Articles
Daily articles carefully curated by the All About Jazz staff. Read our popular and future articles.
Khruangbin: The Sly Art of Containment

by Alan Bryson
It's a good bet that most of us have heard people say they don't like jazz, or even worse, drop the H-bomb, I hate jazz." If you choose to engage, the key is to tread lightly and tailor an approach that considers the tastes and sensibilities of the other person. The So You Don't Like Jazz" column explores ways to do just that. This month's column begins at the dawning of the 1960s, a pivotal period in jazz ...
read moreThe Dave Brubeck Quartet: Time OutTakes

by Mike Jurkovic
When, for the first and the millionth time Paul McCartney is queried by lazy savants and crazed fans about what he would have cut from epic double White Album (Apple, 1968) to make it the strongest of the strongest single disc ever, the cutely weathered one just replies It's the Beatles' bleedin' White Album, man" and the discussion, at least for that moment, is done. The fans and essayists will go on and on and on while he pursues other ...
read moreDave Brubeck: Lullabies

by Doug Hall
Unlike other unearthed discoveries from seminal jazz musicians, pianist Dave Brubeck's Lullabies(Verve, 2020) is not an extension of studio material from his quartet years with alto saxophone master Paul Desmond or a bootlegged recording caught in a nightclub setting. In contrast, archival recordings uncovered since 2018 by other seminal artists such as John Coltrane on Both Directions at Once: The Lost Album( Verve, 2018), Stan Getz on Getz at the Gate: The Stan Getz Quartet Live at the Village Gate, ...
read moreDave Brubeck Quartet: Time OutTakes

by Chris May
Few albums in jazz history are as giant as the Dave Brubeck Quartet's Time Out (Columbia, 1959). Deftly balancing experimentation with accessibility and containing amongst its many pleasures one of the most thrilling drum solos ever recorded, Time Out has become so familiar to us that the magnitude of its greatness has become near inaudible. So an album of previously unheard out-takes is an event. Even if all the tracks turned out to be dogs, the disc ...
read moreDave Brubeck: Lullabies

by Chris May
Pianist and composer Dave Brubeck's centenary falls in December 2020 and two albums are being released to coincide. One is the outstanding Time OutTakes (Brubeck Editions), consisting of out-takes from the sessions which produced Time Out (Columbia, 1959). The album includes vibrant alternative readings of Blue Rondo A La Turk," Kathy's Waltz" and Time Out" itself among previously unheard versions of the first five tracks from the 1959 album. Unlike so many previously unheard (for good reason) collections of out-takes, ...
read moreNewk, Dave (And Paul), Fats & More

by Marc Cohn
Have you gotten used to writing or typing 2020 yet? I'm getting there just from filling out Gift and Messages paperwork and metadata! But let's get to the music, starting with a few 21st century tunes from Orrin Evans (putting the street beat to Ornette), trumpeter John McNeil and Russian saxophonist Makar Kashitsyn. Then Bobby Broom sets us up for our continuing Sonny Rollins celebration (the 'back half' of Saxophone Colossus). We start the Dave Brubeck centennial featuring ...
read moreThe Dave Brubeck Quartet: Time Out

by Sacha O'Grady
Dave Brubeck emerged after the Second World War as a pianist whose eclectic style owed itself to several different schools of piano playing. Throughout the 1950's, Brubeck enjoyed as much commercial success as any jazz musician could have wished for, becoming one of the biggest acts in the business. Famous mostly for his experiments with rhythm, influenced equally as much by Bach as he was by swing, his compositions would betray sophisticated time signatures intertwined with classical references.
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