Featured Jazz Articles
Daily articles carefully curated by the All About Jazz staff. Read our popular and future articles.
Idris Ackamoor: An Afro-Futurist Odyssey
In summer 2020, Idris Ackamoor will release Shaman! on Britain's Strut label. It is his third album with the post-2015 incarnation of his 1970s band, The Pyramids. It reunites Ackamoor with flautist Margaux Simmons, with whom he had co-founded The Pyramids in 1972. Ackamoor's route to Afro-Futurist jazz began in the US in the 1960s, but was fast tracked in 1972, when he and the band, then a trio, began a year travelling and performing in Africa. ...
read moreNew Jazz From London: Top 20 Paradigm Shifting Albums
After a lifetime trying to get on an equal footing with its American parent, British jazz has finally come of age. Since around 2015, a community of young, London-based musicians has forged a style which, while anchored in the American tradition, reflects the Caribbean and African cultural heritages of many of its vanguard players. The scene demographic also corrects the gender inequality which continues to be a feature of life in Britain and which has, historically, been reflected in the ...
read moreJacob Young: On ECM, founding a label and finding the "drama" in the music
There's a lot to be said about musical excellence in versatility when it comes to guitarist Jacob Young. The Norwegian fret-acrobat came to international prominence in the early 2000s, when ECM's Manfred Eicher detected his remarkable chops and subsequently recorded and released Young's debut Evening Falls (2004) for the prestigious German label. Two more sessions followed with 2006's Sideways and Forever Young in 2014--all of which met with great critical acclaim. But even a couple of years before, upon returning ...
read moreRiverside Records: An Alternative Top Ten
From 1953, when it was set up, to 1964, when it was acquired by ABC, Riverside Records rivalled Blue Note and Prestige as one of the leading independent jazz labels based in New York City. The founders of all three labels were jazz fans who operated on slim margins and became producers partly because they enjoyed it but also to keep the payroll down. Orrin Keepnews co-founded Riverside with Bill Grauer. The pair had been colleagues on ...
read moreJoerg Steineck: Getting Inside Scofield
Joerg Steineck is a German filmmaker who has made both documentary and fictional films. His latest project Inside Scofield is, as the title suggests, a look at guitar icon John Scofield's career and life on (and off) the road as a touring jazz musician. All About Jazz sat down to talk with Steineck about the making of the film. All About Jazz: You have done a few music documentaries in the past -Lo Sound Desert (2012) and Truckfighters ...
read moreChuck Granata: On Sinatra, The Beach Boys, and Johnny Mandel
Chuck Granata is a record and radio producer, author, music historian and archivist. He has written four books on music and sound recording: Sessions with Sinatra: Frank Sinatra and the Art of Recording (Chicago Review Press, A Capella Books, 1999), Wouldn't it be Nice: Brian Wilson and the Making of the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds (Chicago Review Press, A Capella Books, 2003), Making Records: The Scenes Behind the Music (with legendary record producer Phil Ramone) (Hyperion Press, 2007) and the ...
read moreMatthew Shipp: Poetic Connection
It is difficult to describe the impact of pianist and composer Matthew Shipp without descending into hyperbole. A core figure in the now-legendary David S. Ware Quartet, a bandleader with a staggering recording output, a groundbreaking curator for the influential Blues Series of Thirsty Ear Records, Matthew Shipp has also more recently broken new ground at the helm of the extraordinary Matthew Shipp Trio, featuring bassist Michael Bisio and drummer Newman Taylor Baker. Preparing to celebrate his 60th ...
read more
Contest Giveaway
ELIGIBLE WINNERS: 5 | DAYS REMAINING: 19
Prize: Choose Any three of these six Ropeadope releases
Sponsored by Ropeadope
Sign in to enter
