The Best New Jazz Releases and Reissues: July 2026
The record of the month was 101: An Audio Odyssey, by Marshall Allen. At 102 years old you have to admire his dogged refusal to sit still. The month's reissues were also great with Blue Note bringing back two 1960 hard-bop classics, from Lee Morgan and Freddie Hubbard, and an epic soul-jazz organ session from Big John Patton. New spiritual jazz arrived from Leeds, a live album from Sydney, and behind all of it sits the date that may well shape the rest of the jazz year, John Coltrane's centenary in September, with a host of reissues scheduled to commemorate the date.
Here is what mattered in July.
New releases
Marshall Allen, 101: An Audio Odyssey (Ropeadope). Allen leads the Sun Ra Arkestra and turned 100 two years ago. You would not know it from this. The album came together almost by accident at the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, when a cancellation left bassist Jamaaladeen Tacuma, once of Ornette Coleman's Prime Time, with the exact players he wanted on hand: Nels Cline, Immanuel Wilkins, DM Hotep and Roberto Verástegui among them. It moves through funk, free jazz and electric fusion without ever settling, closer to Miles Davis's electric years filtered through Sun Ra than to anything you would call a comeback.
Ancient Infinity Orchestra, It's Always About Liberation (Gondwana Records). The Leeds collective's second album, and better than its first. Large-ensemble spiritual jazz working from the Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders songbook, modal and devotional, with the patience that lineage asks for. Gondwana has quietly become one of the most reliable homes for this music, and this is a strong case for why.
Matthew Ottignon, Volant: Live at 21 Shepherd. Recorded at Sydney's Livingroom Theatre, this is Ottignon's quartet, with pianist Lauren Tsamouras, bassist Hannah James and drummer Hayley Chan, taking his 2024 studio album Volant to the stage. Straight-ahead modern post-bop, solemn in tone and fierce when it needs to be. Good to hear the local scene documented this well.
Nils Petter Molvær, Be Quiet (Edition Records). The Norwegian trumpeter has been building tension inside stillness since Khmer in 1998, and he is still at it. Cellist Anja Lechner, percussionist Marilyn Mazur and vocalist Imogen Heap turn up among the guests. Nordic, electronic at the edges, calm on the surface with something restless underneath. One for anyone who lives in the ECM end of the shelf.
Skyjack, Let The Sky Open Under Your Feet ( Kujua Records). A quintet split between Cape Town and Switzerland: bassist Shane Cooper, pianist Kyle Shepherd, saxophonist Marc Stucki, trombonist Andreas Tschopp and drummer Jonno Sweetman. Unhurried and carefully melodic, like an ode to summer played from the shade. A double LP, and worth the time it asks.
Nu Jazz, Un Jazz (Orange Milk). The confusingly named Nu Jazz are a six-piece out of Queens, and Un Jazz, is free jazz put through hardcore and electronics until it buckles: screamed vocals, blown-out trumpet, modular synth, the band's own description a festival riot crossed with Montreux. It is not remotely what most of this list is, and that is the point. If you want to hear where the young, angry end of the New York scene is pushing, start here. Cassette and CD for now, no vinyl yet.
Reissues and represses
Lee Morgan, Leeway (Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series). Morgan's 1960 date, back on 17 July as an all-analog 180g pressing mastered by Kevin Gray from the original tapes. Core hard bop, and the pressing to reach for if you want the sound without hunting an original.
Freddie Hubbard, Goin' Up (Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series). Out the same day, the same treatment. Early Hubbard with Hank Mobley, McCoy Tyner, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones behind him. If you are building a hard-bop shelf, these two together are the easiest decision of the month.
Big John Patton, Got A Good Thing Goin' (Blue Note Tone Poet Series). The 1966 organ date gets the full Joe Harley Tone Poet treatment. All-analog mastering by Kevin Gray, RTI pressing, tip-on jacket. Soul-jazz that earns its keep, in packaging that earns the price. Also out is the 1986 live album Power of Three from Michel Petrucciani, Jim Hall and Wayne Shorter, for the collectors keeping the Tone Poet run complete.
Coltrane at 100, and a farewell
Two dates frame the rest of this jazz year.
On 15 June, Abdullah Ibrahim died in Germany at 91. The South African pianist, once known as Dollar Brand, wrote Mannenberg and carried his country's music into jazz for more than seven decades. Gearbox is honouring him with his final three albums, 3, Solotude and The Balance. His catalogue, and the South African spiritual jazz around it, is the music to sit with this Spring.
And on 23 September, John Coltrane would have turned 100. The estate's Coltrane 100 campaign runs all year, with Impulse reissuing across the catalogue, Meditations already back and Live at Birdland due on 23 October, plus the first release of the private "Tiberi Tapes" in September. If you have been meaning to go deeper into Coltrane, this is the year the whole world does it with you.
If the July reissues or the Coltrane centenary have your attention, the hard-bop and spiritual-jazz shelves are stocked and turning over quickly. Shop at Lush Life Records.
