Featured Jazz Articles

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

BUILDING A JAZZ LIBRARY November 18, 2020

Yusef Lateef: An Alternative Top Ten Albums Blowing Cultural Nationalism Out Of The Water

A pioneer of global and modal jazz, the multi-instrumentalist and composer Yusef Lateef is only beginning to have his importance in the history of the music properly acknowledged. After languishing off-catalogue for decades, much of his output is being made available once more. A treasure trove of great jazz is out there waiting to be rediscovered. Lateef was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee. When he was five, his family moved to jny: Detroit, where he began his career playing ...

INTERVIEW November 17, 2020

Patrick Cornelius: From ECM to Acadia National Park

By Friedrich Kunzmann

With a persistently active live and equally dynamic release schedule in his back pocket, alto saxophonist Patrick Cornelius continues to push the boundaries of the straight-ahead approach to jazz into a more modern context. Since his first recording as a leader—2006's self-released Lucid Dream featuring a cast of fellow Berklee College of Music Students from the time in pianist Aaron Parks, drummer Kendrick Scott, Nick Vayenas on trombone and singer Gretchen Parlato—the New York-based saxophonist has released eight albums to ...

INTERVIEW November 13, 2020

Trio Grande: Three instruments, three nationalities, one supergroup

By Friedrich Kunzmann

An incessant stream of new artists, new ideas, revisitations of old ideas and ever-shifting technological inventions continues to push jazz onward, forward into the 21st Century. While most of today's music began taking root and developing in the turbulent jazz topographies of the last century, each new interpretation, extension and redesign today adds a new perspective, sometimes even a new dimension, to the possibilities in jazz, thereby enlarging its universe. The three members of newly conceived outfit Trio Grande just ...

SOCAL JAZZ November 12, 2020

Chick Corea: In The Present Tense

By Jim Worsley

What can you say about music icon Chick Corea that hasn't already been said? His past, his career has been honored, dissected, and revered. As it should be. A composer and pianist of unparalleled skills and accomplishments, Corea's place in music history continues to plateau. In conversation with Corea, we centered mostly on what hasn't been said. We talked extensively about his new record and his new academy. Oh, we managed to go as far back as the fifties as ...

SO YOU DON'T LIKE JAZZ November 9, 2020

Derek Trucks: Chops, Romance & Dance

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. In this month's column we zero in on three particularly important factors which impact the popularity and ...

BUILDING A JAZZ LIBRARY November 2, 2020

Rahsaan Roland Kirk: An Alternative Top Ten Albums Guaranteed To Bend Your Head

By Chris May

Jazz musicians are rarely called shamanistic but the description fits Rahsaan Roland Kirk precisely. Clad in black leather trousers and heavy duty shades (he was blind from the age of two), a truckload of strange looking horns strung round his neck--two or three of which he often played simultaneously—twisting, shaking and otherwise contorting his body, stamping his feet, exhorting audience members to feel the spirit and make some noise and handing out bags of penny whistles to help them do ...

PROFILE October 29, 2020

20 Seattle Jazz Musicians You Should Know: Matt Jorgensen

By Paul Rauch

The city of Seattle has a jazz history that dates back to the very beginnings of the form. It was home to the first integrated club scene in America on Jackson St in the 1920's and 1930's. It saw a young Ray Charles arrive as a teenager to escape the nightmare of Jim Crow in the south. It has produced such historical jazz icons as Quincy Jones and Ernestine Anderson. In many instances it has acted as a temporary repose ...