Home » Jazz Articles

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 future articles page. Read our daily album reviews.

Sign in to customize your My Articles page —or— Filter Article Results

1
Album Review

Nanny Assis: Rovanio

Read "Rovanio" reviewed by Chris May


The Brazilian-born, New York City-based singer and composer Nanny Assis is a big talent with a low profile. His elegant blend of jazz and Brazilian music puts one in mind of another similarly inclined and relatively little known stylist, the Berlin-based composer and producer Meeco, well loved in this parish. The work of both musicians is caressing, lyrical and lush; the vibe is mostly sunny but there are dark corners. Assis and Meeco have arrived at the ...

5
Liner Notes

Simone Zanchini: The Music Of Nino Rota

Read "Simone Zanchini: The Music Of Nino Rota" reviewed by Howard Mandel


"I'm a musician who plays accordeon, not an accordeonist who plays jazz," says Simone Zanchini, proud of a distinction that is substantiated by Nino--his 25th album in the 20 years since his recording debut. Using vast resources drawn from the panoply of music he's studied, discovered, invented and developed for his too often stereotyped and maligned but in truth magnificent instrument, Zanchini embraces and transforms half a dozen already complexly compelling works of the great Italian soundtrack composer Nino Rota, ...

35
Album Review

Ron Carter: Finding The Right Notes

Read "Finding The Right Notes" reviewed by C. Andrew Hovan


Going back to the fall of 2016 and Ron Carter's appearance at the Detroit Jazz Festival as artist-in-residence, the buzz was that a biographical film on the man named the most recorded bassist in history was in the pipeline. During that festival, a film crew was seen regularly following Carter around Hart Plaza and the bassist even spent one full day conducting interviews with a plethora of jazz journalists. Fast forward to October of 2022 and director Peter Schnall's final ...

10
Album Review

Ron Carter: Finding The Right Notes

Read "Finding The Right Notes" reviewed by Chris May


On October 21st 2022, America's PBS channel screened a two-hour documentary about the life and work of Ron Carter titled Finding The Right Notes. This seventy-three minute CD is the soundtrack. It is a beauty, a roll-around-in feast of Carter's inimitable, sumptuous bass. The ten tracks, recorded between 2014 and 2021 in Europe and America, has Carter in situations ranging from duos to a big band, playing jazz standards, songs from the Great American Songbook and his ...

2
Album Review

Nocturnal Four: Life On Earth

Read "Life On Earth" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


What's in a band name? Sometimes, absolutely nothing; but in this case, a world of truth. Croatian guitarist Ratko Zjaca's Nocturnal Four infuses his music with vespertine vibes and shrouds it in shadows, living up to its name while carving out its own identity on an absorbing program calling to the moonlight. After forging a bandstand brotherhood through touring with saxophonist Stefano Bedetti and organist Renato Chicco, it was clear to Zjaca that they needed to be ...

9
Album Review

Amina Figarova: Blue Whisper

Read "Blue Whisper" reviewed by Dave Wayne


Pianist and composer Amina Figarova is truly a citizen of the world. Born and raised in Baku, Azerbaijan, she decamped to the Netherlands in the 1980s to study at the Rotterdam Conservatory, and then to Boston in 1989 to continue her studies at Berklee. Blue Whisper is her 12th recording as a leader, but her first to feature a band comprised primarily of US-based musicians. Aside from Bart Platteau (also Figarova's husband), the only holdovers from her excellent Netherlands-based band, ...

5
Album Review

ZZ Quartet: Beyond the Lines

Read "Beyond the Lines" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


Croatian guitarist Ratko Zjaca and Italian accordionist Simone Zanchini hit artistic pay dirt when they teamed up for The Way We Talk (In + Out Records, 2010). They joined forces with Macedonian bassist Martin Gjakonovski and American drummer Adam Nussbaum for that album, creating a cross-cultural blend of music that speaks to specific musical idiosyncracies and universal truths in sound. Now, a few years after that initial encounter-on-record, this outfit returns with a follow-up that's just as pleasing and unique ...

2
Album Review

Amina Figarova: Twelve

Read "Twelve" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian


Calling Amina Figarova merely a jazz impressionist does injustice to the full breadth of the pianist's vision and does not reflect the uniqueness of her artistry. That said, most of her compositions do have an impressionistic bent. The nocturnal “Shut Eyes, Sea Waves...," for instance, on Twelve (her twelfth release as a leader), uses her cascading piano and Dutch drummer Chris Strik's gentle cymbals to paint a picture of waves crashing against the shore. The salty air is almost palpable ...

3
Album Review

Amina Figarova: Twelve

Read "Twelve" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


Change is in the air that pianist/composer Amina Figarova is breathing. While the personnel from her previous outing is still intact, and her personal aesthetic remains largely unaltered, she comes to this album with a different worldview and a new place to call home. The Azerbaijan-born Figarova and husband/band mate/flautist Bart Platteau had been based in Rotterdam for quite some time, but decided to move stateside in 2010. This change of scenery served as the inspiration for the twelve-song suite ...

284
Album Review

Ratko Zjaca / Simone Zanchini: The Way We Talk

Read "The Way We Talk" reviewed by Karl Ackermann


Little more than a year ago, the great Croation guitarist, Ratko Zjaca, released the terrific Continental Talk (In + Out Records 2009) with his longtime collaborator, saxophonist, Stanislav Mitrovic, and some all-star American support. Not content to follow even a highly successful formula, Zjaca has teamed with Italian accordionist Simone Zanchini, Macedonian bassist Martin Gjakonovski and American drummer Adam Nussbaum for The Way We Talk. Zjaca's new--but still global--quartet represents a change, not only in group structure, but in its ...


Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.