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.

Radio & Podcasts

Josh Mason: Punk And Circuitry, Zippered Together

by Lawrence Peryer
August 22, 2026

This week we're putting The Tonearm's needle on Florida sound artist Josh Mason. Mason's new album, Kicking A Dark Horse, is out now on greyfade as a hardcover book paired with modular synthesizer music, the two built to zipper together rather than stand apart. We talk about the punk rock roots underneath all that circuitry, why only the album's first and last tracks have a fixed place, and what Cortázar's Hopscotch has to do with any ...

In Pictures

The San Jose Jazz Fest 2026 was on Fire

by Ronald Davis
August 22, 2026

A collection of photos from the San Jose Jazz Fest in San Jose from August 7, 2026 to August 9, 2026 featuring Nnenna Freelon, Javon Jackson, Willie Jones III, Charles McPherson, Cyrus Chestnut, Adi Oasis, Irene Diaz, The Soul Rebels, Gretchen Parlato, Harrell “Young Rell" Davenport, Aja Monet, Sylvia Cuenca, Essiet Okon Essiet, Wallace Roney Jr, Roger Glenn, Ray Obiedo, Bria Skonberg, and Jubu Smith. ...

The Blue Note Portal

Disconfusion

by Blue Note Portal
August 21, 2026

The 1973 Lincoln Continental took the curves of Topanga Canyon Boulevard like a ship in a slow swell. In the back seat sat Jimmy Smith--forty-four years old, the undisputed godfather of soul-jazz, and currently he was stewing. Damn, it's come to this, Jimmy thought, staring out at the dark oak trees sliding past the windows. Playing at some stupid ass private party in the canyon for some rich fool. Then his thoughts wandered, as they often had lately, to ...

Album Review

Mike Jones: Mike Jones With Strings

Read "Mike Jones With Strings" reviewed by Pierre Giroux

by Pierre Giroux
August 21, 2026

There is something refreshingly honest about a drummerless trio. Without the cushion of cymbals and snare to drive the pulse, every note matters a little more. This format dates back to the Nat King Cole Trio in the 1930s and to the Oscar Peterson-celebrated groups of the 1950s, in which the guitar and bass took responsibility for keeping the music moving. Mike Jones clearly understands that tradition, and Mike Jones with Strings embraces it with confidence and style.

Album Review

King Crimson: 2014 NYC

Read "2014 NYC" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
August 21, 2026

For a band that reinvents itself every decade or so, King Crimson has always treated New York as something closer to a proving ground than a tour stop. The city runs through the group's history, from the 1969 Fillmore East debut through the Larks' era sendoff at Central Park in 1974, six nights at the Savoy in 1981, later singled out as a high point, and a 2008 stand at the Nokia Theatre that marked drummer Gavin Harrison's arrival in ...

Radio & Podcasts

The John Coltrane Centennial, part 2: 1950s era recordings as a leader

by Larry Slater
August 21, 2026

John Coltrane was a member of Miles Davis' quintet from 1955-1957, and then again later in the decade after he kicked his heroin habit. His tenure with Miles led to his first opportunities to record as a leader for Prestige Records and Blue Note, including “Blue Trane" and his Prestige releases “Coltrane" and “Settin' the Pace." “Blue Trane" was the first recording to include all original Coltrane compositions, and one of his most successful recordings.You'll hear commentary on ...

Album Review

Christian Parker: American Cosmic Revival Vol. 2: Miles From Nowhere

Read "American Cosmic Revival Vol. 2: Miles From Nowhere" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
August 21, 2026

Cover bands abound within contemporary music circles, both on stage and in the studio. But a chosen artist's interpretation of the songs and music of another rarely matches (and never exceeds) the authenticity of spirit displayed by Christian Parker and those kindred spirits with whom he has been collaborating in recent years on the esteemed canon of that iconic American band, The Byrds. Over the course of four albums now--the most outstanding of which is Change Is Now--A Tribute ...

Radio & Podcasts

Chapter 2: I Want To Be A Sideman

by Larry Slater
August 21, 2026

Artie Shaw was an enigma. A self-taught, brilliant clarinetist blessed with movie-star good looks, he became one of the defining musicians of the Big Band era. Yet at the height of his fame, he walked away from the music business, leaving behind a legacy as fascinating as it was influential. In the early 1990s, Ted Hallock--a passionate jazz scholar and former Oregon State Senator--spent a week with Shaw recording an extraordinary series of in-depth conversations about music, life ...

Radio & Podcasts

José Luiz Martins

by Daniel Peck
August 21, 2026

Washington DC-based pianist and composer José Luiz Martins brings a unique and inventive approach to his playing, compositions and arrangements. His creative sense of storytelling combined with a diverse harmonic palette and refined sense of rhythm create a vibrant, expansive, and enticing sonic experience.That harmonic palette is on display both in this performance and his 2025 release Odyssey Mixtape. Featuring, among others, Alex Hamburger on flute and Patrick Duke Graney on percussion, and from a July 26th, 2025 ...

Radio & Podcasts

Kelan Phil Cohran, Airto Moreira, Nicholas Payton & Butcher Brown, Plus Others

by Lawrence Peryer
August 21, 2026

Episode 19 is about the many ways of turning old material into new work: Kelan Phil Cohran's 1993 planetarium session resurfacing as a proper vinyl reissue, Concepción Huerta printing electricity onto magnetic tape, Wild Gods treating archival Gaelic lament as material to be worked rather than heritage to be preserved. It closes on two records built openly from older ones: Airto Moreira and Ricardo Bacelar's cross-generational Brazilian session, and Nicholas Payton and Butcher Brown's soul-funk rebuild of Miles Davis's Kind ...