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Building a Jazz Library

Charles Lloyd: Defiant Warrior Still On Song

Read "Charles Lloyd: Defiant Warrior Still On Song" reviewed by Chris May


As fool's errands go, few compare with selecting a Top Ten Albums collection from Charles Lloyd's extensive top-drawer output. But here goes. Lloyd newbies could consider the list a launch pad, and seasoned fans can compare the choices with their own... Anyone going to jazz festivals in summer 1966, and lucky enough to catch the Charles Lloyd Quartet, will likely have one tune in particular imprinted on their memory. Not because Lloyd had already twice recorded “Forest ...

Album Review

Bobby Wellins Quartet: What Was Happening

Read "What Was Happening" reviewed by Chris May


In 1965 tenor saxophonist Bobby Wellins made an indelible mark on jazz history with his contribution to pianist Stan Tracey's Jazz Suite Inspired By Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood (Columbia). The exquisite “Starless And Bible Black" is the most frequently cited track (check the YouTube below) and is indicative of the album's overall beauty. For a while, things looked good for the Glasgow-born, London-based Wellins, but by the end of the decade “health problems" closed down his career until around ...

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Play This!

Gleb Kolyadin: Voyager

Read "Gleb Kolyadin: Voyager" reviewed by Geno Thackara


Not content to merely master the tricky art of the piano, Gleb Kolyadin manages the even trickier art of crossing prog and classical without relying on volume or bombast. Even if his brand of fusion has plenty of electricity and a share of sweeping drama, somehow this degree of brain-twisting complexity never feels pompous or overblown. ...

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Album Review

Ches Smith: Laugh Ash

Read "Laugh Ash" reviewed by Glenn Astarita


Ches Smith's Laugh Ash is not your garden-variety jazz concoction. Instead, it is a genre-defying, shape-twisting auditory escapade that does not just push the envelope--it sends it soaring into the stratosphere. It is both bewildering and bedazzling. These compositions stand as a towering testament to Smith's impressive acumen as a drummer, percussionist, and composer, a veritable Houdini of the music world who escapes the shackles of convention to chart a mesmerizing course through uncharted musical terrains.Right from the ...

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Interview

A Conversation with Brad Mehldau

Read "A Conversation with Brad Mehldau" reviewed by AAJ Staff


This article was first published at All About Jazz in 2002. All About Jazz: Do you recall your first jazz record? Brad Mehldau: I think the first real jazz record I listened to was an Oscar Peterson and Joe Pass duo album, one of those Pablo things. A friend of my father's bought it for me when I was eleven years old. Oscar was really the first guy I really listened to. That was the one. ...

Album Review

Ulysses Owens, Jr. and Generation Y: A New Beat

Read "A New Beat" reviewed by Jack Bowers


The rhythms presented on award-winning drummer Ulysses Owens Jr.'s latest album are not exactly A New Beat, as they have been heard in various configurations for at least eighty years or more, but they do provide a plausible indication of the path that Art Blakey's legendary Jazz Messengers would presumably have followed had Blakey lived into the twenty-first century. Owens, who teaches at the Juilliard School in New York City, has a knack for spotting and encouraging ...

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Radio & Podcasts

Joel Ross, Simona Severini, Larry Goldings, John Sneider & More

Read "Joel Ross, Simona Severini, Larry Goldings, John Sneider & More" reviewed by Ludovico Granvassu


Billy Valentine's new single, three albums that will end up on our best of the year list, and more... that's what you'll find in this thoroughly enjoyable ride!Happy listening!Playlist Ben Allison “Mondo Jazz Theme (feat. Ted Nash & Pyeng Threadgill)" 0:00 Laurent de Wilde “Get Up and Dance" Life Is a Movie (Gazebo) 0:16 Host talks 7:22 Billy Valentine feat. Jeff Parker, Pino Palladino, Larry Goldings “Lady Day and John Coltrane" Lady Day and John Coltrane--Single ...

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Book Review

Talking The Groove: Jazz Words From The Morning Star

Read "Talking The Groove: Jazz Words From The Morning Star" reviewed by Chris May


Talking The Groove: Jazz Words From The Morning Star Chris Searle 394 Pages ISBN: 978-1-9163206-7-3 Jazz In Britain 2024 Although Marxist-Leninist theory itself has proved to be, at best, a blind alley--and, at worst, in practice the enemy of the freedoms it claims to champion--writers from the Left have contributed much to the study of jazz, an art form which has ideas of freedom, both artistic and societal, at its core. The ...

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Album Review

Matt Anderson: Live at Leeds Jazz Festival

Read "Live at Leeds Jazz Festival" reviewed by Neil Duggan


To appreciate the synergy and spirit of a band it often pays to hear them play live. The quality of their playing and their abilities to interact are laid bare. Releasing their first live recording, the Matt Anderson Quartet can do so confidently having spent nearly a decade touring and recording together. Live at Leeds Jazz Festival was made at HEART in Headingly as part of the 2023 Leeds Jazz Festival. It features two tracks from the band's ...

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Live Review

Tierney Sutton and Tamir Hendelman at the Jazz Forum

Read "Tierney Sutton and Tamir Hendelman at the Jazz Forum" reviewed by Scott Lichtman


Tierney Sutton and Tamir Hendelman Jazz Forum Tarrytown, NY March 15, 2024 Tierney Sutton and Tamir Hendelman brought an expressive evening of voice and piano to the Jazz Forum in Tarrytown NY, March 15th, 2024. The overarching theme of the performance was “songs about Spring." There's a variety of reasons that every recording Sutton has made in the last decade has been nominated for a “Best Jazz Vocal Album" Grammy. Among these are ...


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