Jazz

All About Jazz is celebrating Artie Shaw's birthday today! Artie Shaw, a brilliant jazz clarinetist, was one of the most enigmatic, daring and adventurous bandleaders of the swing-era. An intellectual, he hated public life and the music industry. Over the course of his short career he formed ten orchestras and disbanding most of them after only a few months. At the peak of his career in the years just before World War II... Read more...

Roger Beaujolais Quartet - Mind the Gap(Stay Tuned Records ST009. CD Review by Chris Parker.)‘Brazilian-influenced tunes, modern compositions as well as the usual influences from the days when swing and blues were essential ingredients in jazz’ is vibraphonist Roger Beaujolais’s description of the fare on this, his 18th studio album. The last category is perhaps the most reliable guide to his quartet’s overall approach: pianist Robin Aspland, bassist Simon Thorpe and drummer Winston Clifford are all notable for their adherence to these core jazz values, and with Beaujolais himself turning in his customary vigorously cascading but measured performance, this is a thoroughly enjoyable straightahead set of lively originals, interspersed with a couple of Wes Montgomery tunes, two Brazilian pieces (Milton Nascimento’s ‘Vera Cruz’ and the Martino/Brighetti bossa nova sung by Shirley Horn, ‘Estate’), Thad Jones’s glowing paean to parenthood, ‘A Child is Born’ and Chick Corea’s ‘Sea Journey’. Beaujolais, as his 1990s work with Acid Jazz Records suggests, is a musician who has always favoured the directly communicative, unfussily peppy approach to music-making, and in the hard-swinging Aspland he has the perfect foil; with the tight, crisp drumming of Clifford and the propulsive Thorpe driving proceedings with exemplary vim throughout, this is a warm, uplifting album, fresh as a summer breeze.

If you want to hear what young British jazz sounds like in 2012, the easiest way to find out is to get to a Roller Trio gig. This band has all the strongest elements in the music that is over … Continue reading →

"Perhaps the key to understanding his achievement is to realize that, despite the virtues of his instrumental skills, he viewed himself, perhaps more than any of his contemporaries, as a musician first and a drummer only second." --Ted Gioia "When I'm playing, I think along melodic lines. For instance, I can go up as the notes go up. I may not hit them on the head, but the drums are a very sympathetic instrument and I can sometimes sound like I'm playing the melody without being right in tune. Naturally, I don't have the whole keyboard at my fingertips. I've only got four drums to work with, so I do the best I can with them to point out the melodic line." --Shelly Manne...

It is tempting to consider Chet Baker hommages like m: Jeff Baker's excellent Baker Sings Chet (OA2, 2004) or m: John Proulx's sublime Baker's dozen: Remembering Chet Baker (MAXJAZZ, 2009) superior to the real item. So fractured is our picture of Baker that our full appreciation of him is clouded by his extra-musical proclivities. But it is not exactly that. Baker's vibratoless trumpet and vocals, as well as, his limited technical abilities are acquired tastes, but once acquired are generally rewarding to the listener. It is not simply one thing, but the whole package that is Chet Baker. What better legacy to leave than a constant recapitulation of your famous book every-so-many years...

One of today's foremost jazz musicians and composers Terence Blanchard's achievements have soared since his formative days in m: Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers to a trajectory of successful bands, recordings and award winning film scores such as 2007's A Tale of God's Will (A Requiem for Katrina) (Blue Note). He's still pursuing new challenges with the upcoming June 2013 premiere of his first opera-- entitled Champion, "An Opera In Jazz"-- based on the life of world champion boxer Emile Alphonse Griffith...

The common element between Sara Serpa's Aurora and Christine Correa's Down Here Below is obviously pianist Ran Blake. Enigmatic to a fault, Blake has made a potent name for himself among improvised music enthusiasts. Blake is an intellectual amalgam of pianists m: Thelonious Monk and m: Martial Solal distilled to a dissonant essence...

How does a band introduce freedom to its music? Does the band play free jazz or, to paraphrase saxophonist m: Joe Lovano, does it play its jazz free? Danish Drummer and leader of the Danish-German quartet m: FUSK, m: Kasper Tom Christiansen's, answer to this question is simple: "Who cares?" FUSK defines its own freedom, between contrapuntal springboard melodies, sometimes bordering on serial techniques, and catchy themes that employ hard-swinging rhythms, joint improvisations and expressive deconstruction of patterns, all performed with passionate playfulness and wise irony...

PRESS RELEASE Terence Blanchard: MagneticMay 22, 2013(Los Angeles, CA): Accompanying the release of Magnetic, Terence Blanchard’s stunning new album set for release May 28 on Blue Note Records, will be an unprecedented schedule of worldwide tour dates kicking off with a five-night run at The Jazz Standard in New York City on May 29th and hitting cities across the United States, Europe, Tokyo, South Africa and Brazil. The tour will feature Terence, Brice Winston on sax, Fabian Almazan on piano, Robert Hurst III on bass, Jeff "Tain" Watts on drums and Lionel Loueke on guitar and will take-in such cities as New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Fe, Denver, The Newport Jazz Festival, Boston, Washington D.C., London, Paris, the Czech Republic, Tokyo, Johannesburg and the Choro Festival in Brazil. A complete list of dates can be seen at terenceblanchard.com.

By Stef The album starts with a forceful piano chord ... then silence ... then another chord ... then silence. This is impact : drag the listener right into the sound, let him or her anticipate what's coming, or what's not coming. You cannot listen without being part of what you hear, not to dance on (god forbid, although you may give it a try), but because your mind and soul are being captured by tension, anticipation and surprise. Slow scraping and piercing sounds escape from highly resonating cymbals. The chords change color, become darker, just as percussive sound arise from unknown places, gentle and deep, then slowing down with single keys and near silence. What is going on here? What is going on? It is AMM, in a duo setting with John Tilbury on piano and Eddie Prévost on percussion, in a way that only they can do it, in a genre that they created, the art of silence, the art of dynamic silence, the art of sonic tension. They create a place where there is no hiding for the listener too. You have no choice. Either you flee are you are into it. And if you are into it, you are part of it. Enjoying the beauty of the sounds, their horror, their precise shading, their cautious interaction, their gentle collisions, the ominous atmosphere. AMM is getting smaller as a line-up, but that's no handicap really, not here, strong stuff. The joy of listening. Subscribe