Back to 2025 Jazz

Remembering the best of the year’s unsung albums.

I divide my year-end lists into Jazz and Non-Jazz lists. I separate the jazz out because about two-thirds of the 1500 new music albums I listen to most years are jazz. There’s little point in breaking the other third into genres: there are many, widely scattered and/or overlapping, and none I sample in much depth.[1] I do a much better job of covering the jazz spectrum, except “smooth jazz” — although, back in 2005, I did take it seriously enough to write this piece. I’m not intrinsically opposed to groove or funk or ambient or techno or any flavor of fusion, and I’d be delighted to see any decent form of jazz gain a popular following. But as the 16 albums I featured in my recent Back to 2025 Non-Jazz attest, there are many disjunctions between popular and personally everywhere you look.

Having posted the Non-Jazz lookback, following it up with a Jazz edition was only fair. Both pieces attempt to highlight selections from my favorite albums of 2025 that few other people have written about. It’s hardly news that I liked widely acclaimed jazz albums by Mary Halvorson, Patricia Brennan, Steve Lehman, Linda May Han Oh, Fieldwork, and Nels Cline, or non-jazz albums by Wednesday, CMAT, Billy Woods, Lily Allen, and Big Thief. You don’t need me to tell you about those albums. My utility is in discovering odd albums that don’t get a lot of critical notice.

For non-jazz, I whittled my list down by striking off all of the records Robert Christgau had written about — he covers a lot of ground, our tastes overlap considerably, and most people who read me have already read him — and also the top-100 albums in my Metacritic/EOY Aggregate. I could have used the jazz subset of that file for sifting out the rare gems from my jazz list, but I thought Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll top jazz albums list would work better. I factor in many of the latter’s critics, so the lists are similar, but very limited jazz coverage in mainstream publications boosts some albums that are only marginally defined as jazz.[2]

The poll counted 168 ballots, but the spread was so wide that only 17 albums appeared on 10% or more ballots (34 albums on 5%). I initially thought I might use 2 or 3 votes as the cutoff, but when I checked my list of 92 albums, I found that fewer than a third of my albums had received 4 or more votes (30), while 7 had 3, 6 had 2, and 16 had 1 — one of those, Sheila Jordan: Portrait Now, my own. (I also provided 1 of 2 votes for Motian & More: Gratitude, a superb Portuguese album that strikes me as more obscure. I’d love to know how many voters heard albums like that.) That left 30 albums that got no votes in a poll of 168 critics.

Since I had included 16 albums in my Non-Jazz revisit, I needed to cut those 30 down, quite a bit. The first thing I did was scratch off albums by artists who had other albums that got votes: Rodrigo Amado, Scheen Jazzorkester, Natsuki Tamura/Satoko Fujii, and Marshall Allen (I picked The Omniverse Oriki over albums that got 11 and 8 votes). That got me to 25, then 24 after I merged the second Carlos Zingaro album into the first. After that, I just picked what I think of as a nice bouquet.

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Nils Agnas: Köper Sig Ur En Kris (Moserobie)
Swedish drummer, leads a quartet with Max Agnas (on two pianos) and Mauritz Agnas (bass) — the latter two are in Agnas Bros., but Nils is a younger cousin — and saxophonist Jonas Kullhammar, in his usual very fine form, playing four jazz tunes (Ornette Coleman, Joe Henderson, two from Carla Bley) and “Over the Rainbow.” Quaint line from the hype sheet: “The only foreign musician he has performed so far with is the great Zoh Amba” (who’s all of 24 now).

Russ Anixter’s Hippie Big Band: What Is? (self-released)
Arranger and conductor, started playing bass in a Grateful Dead tribute band, leads a scraggly commune of 11 musicians — 3 reeds, 4 brass (including French horn), vibes/xylo/congas, guitar, bass, drums — through what will pass for hippie standards, including “Dixie Chicken,” “Free Man in Paris” (segueing into “Freedom Jazz Dance”), “She Said She Said,” “Saint Stephen” (paired with what I recognize as the theme music to Treme), “Uncle John’s Band” (which slides into some James Bond movie music), “Into the Mystic,” “Whipping Post,” “What Is Hip?” This music is less recent than the Berlin, Porter, and Arlen show tunes were in the 1950s when they became jazz staples, so why not have fun with them now? Note guest spots for Stephen Bernstein and Oz Noy.

Frank Carlberg: Dream Machine (Red Piano)
Finnish pianist, has a couple dozen albums since 1992, was inspired by a 1959 sci-fi gadget to compose four “Dream” suites (13 pieces in all), with complementary keyboards from Leo Genovese (organ, farfisa, synths), outstanding tenor sax from Hery Paz, backed with bass (John Hébert) and drums (Dan Weiss).

Lao Dan/Vasco Trilla: New Species (NoBusiness)
Chinese musician, trained in traditional flutes, regarded as a master with a number of albums since 2018, picked up tenor sax and branched into free jazz, although credits line here includes “diy flute, dizi Chinese flute).” Duo with Spanish drummer recorded in Shenzhen, bridges their worlds effectively.

Extraordinary Popular Delusions: The Last Quintet (Corbett vs. Dempsey)
Late, probably the last record recorded by Chicago saxophonist Mars Williams, struck by cancer and dead within three months. Quintet adds a second saxophonist, Edward Wilkerson Jr., plus Jim Baker (piano), Brian Sandstrom (bass), and Steve Hunt (drums), with everyone supplementing their primary credits, including digeridoo (Wilkerson), toys (Williams), and “miscellaneous paraphernalia” (Hunt). Group name goes back to a 2010 quartet (minus Wilkerson, who may have been added for backup, and may have been the lead early, but Williams certainly got his licks in later). Song titles may have come from Kim Stanley Robinson, but the Mars featured here was in the room.

Freedom Art Quartet: First Dance (self-released)
Group founded in 1991 by Lloyd Haber (drums) and Omar Kabir (trumpet/flugelhorn/sea shells/didgeridoo), released an album in 2003 (with Abraham Burton and Jaribu Shahid), returns here with Alfredo Colon (alto sax) and Adam Lane (bass), playing eight Haber originals. Fast and furious freebop.

Korham Futaci: Heavyweight Rehearsal Tapes (PUMA)
Turkish saxophonist, a founder of the avant group Konstrukt, leads his own quartet here with Baris Ertürk (reeds), bass, and drums. The title is both on point and a bit too modest, as these pieces are powerful, with bits of rock and folk in the foundation, and the improv is polished enough.

David Grollman/Andy Haas/Sabrina Salamone: SCRT (self-released)
Improv trio, drums, saxophone, violin, with some spoken word poetry written by the drummer’s late wife, Rita Stein-Grollman. Beyond its own merits, the poetry provides some focus, which sharpens the surrounding music.

Instant Arts Quartet: Lingua Franca (High Two)
Philadelphia-based percussionist Kevin Diehl, best known for leading Sonic Liberation Front, with bass (Pete Dennis) and two horns: Terry Lawson (tenor sax) and Matt Lavelle (trumpet, alto/bass clarinet), with some switches to bamboo flute, gong, and bells. The horns spin freely, relentless conflict and communication, as no one’s writing harmony lines here.

KIND: Count (Umland)
Group led by German alto saxophonist Jan Klare, dozen-plus albums since 1998, also plays bassoon, all original compositions, group a sextet with clarinet (Shabnam Parvaresh), trombone (Shannon Barnett), cello (Emily Wittbrodt), bass (David Helm), and percussion (Bruna Cabral). Superb postbop, as the ever-shifting harmonics revolve eccentrically around an ever-changing rhythmic drive.

Larry Ochs/Joe Morris/Charles Downs: Every Day → All the Way (ESP-Disk)
Tenor/sopranino sax, bass, drums; the former best known for his work in ROVA, but has a long history of bracing free sax work, to which this is an excellent addition.

Claire Ritter: Songs of Lumière (Zoning)
Pianist, from North Carolina, record label name from Mary Lou Williams, has a dozen-plus albums since 1987, several collaborations with Ran Blake, claims over 300 compositions. I’m rarely this taken by solo piano: I usually require a lot of flash, or a “left hand like God,” neither of which apply here.

Rick Roe: Wake Up Call: The Music of Gregg Hill (Cold Plunge)
Tenth album I’ve heard since 2017 of Hill’s compositions, all by his former Michigan State students (Roe, Michael Dease, Randy Napoleon, Rodney Whitaker, and the younger, lesser-known Techno Cats). I always figured these were vanity projects, notable mostly because no other composer with no real performance credits has done so much promotion. But this postbop with an extra shot of swing is a consistent delight, especially the tenor sax of Marcus Elliot, but also some slick piano, with Robert Hurst on bass and Nate Winn on drums.

Samo Salamon & Ra Kalam Bob Moses Orchestra: Dream Suites Vol. 1 (Samo)
Guitarist and percussionist wrote three long pieces (24:46, 13:38, 17:12) for large ensembles of 19, 16. and 18, total 27 musicians, nearly all familiar names, which add marks of individuality to the collective reverie.

Wrens: Half of What You See (Out of Your Head)
On paper I figured this group was led by Jason Nazary, the drummer who produced and took most of the technical credits, but the album is dominated by rapper Ryan Easter, who also plays some trumpet, while cellist Lester St. Louis and pianist Elias Stemeseder work their skewed electronics. Interesting in every direction.

Carlos “Zingaro”/João Madeira: Arcada Pendular (4DaRecord)
Portuguese violin and bass duo, the former with many albums since 1988, many more side credits since 1969, no explanation for the quote marks (which are omitted more often than Alves is added). Duo expanded to quartet, with Flo Stoffner (guitar) and Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello), has another album on my list, Na Parede (4DaRecord).

That left me with the following albums, more or less as good as the ones I reviewed above. Numbers are from my ranked list:

1. Amalie Dahl: Breaking/Building Habits (SauaJazz)

2. Ziv Taubenfeld/Helena Espvall/João Sousa: You, Full of Sources and Night (NoBusiness)

3. Loot: Loot (ICP)

4. Mikko Innanen & Ingebrigt Håker Flaten: Live in Espoo (Fiasko/Sonic Transmissions)

5. Nils Petter Molvaer: Khmer Live in Bergen (Edition)

6. Chris Jonas: Backwardsupwardsky: Music From the Deserts (Edgetone)

7. Hein Westgaard & Matt Maneri: Chamber (Gotta Let It Out)

8. Anla Courtis & Lehtisalo: 1972 (Full Connect)

In my Best Jazz Albums of 2025, you can find reviews for these, the rest of the top 92 new jazz albums, 6 late 2024 adds to the A-list, and 34 albums of older jazz released or added in 2025, plus lists of everything else I’ve listened to, including 195 (+18) B+(***) new jazz and 44 (+4) old jazz albums that just missed the grade.

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[1] This was off the top of my head, but my 2025 tracking file has some numbers: 1593 total albums, 961 of them jazz (60.3%), so 632 non-jazz (39.7%). The latter include some loosely-defined genres, like: hip-hop (122), country (79), electronica (67), world (66), blues (22), metal (4), and classical (1). That should leave 271 in rock, pop, soul or whatever, but the actual number is 290, since some albums show up in multiple genre lists. I wish there was a handy reference for genre tagging, but I hate doing that kind of work myself — even ignoring the obvious quantity problem. While I listen to much more jazz than non-jazz, the A-lists usually balance out — 2025 broke with 92 jazz vs. 108 non-jazz, but most years are more even. (As I’ve noted, 2025 was a banner year for underground hip-hop, and better than average for alt-country and dance-pop.)

[2] Some examples of records that did significantly better in the metacritic file than in the poll are: The Necks: Disquiet (8 vs. 44); Yazz Ahmed: A Paradise in the Hold (18 vs. 27); Mulatu Astatke: Mulatu Plays Mulatu (26 vs. 59); SML: How You Been (30 vs. 106); Theon Cross: Affirmations (50 vs. 86); Natural Information Society and Bitchin Bajas: Totality (51 vs. 202); Anthony Joseph: Rowing Up River to Get Our Names Back (58 vs. 296); Natural Information Society: Perseverance Flow (63 vs. 161). Other albums listed as jazz in my metacritic file but receiving 0 votes: Sumac & Moor Mother: The Film (25); Holden & Zimpel: The Universe Will Take Care of You (28); Laufey: A Matter of Time (29); Emma Jean Thackray: Weirdo (31); Brìghde Chaimbeul: Sunwise (40). I included the Anthony Joseph and Sumac/Moor Mother albums in my non-jazz piece.