Articles by John Chacona
Daily articles carefully curated by the All About Jazz staff. Read our popular and future articles.
Miguel Zenón: Law Years: The Music of Ornette Coleman
by John Chacona
How do you hear Ornette Coleman's music? As an unlikely but logical extension of bebop vocabulary? As “free" chaos untethered from harmony? As a tributary of the great stream of Texas saxophonists? As jazz's purest melodism? The music of Coleman, who would have turned 91 years on March 9 2021, was all of those things and many more. Why shouldn't a body of work that presents so many points of entry be as ubiquitous on record as that ...
read moreTheo Bleckmann & The Westerlies: This Land
by John Chacona
Could This Land, from Theo Bleckmann & The Westerlies be the first great musical declaration of the Biden Era? If so, it's probably an accident. When they tracked This Land in August 2019, Bleckmann and the brass quartet entered the studio with a program of protest songs. But in degree and kind, they are worlds away from the howling fervor of Moor Mother or the rousing call to the barricades of Gordon Grdina's Resist (Irabbagast Records, 2020), to ...
read moreCamila Nebbia: Aura
by John Chacona
No one knows what the landscape for live jazz will look like in the near future, but it is fair to assume that jny: New York and jny: London will continue as centers of gravity with jny: Johannesburg making a strong challenge. Here is a long-shot bet: don't sleep on jny: Buenos Aires. If your idea of Argentine jazz is limited to tango or Gato Barbieri, prepare to be startled at what Camila Nebbia and her nonet of young players ...
read moreDayna Stephens: Right Now! Live At The Village Vanguard
by John Chacona
In his 2018 book, Playing Changes, Nate Chinen argues that the fundamental jazz dialectic of the 1980s and 90s, namely tradition vs. innovation, was ultimately a false choice. Two years later, Dayna Stephens' Right Now! Live at the Village Vanguard proves the point in the most eloquent way possible. In many ways, Right Now! is a traditional undertaking, from the classic horn-and-rhythm-section formation to the set list heavy with tunes taken at a mid-stroll tempo. And nothing cements ...
read moreJohn Chacona's Best Releases Of 2020
by John Chacona
It's tempting to say that this was the year the music died, and for clubs, concert and festival stages, that might generally be true. Yet, in this most confounding and contrary of years it's thoroughly fitting that as live music grew silent, recordings roared with eloquence, fury and, yes, beauty. Here are the releases that most captivated, moved, consoled and inspired me. Tyshawn Sorey Unfiltered Self Produced Mary Halvorson's Code Girl ...
read moreDafnis Prieto Sextet: Transparency
by John Chacona
In Cuban music, emotional grandeur and extravagant virtuosity is built on a foundation of inexhaustible rhythm. So, it's no surprise to find an abundance of juicy melodies and breathtaking drumming on Transparency from drummer and MacArthur “Genius" Fellow Dafnis Prieto. Yet for all the astonishing things he does behind the kit, what stands out on Transparency is the dazzling formal sophistication of Prieto's compositions. Eight of the nine composer credits are his and the outlier, an arrangement of ...
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