he and his nonet--Acceleration Due to Gravity--put forth on the rightly raucous and ...
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