The 20 Best Jazz Albums of 2025
2025 proved to be an exceptional year for jazz, showcasing the genre's remarkable ability to evolve whilst honouring its roots. From London's vibrant scene to Chicago's experimental hub, from avant-garde exploration to deeply personal expression, this year's standout releases demonstrated that jazz remains one of contemporary music's most vital creative forces.
What defined jazz in 2025 was its refusal to be confined. Established masters like Charles Lloyd delivered meditative masterworks whilst younger innovators pushed boundaries with electronics, hip-hop production techniques, and genre-defying experimentation. The line between jazz and other musical forms grew increasingly porous, resulting in albums that felt both deeply connected to tradition and thrillingly unpredictable.
Several key themes emerged across the year's finest releases: the integration of electronic production and live improvisation, the continued flowering of the UK jazz renaissance, deeply personal explorations of grief and identity, and collaborative spirit that saw musicians building communities across continents. Patricia Brennan's cosmic vibraphone explorations, Cécile McLorin Salvant's fearless pop experiments, and Makaya McCraven's studio wizardry all exemplified jazz's contemporary vitality.
What follows are detailed explorations of twenty essential albums from 2025, each representing the diverse, boundary-pushing spirit that made this year so remarkable for jazz.
20. SOYUZ, Krok (Mr Bongo)
Belarusian band SOYUZ released their fourth and most personal album Krok (meaning "step" in Belarusian) in October 2025, a work shaped by displacement and resilience. Composer and multi-instrumentalist Alex Chumak and his bandmates, forced to flee Belarus in early 2022 due to political unrest and the outbreak of war in Ukraine, created music reflecting their journeys whilst settling in Warsaw.
The album's creation involved remarkable logistical challenges and international collaboration. Chumak and SOYUZ's new drummer Albert Karch travelled to São Paulo at the end of 2024 to record initial sessions. The sessions featured prominent Brazilian musicians Sessa, Biel Basile, and Marcelo Cabral, with guest vocal from Tim Bernardes recorded later. Final touches were added in Europe, with lush string and woodwind arrangements recorded at Polish Radio studio in Warsaw and Rhodes parts added at Sven Wunder's studio in Stockholm.
The album blends SOYUZ's Eastern European roots with jazz, folk, and global influences into something sui generis. The title track was the first song Chumak wrote in Belarusian as an adult, making it a fitting opener. Darker than most SOYUZ songs, the tensions lift and lighten as it progresses. "Lingua Do Mundo" composed and sung by Chumak and Tim Bernardes features standout string arrangements, heartfelt and deeply moving.
The cinematic library jazz of "Voo Livre", with ghostly vocals by Ciça Góes and Ina, feels like modern twist on Italian library composer Alessandro Alessandroni through sublime choir and woodwind orchestration. "Cichi Karahod" emerged as instant SOYUZ classic, almost Pat Metheny-esque as it opens before transitioning into jazzy rock territory. The album closes with "Smak žyćcia", a gentle dreamy spoken-word poetry piece in Japanese by singer-songwriter Manami Kakudo.
Chumak decision to write songs in his native Belarusian, makes the album an act of cultural reclamation. The genre is hardly identifiable, folk ballads and jazz-driven pop compositions covered in lush, often dissonant string and woodwind arrangements where each note is placed with care and meaning. Krok is career-defining for SOYUZ, heartfelt and beautiful, not an imitation of the past but truly original contemporary expression. Despite immense challenges, the album stands as testament to music's ability to process displacement, honour roots, and imagine new futures.
19. David Murray Quartet, Birdly Serenade (Impulse!)
Nearly five decades into his storied career, David Murray made his Impulse! Records debut with Birdly Serenade, marking his first major label release since the early 1990s. The album draws inspiration from the original improvisers, birds, as part of Grammy Award-winning producer Randall Poster's Birdsong Project, recorded at the legendary Van Gelder Studio with Murray's revelatory nearly-new quartet.
Murray's current ensemble comprises musicians in their late 30s and early 40s who have breathed new life into the veteran saxophonist's vision: Spanish pianist Marta Sánchez, bassist Luke Stewart, and drummer Russell Carter. This lineup's previous album Francesca was named one of the New York Times' best jazz albums of 2024, establishing them as one of the jazz world's revelations. For Birdly Serenade, they're joined by Cameroonian-American vocalist Ekep Nkwelle on two tracks and Murray's wife Francesca Cinelli on spoken word.
Six of the eight originals took shape at an artists' retreat in the Adirondacks amidst lakes, forests, and endless sky. Three poems by Cinelli exploring themes of flight and elemental nature provided the creative spark. The title track, a polyrhythmic waltz with yearning melody, features lyrics adapted from Cinelli's poem observing "the tremolos of a diving bird" breaking through mist "to the dancing feast of the swirling minnows". Nkwelle also graces "Song of the World", an exquisite Latin-tinged ballad melodically driven by bass clarinet.
"Bald Ego" channels Charlie Parker through blues and bop grandeur, whilst "Nonna's Last Flight" features Murray revealing borderline chromatic mechanisms on bass clarinet with a hip posture drowning in groovy funk and hip-hop vibes. "Black Bird's Gonna Lite Up the Night" and "Capistrano Swallow" showcase the quartet's dynamic range, whilst the album closes with "Oiseau de Paradis", a cascade of playful ideas paired with Cinelli's French poem.
Murray belongs on the Mount Rushmore of great jazz saxophonists and composers of the last fifty years. Fantastically prolific and endlessly ambitious, his versatility spans avant-garde to classic, connecting generations whilst improvising virtuosically. Now claiming the mantle of jazz elder statesman, Murray shows no signs of slowing. As he explained, "Of course I'm following in the footsteps of John Coltrane, Archie Shepp and Sonny Rollins, who have recorded for this incredible label, but I am also representing the growth of the tenor saxophone in the times we are living in." Birdly Serenade proves Murray is overdue for renewed acclaim as influential composer and saxophonist.
18. Venna, MALIK (Cashmere Thoughts)
Grammy-winning saxophonist and producer Venna (Malik Venner) released his ambitious debut album MALIK in September 2025, a genre-fluid odyssey spanning jazz, hip-hop, R&B, soul, and bossa nova. After two EPs and extensive work as session player for Beyoncé, Burna Boy, Kali Uchis, and Wizkid, the 26-year-old London artist delivered a seventeen-track statement that's as personal as it is musically expansive.
The album takes its title from Venna's birth name. As he explains, "Throughout the whole process of the album I've had another name that I loved but I felt like I wasn't living in my undeniable truth and what better way to live in one's truth than naming their debut album the name that their mother named them." This autobiographical touch provides emotional weight to music that ranges from intimate to explosive.
Featuring vocals from Jorja Smith, Leon Thomas, Smino, MIKE, and CARI, alongside musicians including bassist Rocco Palladino, longtime collaborator Yussef Dayes, and Marco Bernardis, MALIK embodies the melting pot of sounds reflecting Venna's South London environment. "Myself" featuring Jorja Smith emerged as one of the album's most affecting moments, with Venna's uniquely melancholy saxophone line throughout. The track doesn't feel sad to Venna himself but uplifting with a glimmer of hope. "My Way" showcases his tentative, trembling falsetto alongside understated guitar, whilst "Eternal Reflections" featuring Yussef Dayes demonstrates Venna's rhythmic inventiveness and love of improvisation.
"Day x2" featuring MIKE floats by like a lo-fi, jazz-inflected vapour trail over the mantra "day by day lessons learned". "+Star 101" with vocals by CARI features strings and high-stakes drama, whilst "Twisting" featuring Leon Thomas brings demure vocals over Venna's slick production. "Numero Uno", "Alchemy", and "Indigo" showcase Venna's instrumental prowess, with his saxophone as expressive extension of emotional intent.
Venna sees himself as vessel of music, allowing streams of consciousness to flow through when creating. This openness to whatever each day brings has given him freedom to express himself in any way through music with no limitations, whether playing saxophone, producing, singing, or coordinating other musicians. MALIK is an invitation to let go, be present, and submit to sensory experiences. Venna's signature brand of melancholy pervades the album whilst never overwhelming its sense of possibility. This is music documenting a life in motion: wide open, brimming with possibility, refusing to be rooted in jazz alone whilst respecting its traditions.
17. Don Glori, Paper Can't Wrap Fire (Mr Bongo)
Melbourne multi-instrumentalist Gordon Li, performing as Don Glori, took a bold new direction with Paper Can't Wrap Fire, his third album and first to fully embrace songwriting alongside his jazz roots. Following two more jazz-rooted releases, this album represents Li steering into soul, R&B, and funk-oriented territory whilst maintaining the jazz finesse that marked his earlier work.
The album's title comes from an old Chinese proverb roughly translating as "you can't deny the truth", an underlying thread woven between the songs. As Li explains, "A lot of them are in some way about truth-seeking, observations and the masks you put on to deal with life". This thematic depth elevates Paper Can't Wrap Fire beyond simple genre exercises into something more personal and resonant.
Recorded over two hot summer days at Rolling Stock Studios in Collingwood, Melbourne, the sessions brought together Li's touring band—Tim Cox, Al Kennedy, Joel Trigg, Robyn Cummins, and Lachlan Thompson—alongside vocalists ML Hall, Ruby Dargaville, Isadora Lauritz, and Bianca Kyriacou, trumpeter Audrey Powne, saxophonist Joshua Moshe, and Brazilian multi-instrumentalist Alcides Neto, who sprinkles Brazilian magic throughout.
"Brown Eyes" featuring ML Hall established the album's silky smooth aesthetic, with horn flutters and snappy percussion swimming into a dreamy extended bridge. The eight-minute "Precious" and frisky "Ron Song" benefit from Neto's samba influence. "Power" stands out with its throwback to silky smooth jazz, albeit with more funk—soft-hued harmonies flow, a saxophone wails, and rhythmic grooves snap into place. The track conjures the soft stillness of night evolving into gentle caresses of sweet harmony, recalling Van Morrison's ethereal 1980s albums and the recent stylings of Jimetta Rose & the Voices of Creation.
Taking influence from artists including Azymuth, SAULT, Jordan Rakei, and Lynda Dawn, as well as London musical beacons NTS and Total Refreshment Centre, Li has created something uniquely his own. The album's tracks unreel like mini-suites showcasing an array of styles, but it's more than sonic play. Paper Can't Wrap Fire is perfectly suited for late nights, infused with jazz finesse, nourishing vocal harmonies, and instantly relatable human soul. The album packs a punch with a velvet glove, connecting classic sounds with contemporary production in ways that feel both familiar and novel.
16. James Brandon Lewis, Apple Cores (ANTI-)
New York tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis delivered one of 2025's most focused and energetic albums with Apple Cores, a tribute to both poet and jazz theorist Amiri Baraka and trumpeter Don Cherry. The title references Baraka's column for DownBeat in the 1960s, whilst each song title functions as cryptogram making subtle reference to Cherry's life and music, a testament to Cherry's profound influence over the album's aesthetic.
Recorded with drummer Chad Taylor and bassist Josh Werner, the trio sessions benefit from the intuitive understanding of musicians who've worked together extensively. Taylor and Werner had previously played together, and Lewis's chemistry with both creates music that feels simultaneously composed and spontaneous. Supplementing the core trio are guitarist Guilherme Monteiro and percussionist Stephane San Juan on four tracks, adding textural depth without disrupting the album's cohesive vision.
The three titled "Apple Cores" tracks demonstrate the album's tight-and-loose aesthetic. Werner's rolling bass arpeggios and Taylor's funky, bumpy drumwork provide foundation for Lewis's wild saxophone exhortations and stutters. The music leaps from ledge to ledge like a mountain goat, maintaining both structural coherence and improvisational freedom. "Of Mind and Feeling" provides respite, an airy, hazy ballad under three minutes that feels like a peaceful morning call. The album includes a cover of Ornette Coleman's "Broken Shadows", paying homage to the free jazz tradition whilst making it entirely Lewis's own.
"Don't Forget About Jayne" stands as the album's masterpiece, showcasing Lewis's angular dramatic style in full glory above Taylor's all-over drumming. As the piece progresses, Lewis becomes increasingly extemporaneous, deploying immense freewheeling arcs and repetitive motifs that reach for the sky. "D.C. Got Pocket" demonstrates the band's ability to groove whilst maintaining complexity, blending hip-hop and funk rhythms with jazz improvisation.
Lewis's tone throughout remains both raw and measured, with a penchant for unbound exploration. His playing doesn't sound steeped in current jazz academy values; there's an independence about him that makes his voice instantly recognisable. There's never a dull moment on Apple Cores; it delivers punch and polish like a bowl of perfectly ripe apples: sweet, crisp, with plenty of juice.
15. Kassa Overall, Cream (Warp)
Grammy-nominated drummer, producer, and Doris Duke Artist Award winner Kassa Overall released one of 2025's most audacious projects with CREAM, transforming seven hip-hop classics and one jazz standard into a thirty-six-minute masterclass in genre fluidity. The Seattle-born, New York-based artist has been redefining boundaries between jazz and hip-hop throughout his career, but CREAM crystallises his vision with remarkable focus and inventiveness.
The album comprises eight tracks: Eddie Harris's "Freedom Jazz Dance" (famously recorded by Miles Davis on Miles Smiles) plus jazz interpretations of "Big Poppa" (The Notorious B.I.G.), "C.R.E.A.M." (Wu-Tang Clan), "Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)" (Digable Planets), "Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang" (Dr. Dre), "Check the Rhime" (A Tribe Called Quest), "SpottieOttieDopaliscious" (OutKast), and "Back That Azz Up" (Juvenile).
Overall's approach goes far beyond typical jazz-meets-hip-hop territory. His stellar band, featuring Emilio Modeste on soprano saxophone, Matt Wong on keyboards, Bendji Allonce on percussion, and Jeremiah Kal'ab on bass, doesn't play straight versions but deeply reimagines each piece. "Freedom Jazz Dance" opens with the backbeat from Busta Rhymes's "Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See", establishing the album's recursive cultural dialogue. "Rebirth of Slick" nods to both Digable Planets' smooth flow and Art Blakey's "Stretching", flipping the script with odd time rhythms whilst utilising vocal parts and production details from the original. His cover of Dr. Dre's "Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang" can't help but reference Leon Haywood, who Dre himself sampled, making Overall essentially reference the past twice.
The arrangements showcase masterful musicianship. Flutes play melodies, John Coltrane-style saxophone innuendos soar over bridges, whilst Overall channels his drumming idol Elvin Jones on the kit. "SpottieOttieDopaliscious" transforms OutKast's Aquemini-era banger into extended composition with noble arrangements. Overall's project goes light years past traditional jazz/hip-hop crossover, inserting the notion that both genres must be in conversation to collectively march into the future.
The album also reflects Overall's personal journey growing up in 1990s Seattle, introduced to avant-garde jazz through his father and folk guitar through his mother whilst his friends were into rap. "I felt so divided," he explained. "They're so close to each other. And at the time they were so far away." CREAM pokes fun at that experience whilst celebrating both traditions.
The album clocks in at a crisp thirty-six minutes, doesn't overstay its welcome, and invites repeated listening. It's a spellbinding work that understands how Pete Rock sampled records to build cultural legacy, exploring John Cage's idea about making records from records but in reverse, mining the continuum between jazz and hip-hop from every angle without shortcuts.
14. Chicago Underground Duo, Hyperglyph (International Anthem)
After eleven years of absence, the Chicago Underground Duo returned with Hyperglyph, the eighth release in what International Anthem described as an "absolute cabinet of wonders". The long-running collaborative project of composer/trumpeter/electronicist Rob Mazurek and composer/drummer/mbiraist Chad Taylor represents nearly three decades of musical partnership, and this new chapter reaffirms their status as one of the era's most inventive and enduring collaborations.
The title refers to complex geometric forms that open new ways of seeing when arranged in three-dimensional space and the pair draw from influences as diverse as Wadada Leo Smith, Don Cherry and Ed Blackwell's duets, the cut-and-paste studio approach of Miles Davis and Teo Macero, and electronic pioneers like Bernard Parmegiani, Éliane Radigue, and Morton Subotnick. Taylor notes the album specifically utilises rhythms from Nigeria, Mali, Zimbabwe, and Ghana, adding kinetic global pulse to the sound.
Recorded over sessions in May and September 2024 at International Anthem Studios in Chicago, the album consists of eleven tracks that blur boundaries between jazz, electronic music, and world music traditions. Opening track "Click Song" establishes the album's character with blown-out horn chants from Mazurek, doubled by tuned bells and nestled into muscular stereo-overdubbed polyrhythms from Taylor. Synthesised bass pulls the song along cyclically with severe dynamic effect.
The title track "Hyperglyph" showcases the duo's telepathic interplay, whilst "Rhythm Cloth" and "Contents of Your Heavenly Body" demonstrate their ability to weave together acoustic and electronic elements seamlessly. The expansive three-part "Egyptian Suite" provides the album's epic centrepiece, exploring architectural themes through shifting textures and rhythmic complexity. The closing "Succulent Amber" could fit on side two of Kraftwerk's Autobahn, with its steady kalimba joined by gentle RMI electric piano in an understated final duo performance that points toward incoming mystery with four sudden yet patient ascending chords.
Mazurek's horn work ranges from ethereal to explosive, whilst Taylor's percussion incorporates mbira, kalimba, and traditional kit with equal facility. The concurrent personal evolutions of Mazurek and Taylor as the Duo project drops off and picks back up makes Hyperglyph a true reflection of their lives and friendship, respecting the music's past whilst continuing to push toward new, uncharted shapes.
13. Linda May Han Oh, Ambrose Akinmusire & Tyshawn Sorey, Strange Heavens (Biophilia)
Australian-born bassist and composer Linda May Han Oh's Strange Heavens represents a powerful return to the trio format of her acclaimed 2009 debut Entry. This raw, unfiltered sonic exploration reunites Oh with trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire from that debut whilst adding drummer Tyshawn Sorey, her rhythmic counterpart in the Vijay Iyer Trio, creating an elemental force that defies easy categorisation.
The album's conceptual underpinning draws from the phrase "familiar hells versus strange heavens"- the idea that society can lull us into complacent acceptance of social and political conditions. As Oh explained, "There's been a lot of worry and anxiety over the new presidential administration and issues like gun violence or healthcare, and I believe that's a symptom of embracing familiar hells, especially here in America. We have to figure out how we're going to build a better world for our kids." Far from a protest album, Strange Heavens aims toward inspiration, resilience, and healing.
The twelve-track journey shifts effortlessly from tender lyricism to electrifying intensity, beginning with "Portal", inspired by social media's stress-inducing nature. Oh's driving bass figure sets the journey in motion, joined by delicate trumpet lines and crisp drumming advancing with rhythmic nuance. The melancholic title track contrasts with "Living Proof", drawn from Oh's mother's life story and blending punk rock pugnacity with iridescent hues. "Acapella" features Akinmusire's beautiful sustained tones reflecting on Joni Mitchell's "The Fiddle and the Drum" as a healing anthem for families.
A four-song suite - "Home", "Paperbirds", "Folk Song", and "Work Song" - draws on images from Australian author Shaun Tan's wordless graphic novels, with each track showcasing masterful techniques: Akinmusire in "Home", Sorey and Oh in "Paperbirds", Oh's bowed bass harmonising with trumpet in "Folk Song", and riveting exchanges between Akinmusire and Sorey in "Work Song". The album closes with tributes to female composers: Geri Allen's "Skin" and Melba Liston's "Just Waiting".
The music channels both power and fragility in equal measure, with improvisation transcending technique to become truth-telling. Each track unfolds as cathartic journey where emotion and musical mastery intersect. Oh's earthy bass leads with purposefulness that imbues every note with magnitude, whilst her attack makes the instrument sound ten feet tall. This is music that breathes, questions, and resists, offering a bold artistic statement from three of the most fearless voices in contemporary music.
12. Fieldwork, Thereupon (Pi Recordings)
After seventeen years of silence, the all-star collaborative trio Fieldwork returned with Thereupon, marking a triumphant reemergence for one of contemporary jazz's most influential experimental units. Comprising alto saxophonist Steve Lehman, pianist Vijay Iyer, and drummer Tyshawn Sorey, this collective represents three musicians who have each scaled to the pinnacle of creative music, earning MacArthur Fellowships, Guggenheim Fellowships, and Pulitzer Prizes in the years since their last recording together.
What makes Fieldwork remarkable isn't just the individual virtuosity of its members, but their ability to function as a unified organism with no hierarchy. The music feels both tightly controlled and constantly in motion, a sound that is buoyant and open rather than heavy. Compositions by Iyer and Lehman were collectively arranged by all three musicians, resulting in intricate ensemble performances that balance written structure with intuitive improvisation.
Thereupon opens with Iyer's explosive "Propaganda", driven by angular fragmented saxophone lines and accelerated drumwork. Lehman's "Embracing Difference" showcases mathematical tangles and odd meters whilst maintaining furious intensity, with Lehman exploring microtonal fingerings and the extreme registers of his instrument. "Evening Rite" provides respite with its skipping 5/4 time and optimistic melody, recalling Paul Desmond's singable bebop. The title track draws inspiration from the Vimalakirti Sutra, employing a telescoping form that reveals more detail as it zooms in. Pieces like "Astral" and the nine-minute closer "The Night Before" offer moments of calm in the maelstrom, with the latter featuring Iyer on Rhodes and moving from sparse free improvisation to lyrical passages.
Throughout the album, one experiences the extraordinary interplay of musicians who have maintained deep musical bonds over decades. Lehman's serpentine alto lines make frequent use of extended techniques, Sorey functions as both rhythmic engine and melodic voice, whilst Iyer sculpts space with vaulting textures across registers. The music leaps between blistering pace and suspended-in-time calm, from pugilistic intensity to balletic grace.
What emerged from Thereupon was less a cutting-edge statement than an expression of where the new jazz arrived in 2025. After all, the musical language that Iyer, Lehman, and Sorey developed during their time playing with Henry Threadgill and Steve Coleman has evolved through jazz, helping it thrive beyond the limits of post-bop orthodoxy. With the band's unique sonic template expertly shaped by renowned mixing engineer Scotty Hard, the album shimmers with colour whilst packing a strong punch. This return reaffirms Fieldwork's status as one of the era's most transformative and influential experimental units.
11. Isaiah Collier, William Hooker, William Parker, The Ancients (Eremite Records)
The Ancients represents a thrilling intergenerational meeting of minds that connects free jazz's past, present, and future. The trio was formed by legendary bassist William Parker to perform concerts in conjunction with the Milford Graves Mind Body Deal exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art Los Angeles in May 2023, but the chemistry was so powerful that it became a working group, with this double LP debut released on Eremite Records in January 2025.
The lineup brings together three generations of improvisers at peak form. Isaiah Collier, the young Chicago firebrand whose 2024 album The Almighty appeared on the New York Times' best albums list, delivers tenor saxophone playing that serves as bracing testimony that the wellspring of spiritual free jazz lives on. His work here reveals vast talent and personal voice, borrowing from the AACM, Pharoah Sanders, Charles Gayle, and bebop whilst remaining entirely himself. William Parker, with a discography approaching 600 entries and over 50 years working in history-defining bands with Don Cherry, Cecil Taylor, Bill Dixon, and Peter Brötzmann, remains one of the great bassists in jazz history. His propulsive playing leaps from furrow to furrow through additive embellishments and sheer drive, making his bass sound like a guembri, a donso ngoni, a guitar, and someone beating palms against the inside of a wooden ship's hold. William Hooker, at 78, plays with a concertedness that betrays not age but wisdom and experience, informed by Sunny Murray and Tony Williams yet entirely himself. His drumming is busy and rhythmic but with precision and crisp, discernible arcs rather than free-for-all clangor.
The album comprises four side-length long-form improvised sets recorded at 2220 Arts & Archives in Los Angeles and The Chapel in San Francisco, simply titled by date and set number. Each piece begins with a low hum of a framework, with Parker's kneading bass and Hooker's tentative drum strokes teasing the music into life. Collier lays down a saxophone figure or two, and gradually the ball is given a gentle nudge down the hill. As momentum builds, the music picks up texture and abrasiveness, eventually reaching accelerated high points that feel like life-threatening comets tumbling through the atmosphere. The LA sets dominate, offering turbulent bouts of avant-jazz that turn sweat to steam in instants, capped with a run at The Chapel that lets the marrow boil out of the listener with a swipe at Hooker's noise-adjacent past.
The Ancients brings the free jazz trio languages first explored by the Cecil Taylor Unit and Ornette Coleman's Golden Circle band into unique and scintillating realms of expression. It shot straight to the top of anticipated lists for 2025 and more than lived up to expectations. The album is both urgent and classic, reaching back to the slow methodical modal build-ups of 1970s free jazz whilst feeling thoroughly contemporary. This is free jazz as ancestral lore being passed down live in the moment, intensely focused 21st century improvisation via a shared and inspired bandstand consciousness that exists without aimless noodling or egotism. Eremite Records' untouchable recent run continues, with The Ancients instantly lodging itself among the label's highlights.
10. Theon Cross, Affirmations: Live At Blue Note New York (New Soil)
UK tubist Theon Cross captured his electrifying US debut at the legendary Blue Note in New York with Affirmations, one of the first jazz albums recorded at the venue in over two decades. The double live album showcases Cross's vision of the tuba as a dynamic lead instrument capable of extraordinary range and expression.
Cross, best known for his work with Sons of Kemet and as one of the London jazz scene's key figures, fronted a transatlantic quartet for the recording featuring guitarist Nikos Ziarkas, drummer James Russell Sims, and rising saxophonist Isaiah Collier. The ensemble displays remarkable chemistry throughout the twelve-track set, with tempos waxing and waning, melodies surging, and genres merging seamlessly.
The tuba traditionally functions as bass foundation or rhythmic anchor, but Cross proves it as flexible and expressive as any other horn through both technical mastery and imaginative composition. His arrangements allow the instrument to add bottom to the ensemble in its traditional role whilst also essaying blazing solos, often augmented with electronic effects that expand its tonal palette. Tracks like "Candace of Meroe" and "Affirmations" demonstrate this range brilliantly, with Cross leading the quartet through music that's simultaneously grounded and transcendent.
Collier provides spectacular spiraling solos throughout, never threatening to steal the spotlight but adding crucial fire and depth. Ziarkas favours spacey tones and washes of sound over straight bop comping, creating atmospheric backdrops for the ensemble's explorations. Sims keeps the rhythm churning whilst nailing the foundation to the floor, providing the rock-solid base that allows everyone else to soar.
The live setting at Blue Note clearly inspired the musicians, with the audience's energy palpable throughout. Cross's outgoing personality and slight laugh in his voice when addressing the New York audience adds warmth to performances that balance technical prowess with emotional immediacy. Extended pieces like "The Ghost of Lady Day" (over ten minutes) and "Radiation" (nine minutes) give the quartet room to fully develop their ideas, building from intimate moments to ecstatic climaxes.
Affirmations represents a powerful transatlantic convergence and a bold spiritual statement of modern jazz. Cross has established himself as one of contemporary jazz's most innovative voices, taking an often-overlooked instrument into previously uncharted territory whilst maintaining deep connection to jazz tradition. This recording captures a special moment when boundaries on instrumentation and method don't matter, and musical expression conquers all.
9. Makaya McCraven, Off the Record (International Anthem)
Chicago drummer, producer, and sonic collagist Makaya McCraven returned with Off the Record, a compilation of four distinct yet interconnected EPs released via International Anthem, Nonesuch, and XL Recordings. The four EPs - Techno Logic, The People's Mixtape, Hidden Out!, and PopUp Shop - mark McCraven's first recorded offerings since 2022's Grammy-nominated In These Times and represent a deep return to the signature "organic beat music" approach he pioneered on 2015's In The Moment.
Each EP draws from different performances and collaborations, showcasing the stunning breadth of McCraven's practice. Techno Logic features Ben LaMar Gay and UK tubist Theon Cross, drawing from performances in London (2017), Berlin (2024), and New York. The People's Mixtape was recorded at Brooklyn's Public Records in January 2025, celebrating the ten-year anniversary of In The Moment with an ensemble including bassist Junius Paul, trumpeter Marquis Hill, vibraphonist Joel Ross, and synthesist Jeremiah Chiu. Hidden Out! captures McCraven's June 2017 residency at The Hideout in Chicago with Paul, guitarist Jeff Parker, and saxophonist Josh Johnson. PopUp Shop documents McCraven's Los Angeles debut at Del Monte Speakeasy in 2015, featuring Parker, vibraphonist Justefan, and bassist Benjamin J. Shepherd.
True to McCraven's established process, all recordings began as pure improvisation, captured live in performance and shaped as much by the room and audience as by the musicians themselves. McCraven then reshaped the material via extensive editing, overdubs, and post-production at his home studio in Chicago, collapsing space and destroying borders whilst blending past, present, and future into poly-textural arrangements.
Speaking on the project, McCraven notes, "In a time where we're increasingly connected through phones, in a virtual world where you can't really tell what's real or what's fake, there's something special where we come together and share space. I want to create an energy that amplifies the magic in the underground moments where we come together and we experience something wild, different, off the cuff, human. What I'm trying to present is a dreamlike alteration of that energy, which only exists in the recorded realm."
Off the Record is McCraven's deepest, most crucial set yet, a free-flowing collection that fully encapsulates his idiosyncratic fusion of vintage hip-hop and Sun Ra-style psychedelic jazz. His studio-as-instrument mentality takes the familiar into surprising, inspiring places, with each EP exploring different aspects of his sound whilst maintaining thematic unity. It's rare that modern jazz feels as if it's heading in a different direction, but Off the Record is genuinely special, pushing the boundaries of what beat-driven improvised music can achieve.
8. Emma-Jean Thackray, Weirdo (Brownswood Recordings)
Emma-Jean Thackray's second album Weirdo stands as a triumph of resilience and radical self-expression. Released on Brownswood Recordings and Parlophone, the album was originally conceived as a meditation on neurodivergence and mental health, but evolved following the unexpected death of Thackray's long-term partner in January 2023. Written, performed, recorded, mixed, produced, and arranged entirely by Thackray in her South London flat, Weirdo is deeply personal and universal in equal measure.
The album draws on an eclectic mix of influences including grunge, pop, soul, P-funk, and jazz, creating a curious hybrid. Thackray's extraordinary musicianship shines throughout, as she plays trumpet, flugelhorn, trombone, euphonium, tuba, synthesisers, Rhodes, piano, electric guitar, bass guitar, congas, percussion, and drums across the album's nineteen tracks, though notably she uses her signature trumpet only sparingly, saving its strident sound for moments of emergence and survival towards the end.
The album's narrative arc tracks a journey through darkness towards light, perfectly executed through sequencing that makes the story both consistent and involving. Standout track "Wanna Die" captures Weirdo's emotional duality with its frenetic drum loops and lush jazz harmonies colliding with confessional lyrics that wrestle with mortality and mental health. As Thackray explains, "I think we need to talk about the dark shit in our heads, and finding the humour in it only makes that easier. The lyrics to this are very diary-esque, like confessional poetry, and the bare emotion of it is balanced out with lush jazz harmony, sweeping synths, and a pop punk silliness."
Weirdo features collaborations with American artists Reggie Watts on "Black Hole" and Kassa Overall on "It's Okay", but its essence remains rooted in Thackray's unique voice and vision. Tracks like "Tofu" demonstrate her playful side with just two minutes of cyclical keyboards framing a descending vocal containing only the song's title and occasional "oh"s, whilst more expansive pieces like "Maybe Nowhere" and "Stay" showcase her ability to craft widescreen epics.
Nominated for the 2025 Mercury Prize, Weirdo represents a fearless leap forward for Thackray. It is head-spinningly euphoric and joyous despite emerging from profound grief and mental health struggles. The album's marvellous quality lies in its refusal to be pigeonholed, inhabiting as many genres as it can. It's a life-saving, life-affirming masterpiece that emerges once in a generation from a wholly unique artist.
7. Tom Skinner, Kaleidoscopic Visions (International Anthem)
Drummer and composer Tom Skinner's second solo album Kaleidoscopic Visions showcases the Sons of Kemet co-founder and The Smile member at his most introspective and compositionally ambitious. Released on Brownswood Recordings and International Anthem, the album marks a conscious turn inward following his star-studded 2022 debut Voices of Bishara.
Where Voices of Bishara used Abdul Wadud's 1978 solo cello masterpiece By Myself as inspiration for post-session edits, Kaleidoscopic Visions leans into fully composed pieces written mostly on guitar, Skinner's secondary instrument. This approach led him to follow instinct and intuition, resulting in music that explores personal territory whilst showcasing his band's improvisational choices.
The album unfolds across two distinct sonic landscapes. Side A features entirely instrumental pieces orchestrated for Skinner's live band: bassist Tom Herbert, cellist Kareem Dayes (brother of Yussef Dayes), plus Robert Stillman and Chelsea Carmichael on various woodwinds and reeds, with occasional electric guitar from Portishead's Adrian Utley. These floating, often backbeat-free compositions include "Auster", dedicated to late novelist Paul Auster, and "Margaret Anne", a rhythmically taut piece honouring Skinner's mother, former concert-piano prodigy Anne Shasby, who abandoned her promising career due to classical music's glass ceiling.
Side B opens with vocal collaborations that stretch towards dream-like, soulful sounds. The centerpiece is "The Maxim", a ten-minute collaboration with Meshell Ndegeocello that Skinner describes as a dubby, spacious meditation on life and death. For Skinner, working with Ndegeocello represents a full-circle moment, having first seen her perform at Glastonbury as a teenager in 1994. Vocalist Contour adds heartfelt lyrics to "Logue", whilst keyboardist-vocalist Jonathan "Yaffra" Geyevu provides perspective on metropolitan life's grind on the closing "See How They Run".
Kaleidoscopic Visions is laid-back contemporary jazz at its most open-minded, with music so rich, textured and thoughtful you can practically hear its heart beating. The album chronicles the importance of considering the view from the middle of one's own life, taking stock alongside memories and family, heroes and friends. It's a low-key triumph that demonstrates Skinner's evolution from in-demand sideman to composer with a distinctive voice.
6. Amina Claudine Myers, Solace of the Mind (Red Hook Records)
Amina Claudine Myers delivered one of 2025's most profound musical meditations with Solace of the Mind, a solo album that stands as testament to six decades of uncompromising vision. Following her critically acclaimed 2024 collaboration with Wadada Leo Smith (Central Park's Mosaics of Reservoir, Lake, Paths and Gardens), Myers stripped away all external voices to create an intensely personal exploration featuring only piano, Hammond B3 organ, and her own voice.
Myers, an early member of the AACM in the mid-1960s, has traced a remarkable path from her beginnings in Arkansas church choirs to the forefront of avant-garde jazz. Her collaborations have included legendary figures like Archie Shepp, Gene Ammons, Sonny Stitt, Charlie Haden, Muhal Richard Abrams, Wadada Leo Smith, and Anthony Braxton. Recent honours include designation as a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master in 2024 and a Mellon Jazz Legacies Fellowship in 2025. Yet with Solace of the Mind, produced by Red Hook Records founder and former ECM producer Sun Chung, Myers created something more inward than collaborative—a meditation on musical memory and the power of space.
The album features ten tracks, including revisitations of compositions Myers has performed before but now reimagines with the nuanced perspective of a lifetime of musical innovation: "African Blues", "Song for Mother E", "Cairo", and the traditional "Steal Away". New material includes "Sensuous", "Ode to my Ancestors", "Voices", "Hymn for John Lee Hooker", "Twilight", and "Beneath the Sun". Throughout, Myers relies on fine touch, inner calm, and pure feeling to soothe the soul, using pure pianistic melody drawn from her deep Baptist and Methodist church music roots.
Reviewers noted that Myers hits certain notes and chords that linger in the air with inexplicable power. Her deliberate pacing and spatial arrangements create music where silence doesn't mean absence but intention. The album's stunning clarity, meticulously rendered by Chung's production, amplifies the enthralling subtleties of Myers's performance whilst creating an immersive soundstage that brings the music's intimacy into focus.
This is not avant-garde music but something drawn from the Black Church, yet it transcends simple categorisation. "African Blues" opens with carefully spaced low and mid-register chords, whilst "Hymn for John Lee Hooker" pays tribute to the blues legend with reverence and restraint. The album emerges as poetic clarity. Contemplative, vulnerable and transcendent. It is masterful not in the bombastic sense of technical dominance but in the quiet conviction of an artist who knows herself. Solace of the Mind represents a profound offering that moves beyond music into deeply reflective moods, providing moments of comfort and solace in an ever-changing world.
5. Mary Halvorson, About Ghosts (Nonesuch)
Guitarist and composer Mary Halvorson's About Ghosts continues her remarkable run with Nonesuch Records, following the critically praised Amaryllis, Belladonna, and Cloudward. Produced and mixed by Deerhoof's John Dieterich, the album features eight new compositions performed by Halvorson's Amaryllis sextet, augmented by saxophonists Immanuel Wilkins on alto and Brian Settles on tenor.
The expanded ensemble proves crucial to the album's success. Halvorson's core sextet comprises Patricia Brennan on vibraphone, Nick Dunston on bass, Tomas Fujiwara on drums, Jacob Garchik on trombone, and Adam O'Farrill on trumpet. The addition of Wilkins and Settles on five tracks beefs up the brass section significantly, bringing extra depth and nuance to Halvorson's already intricate compositions.
Halvorson wrote most of the music on guitar, which contributed to the album's distinctive character. She also added pocket piano on four tracks, creating what she describes as a subtle layer that settled almost imperceptibly into the arrangements, "sort of like the ghost member of the band" that gave the album its title. This phantom presence adds another dimension to music already rich in texture and detail.
The album balances all-out ensemble passages with quieter, stripped-back moments with masterful pacing. Opener "Full of Neon" establishes the album's aesthetic with its strident percussion and bass work underpinning wandering improvisation, with Brennan's fluid vibraphone lines shimmering across the top of the maelstrom. "Carved From" opens and closes in chamber jazz mode before entering a rich, uptempo waltz that showcases Halvorson's atonal yet provocative soloing. The ballad "Eventidal" spotlights Brennan's vibraphone in a somber, mournful atmosphere, whilst the title track evokes an Ellingtonian movement reimagined with 21st-century vision.
The pluck and saw of strings, murmuring horns, and pin-needle dewdrop notes of piano and tuned percussion create a dichotomous sense of a rich, overflowed garden beside a busy road. Halvorson's compositional bravery lies in her willingness to write music that doesn't conform to vocal song structures, allowing instruments to move in ways that aren't always lyrical in their melodic movement, opening emotional questions that are hard to answer but always thrill.
4. Charles Lloyd, Figure in Blue (Blue Note)
At 87, saxophonist Charles Lloyd shows no signs of creative decline. Figure in Blue, his twelfth Blue Note album, captures the master in a new trio setting following his 87th birthday concert at the Lobero Theater in Santa Barbara in March 2025. Alongside longtime collaborator Jason Moran on piano and guitarist Marvin Sewell, Lloyd delivers a spacious double album that travels wide expanses of musical terrain from beautiful ballads to raw Delta blues.
The album unfolds as both celebration and reflection, with Lloyd paying heartfelt tribute to the musicians and influences that have shaped his remarkable seven-decade career. Duke Ellington receives three dedications: Lloyd's original "Figure in Blue, memories of Duke" contrasts happy guitar strums and shimmering piano with reflective passages, whilst covers of Ellington's "Heaven" and "Black Butterfly" honour Lloyd's personal encounters with the maestro in Memphis and later in Antibes, France in 1966. The title track seamlessly pushes light against dark and gentle grooves against rubato, demonstrating Lloyd's continued mastery of dynamics.
Billie Holiday is honoured with "The Ghost of Lady Day", whilst the album includes a moving "Hymn To The Mother, for Zakir" dedicated to the late tabla master Zakir Hussain. Lloyd's Delta roots emerge powerfully on "Chulahoma" and "Blues for Langston", where the trio's communion creates ecstatic unions of spiritual jazz and Son House that recall Lloyd's early experiences supporting blues greats in Memphis and West Memphis juke joints.
Throughout Figure in Blue, Lloyd demonstrates the wisdom of his years without sacrificing spontaneity or passion. As he notes, "I am blessed that the Creator still gives it to me. Each day is a reminder of impermanence." The album breaks new ground in the way of harmony, patience, and generosity, with Lloyd projecting his reverence outward to become luminous. Moran and Sewell prove perfect foils, the guitarist's sound evoking everyone from Gábor Szabó to Bill Frisell whilst maintaining his own voice.
Figure in Blue stands as testament to Lloyd's enduring vision and ability to create music that feels both timeless and immediate, confirming his place as one of jazz's true living masters.
3. Ambrose Akinmusire, Honey from a Winter Stone (Nonesuch)
Trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire's Honey from a Winter Stone, released on Nonesuch Records, stands as one of his most intimate and uncompromising statements. The album, which Akinmusire calls a "self-portrait", represents a continuation of his evolution from post-bop virtuoso to boundary-dissolving composer working at the intersection of jazz, classical, and hip-hop.
Featuring improvisational vocalist Kokayi, pianist Sam Harris, Chiquitamagic on synthesiser, drummer Justin Brown, and the Mivos Quartet, the album comprises five extended pieces that explore deeply personal territory. Akinmusire describes it as addressing "the fears and struggles I personally face, as well as those many Black men endure: colorism, erasure, and the question of who gets to speak for my community, and why". The album pays homage to composer Julius Eastman's organic music concept whilst forging its own uncompromising path.
The opening track "muffled screams" emerged from a near-death experience, with Kokayi improvising lyrics based on personal stories Akinmusire shared. The vocalist's approach is pure improvisation, ensuring each performance remains unique, rapping in harmony with the chords and bringing profound dynamic quality to the music. The longest piece, "MYanx.", stretches beyond nine minutes, allowing Akinmusire and his collaborators to fully explore the album's themes with patient intensity.
Recorded at The Terrarium in Minneapolis in May 2023, the album marks a significant shift in Akinmusire's career since joining Nonesuch. His approach has become increasingly expansive and compositionally ambitious, moving firmly toward the contemporary classical concert hall whilst maintaining jazz's improvisational spirit.
The album's sprawling, long-form pieces are occasionally challenging, but Honey from a Winter Stone is a very serious record from an artist committed to pushing boundaries. Its tender moments and clarion cry of urgency recall Wadada Leo Smith, whilst its willingness to embrace difficulty and length signals Akinmusire's continued evolution as a composer unbounded by genre expectations.
2. SML, How You Been (International Anthem)
The Los Angeles quintet SML returned in 2025 with How You Been, a stunning follow-up to their acclaimed 2024 debut Small Medium Large. Comprising bassist Anna Butterss, synthesist Jeremiah Chiu, saxophonist Josh Johnson, drummer Booker Stardrum, and guitarist Gregory Uhlmann, SML represents the cream of LA's session player community, bringing experience from work with everyone from Jeff Parker and Ariel Kalma to Perfume Genius and Phoebe Bridgers.
What makes How You Been particularly fascinating is its creation process. The album was crafted through extensive post-production of recordings from performances throughout late 2024 and early 2025 at venues including Zebulon and The High Low in Los Angeles, Public Records in New York, and Empty Bottle in Chicago. Unlike their debut, which captured their very first shows, How You Been benefits from the band's evolved chemistry and deeper pool of source material, though they still approached each performance without predetermined musical direction, improvising intuitively and completely.
The result is music that feels both more complex and more intuitive than their debut. Tracks like "Chicago Four" showcase electronic and percussive sounds bouncing off each other with gathering energy before Uhlmann's guitar glides in, gloriously idiosyncratic against thick sheets of synthesised melody. "Taking Out the Trash" exemplifies the band's essence: Chiu's percussion synth establishes the groove before Stardrum and Butterss drop in on a heavy breakbeat, building to Johnson's wailing, distorted saxophone solo that would make Larry Coryell and Glenn Branca proud.
The album's genius lies in its variety and depth. "Old Mytth" creates a mystical, cinematic atmosphere with its slowburning percussion and stippled sax, whilst "Brood Board Shroom" conjures a soft-focus world somewhere between the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and spacier krautrock. Throughout, Butterss' irrepressibly bouncy basslines act as the album's combustion engine, driving forward SML's fusion of organic and electronic elements.
The album spirals out of the parameters marked "jazz" into electronica, ambient, and beyond, with SML clearly refusing to be just another jazz band. Their use of bit-crushed electronics and cold wave-y drum machines alongside traditional instrumentation creates something utterly thrilling, progressive, and wholly entrancing.
1. Patricia Brennan, Of the Near and Far (Pyroclastic)
Patricia Brennan's Of the Near and Far represents a quantum leap forward for one of contemporary jazz's most compelling voices. Following her widely acclaimed 2024 album Breaking Stretch, which earned her recognition as DownBeat's Album of the Year and Vibraphonist of the Year, Brennan returned with a work that translates celestial mathematics into transcendent music.
The album's genesis came from Brennan's fascination with constellations and their potential musical symmetry. She developed a process for overlaying constellation shapes onto the circle of fifths, extracting tonal and numerical data that informed her compositions. This scientific approach might sound coldly cerebral, but the resulting music feels both meticulously constructed and dreamlike, achieving that elusive balance between mathematical precision and emotional resonance.
Brennan assembled a formidable ensemble for the project: a jazz quintet featuring pianist Sylvie Courvoisier, guitarist Miles Okazaki, bassist Kim Cass, drummer John Hollenbeck, and electronics artist Arktureye, augmented by a string quartet comprising violinists Modney and Pala Garcia, violist Kyle Armbrust, and cellist Michael Nicolas. Conductor Eli Greenhoe helped guide these forces through Brennan's ambitious compositional vision. The album comprises seven tracks, five named after constellations, that traverse vast sonic terrain whilst maintaining remarkable coherence.
Opening track "Antlia" establishes the album's mechanical precision and restless energy, evoking the air pump it's named after through persistent rhythmic patterns and Hollenbeck's fractured drumming. Afrobeat and EDM influences underlie the structure, creating a constantly shifting, gear-like motion. "Aquarius" provides contrast with its fluid exploration of water's textural qualities through Brennan's and Okazaki's interwoven melodies, whilst "Andromeda" veers unexpectedly into alternative rock territory, demonstrating the ensemble's remarkable versatility. The more abstract "Citlalli" uses graphic scores to create an electroacoustic sound collage, whilst the closing "When You Stare Into the Abyss" lives up to its Kubrick-like title with entrancing electronic tension and the metallic ring of bowed vibraphone.
Whilst Of the Near and Far may not achieve the immediate impact of Breaking Stretch, it rewards patience with its curiosity, courage, and invention. The album's mathematical approaches and spontaneous developments reveal music of pure risk and imagination, fearless and free from convention.