Featured Jazz Articles

Daily articles carefully curated by the All About Jazz staff. Read our popular and future articles.

INTERVIEW September 17, 2020

Takuya Kuroda: Fly Moon Die Soon's Delicious Future-Funk Throwback

Last time All About Jazz spoke to Takuya Kuroda, just days after the release of his smoky, neo-soul-styled breakthrough Rising Sun (Blue Note, 2014), the Japanese trumpeter was asked what he wanted to record next. “I see myself doing more of a straight-ahead thing," he said at time. “I might do an album with strings." Kuroda guffaws heavily when reminded of expressing this sentiment. After all, Rising Sun was instead followed by the thick funk/fusion workout of Zigzagger ...

INTERVIEW September 15, 2020

Charles McPherson: The Art Of Teaching

By Jim Trageser

Charles McPherson will always be known for his alto sax playing. A favorite of Hollywood director Clint Eastwood, McPherson first gained a national reputation playing in Charles Mingus' combo in the late 1950s. By 1964 he was recording as a leader (although he'd continue to perform with Mingus for another half-decade), and later re-created Charlie Parker's playing for the 1988 Eastwood film Bird. Still busy into his ninth decade, the 81-year-old McPherson has recently added another role to ...

INTERVIEW September 10, 2020

Matt Gold: A Guitarist in Songwriter's Disguise

By Friedrich Kunzmann

Combining improvisational concepts with Americana aesthetics is one thing, but enveloping this blend in a songwriter approach is another story entirely. The first concept is common practice these days, the second however represents the unique character which the up and coming jny: Chicago-based guitarist Matt Gold has to offer on his compelling debut effort, Imagined Sky (Whirlwind Recordings, 2020). Midwestern soundscapes meet art rock sensibilities featuring twangy guitar lines and a light acoustic touch on an album that doesn't shy ...

BUILDING A JAZZ LIBRARY September 9, 2020

Charlie Parker: Ten High Flying Albums Of Paradigm Shifting Genius

By Chris May

Born in Kansas City, Kansas in 1920, and brought up across the state line in anything-goes, jazz-friendly Kansas City, Missouri, controlled from the mid 1920s to the late 1930s by the spectacularly corrupt politician Tom Prendergast, alto saxophonist Charlie Parker lived fast and hard and passed in 1955, aged only 34 years. A founding father of bop, he is, alongside Louis Armstrong and John Coltrane, one the three most influential musicians in the history of jazz. Parker's ...

SOCAL JAZZ September 8, 2020

Randy Brecker & Eric Marienthal: Aces

By Jim Worsley

Randy Brecker certainly needs no introduction. Neither does Eric Marienthal. But the fact that they have joined forces on a new record is something to talk about. That's exactly what we did, and then some. We went deep into the record, when we weren't busy having a laugh or two. Then there were memories of Michael Brecker and a glorious time past. My gratitude to them both for this fun and enlightening conversation. I hope you enjoy it as much ...

INTERVIEW September 3, 2020

Makaya McCraven: Cross Border Traffic

By Chris May

Like his near contemporaries Shabaka Hutchings, Kamasi Washington, Nubya Garcia and Robert Glasper, the Chicago-based drummer, bandleader, producer and self-declared beat scientist Makaya McCraven is routinely described by the more breathless commentators writing about modern music as a “saviour" of jazz. Certainly, McCraven and his peers are enriching jazz by their embrace of other styles, be they hip hop, dub reggae, grime, cumbia or Afrobeat. Yet as McCraven, Hutchings, Washington, Garcia and Glasper are ready to point out, ...

INTERVIEW August 31, 2020

Budapest Music Center: A cultural confluence at the heart of Hungary

By Friedrich Kunzmann

The Budapest Music Center, known by its acronym BMC, was founded in 1996 by Hungarian trombone player, music educator and entrepreneur László Gőz. Upon initial conception, the institution's main goal was to create a musical network to help Hungarian musicians and other interested parties to gain an overview of the country's musical happenings, past and present, in order to facilitate communication and networking. A music information center concentrated around the national music repertoire. Today the BMC has grown to become ...