The Best New Jazz Releases and Reissues: October 2026

October was an outstanding month for new jazz, perhaps even the best of 2026 so far. James Brandon Lewis and Red Lily's Calling Antonín, a sextet album about Dvořák's years in 1890s America pulls off that rare trick of being both conceptually rigorous and genuinely moving. Josh Johnson's Animative is a near-perfect, near-solo record on International Anthem and Clifford Jordan's beguiling Night of the Mark VII finally gets the pressing it has deserved for decades, plus four new Three Blind Mice reissues from Japan. We said last month the Coltrane centenary vinyl was coming, and boy did it arrive, but Coltrane was far from the only centenary this month.

New jazz releases, October 2026

James Brandon Lewis and Red Lily, Calling Antonín

Tao Forms. LP and CD. Released 23 October 2026.

Lewis has a method now with his Red Lily albums, he concentrates on one figure as its subject. George Washington Carver for Jesup Wagon (2021), Mahalia Jackson For Mahalia, With Love (2023). Calling Antonín is the most ambitious of the three. Between 1892 and 1895 Antonin Dvořák ran the National Conservatory in New York, and a student named Harry Burleigh sang him spirituals. That encounter, the moment the Czech composer first heard Black American music, is what Lewis has built this entire record around.

Red Lily here is Lewis on tenor, Kirk Knuffke on cornet, Melanie Dyer on viola, Tomeka Reid on cello, Joshua Abrams on bass and Chad Taylor on drums. With two string players in the sextet, this is the Lewis group best placed to take on the compositions of Dvořák, and the music bears it out. These are not idle reinterpretations but intense fusions of jazz experimentation, Bohemian folk melodies, syncopated rhythms, and Romanticism, to form something entirely new and endlessly satisfying for the listener. It's a brilliant record.

The LP comes as a gatefold with a download card for two extra tracks. The CD has liner notes by Dvořák scholar Michael Beckerman. If you came to Lewis through the trio, Apple Cores and Eye of I are both in stock, and our Album of the Month on Apple Cores has the backstory.

Josh Johnson, Animative

International Anthem and Nonesuch. LP, CD and download. Released 23 October 2026 (streaming from 10 November).

Johnson has spent the past couple of years playing on everyone else's best records. He's the alto in Jeff Parker's ETA IVtet, a member of SML and the producer of Flea's solo debut. Animative, his third album as leader and his first for International Anthem, is close to a one-man band: saxophone, bass clarinet, synth, sampler, piano, Rhodes, guitar and percussion. Co-produced with Paul Bryan, the guests here are Meshell Ndegeocello, Macie Stewart and Marquis Hill, with Ben Lumsdaine drumming on "Reece".

Stereogum, a site not known for its jazz recommendations, made it Album of the Week in October, which tells you something of the crossover appeal of this record. Fierce and vulnerable, symphonic but still intimate, the record does a lot of work and pulls in influences from everywhere and yet the result remains completely natural and cohesive. Animate the soul this record certainly does.

Jeremy Cunningham, Passing Fires

Northern Spy. LP. Released 2 October 2026.

Put this next to Animative and October starts looking like one long Josh Johnson showcase. Cunningham is a Chicago drummer, and Passing Fires, his follow-up to The Weather Up There (2020), covers five years in which he became a parent and lost his father to cancer. Family recordings run through it, and so does nostalgia, melancholy, compassion and joy. Johnson co-produced and plays alto. Jeff Parker, Makaya McCraven and Sen Morimoto all turn up too. Same circle, different leader, and further evidence that Chicago is producing some of the most consistently interesting jazz right now.

Jimetta Rose, MettaSun

Day Dreamer. LP. Released 2 October 2026 (digital 25 September).

Sun Ra tributes almost always go wrong by reaching for the strangeness first and the music second. Rose takes the opposite route, keeping the voice and the words at the centre of everything. The band is Mike Alvidrez (bass), Wayne Matthews (drums), Ahmad Dubose Dawson (percussion), Curtis Crump (piano, saxophone) and Maia The Artíste (harp, vibes, flute). With soul, gospel and of course a heavy dose of spirituality, Rose creates an Afrofuturistic world of protest song and dreamlike incantations that rail against the despair and injustice of the modern world. If you like spiritual jazz, this record deserves your attention.

Our history of spiritual jazz covers the lineage.

Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, ANANTA: Spirit of Coltrane

Impulse! Records. Released 30 October 2026. Vinyl configuration not confirmed at time of writing.

This is the Coltrane tribute with the biggest cast and the biggest risk. Atwood-Ferguson, the Los Angeles string player and arranger behind Suite for Ma Dukes, leads a 21-piece collective that includes Brandee Younger, Jeff Parker, Immanuel Wilkins, Shabaka Hutchings, Azar Lawrence, Joel Ross, Aja Monet and Flying Lotus, whose great-aunt was Alice Coltrane. Seven tracks are Coltrane staples: "Naima", "Giant Steps", "My Favorite Things", "After the Rain", "Compassion", "Central Park West" and "A Love Supreme, Pt. II (Resolution)". The eighth sets words by Aja Monet.

Here is the problem: nobody records "Naima" without being measured against the original, and a set list this canonical invites reverence more than risk. Reviews have been respectful rather than rapturous. It's certainly a brave undertaking, and for the most part it works. If nothing else, a collection of so many jazz luminaries on a single record is worth your time. 

Hyperbaroq, Tripudiis Sonis Variis (A Jubilation of Sounds)

Earshift Music. CD and digital. Released 2 October 2026.

An Australian pick, and cheerfully the strangest record on this list. Hyperbaroq is a Melbourne trio playing Monteverdi, Scarlatti, Carissimi, Strozzi and Purcell through jazz, which is not a sentence you come across often. Mirko Guerrini plays piano, soprano sax, synth and an armoury of wind instruments (Chinese flute, moseño, duduk, chalumeau), Ilaria Crociani sings and Stephen Magnusson plays guitars, Moog guitar included.

The project began in lockdown. The title comes from Gaspare Torella's 1504 treatise on the plague, which is either very apt or very dark depending on how much distance you feel from 2020. They launched it at the Melbourne International Jazz Festival, with ABC Jazz broadcasting the set. Earshift keeps putting out records that nobody else would go near, and that is exactly why we keep listening to them. CD only for now.

Yuma Koda, Amid Kinos

Newhere Music and Space Shower. Digital. Released 2 October 2026.

A debut from a Japanese film composer with an Australian holding down the bass. Koda's first album, filed under ambient jazz by many, features the best of the best from the current Tokyo jazz scene: Takuro Okada on guitar, Kei Matsumaru on saxophone, Shun Ishiwaka on drums and Marty Holoubek on bass. Holoubek was born in Adelaide, worked in Melbourne and moved to Tokyo in 2018. Between him and Anna Butterss in Los Angeles, Adelaide is quietly becoming jazz's most productive bass-player export.

It's unconventional. Delicate vocals float over expansive, cinematic textures, propelled by very real jazz flex. It's an enticing and sumptuous record that should be gorged on enthusiastically. Mei Semones, Yuma Abe, Julia Shortreed, LUCA, Shuhei Kato and Shinya Fukumori guest. Digital only. If a pressing turns up, we'll be onto it straight away.

Best jazz reissues, October 2026

Clifford Jordan Quartet, Night of the Mark VII

Time Traveler Recordings. LP, 180g. Released 23 October 2026.

The Mark VII in the title is a Selmer tenor, and on 26 March 1975 Jordan took his to a stage in Paris with Cedar Walton on piano, Sam Jones on bass and Billy Higgins on drums. The set includes Bill Lee's "John Coltrane", Jordan's "Highest Mountain", Walton's "Midnight Waltz", and Jones' "One for Amos" and "Blue Monk". 

This isn't just another lap of a catalogue everybody already knows by heart. It is a great working band with their own tunes, captured live, playing out of their skins on a night when everything clicked. Riotous hard bop gives way to restrained ballads, and in the ebb and flow of the set, a perfect performance captured for all time. Live albums this good are a surprisingly rare thing, because it's like catching moonlight in a jar, but catch it they did.

The original Muse LP has been a collector's piece for years, and thankfully Time Traveler has done a proper job on the reissue: an all-analogue cut by Matthew Lutthans at the Mastering Lab, pressed by Optimal, with a Stoughton tip-on jacket.

Three Blind Mice Premium Reissue Collection: four new titles

Sony Music Japan. LP, 180g (SACD hybrid also available). Released in Japan 21 October 2026.

If you read our Three Blind Mice piece last month, you already know why this label matters to us more than almost any other reissue program running. Sony's Premium Reissue Collection, supervised by Koki Hanawa of Judgment! Records and pressed at Sony's Shizuoka plant with English liner notes, added four more in October:

• Takashi Mizuhashi Quartet +2, When a Man Loves a Woman (TBM-28). Mizuhashi's first album as leader, recorded live at the 5 Days in Jazz concerts in 1974. Yoshio Otomo plays alto, Fumio Karashima piano. The "So What" runs past 15 minutes.
• Fumio Karashima Trio, Gathering (TBM-3004). Recorded 1 and 2 February 1977 with Isao Suzuki on bass and George Otsuka on drums, plus one solo piano track. Karashima's second album as leader, after Piranha for Whynot.
• Isao Suzuki Quartet +1, All Right! (TBM-36). Recorded 18 and 19 November 1974, Suzuki's third TBM album after Blow Up and Blue City. He plays bass, cello, electric piano, Hammond and drums, and he sings.
• Hideo Ichikawa Trio, Tomorrow (TBM-23). A piano trio album from the master pianist and composer performing at the height of his powers.

Our guide to the most valuable Japanese jazz records explains why original TBM pressings cost what they do, and our vintage Japanese pressings are always worth a look.

Freddie Hubbard, Hub Cap

Blue Note Tone Poet series. LP, 180g. Released 2 October 2026.

Hubbard recorded Hub Cap at Van Gelder's Englewood Cliffs studio on 9 April 1961, two days after his 23rd birthday, with Julian Priester on trombone, Jimmy Heath on tenor, Cedar Walton on piano, Larry Ridley on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums. Randy Weston's "Cry Me Not", written for the session and arranged by Melba Liston is, in Hubbard's own words, "the most interesting tune on the record". Kevin Gray cut it from tape, RTI pressed it, as with every Tone Poet.

Booker Ervin, Structurally Sound

Blue Note Tone Poet series. LP, 180g. Released 2 October 2026.

Ervin's run of Book albums for Prestige (The Freedom Book, The Song Book and the rest) is so good it tends to overshadow everything else he did, which makes this 1966 Pacific Jazz session easy to miss. Charles Tolliver is on trumpet, five years before Strata-East, with John Hicks on piano, Red Mitchell on bass and Lenny McBrowne on drums. The same Kevin Gray and RTI team present here too.

Lou Donaldson, Sunny Side Up

Blue Note Classic Vinyl series. LP, 180g. Released 16 October 2026.

Donaldson would have turned 100 on 1 November. He died in November 2024, at 98, and Blue Note got this out a fortnight early, which feels like a deliberate mark of respect. Sunny Side Up was recorded on 5 and 28 February 1960, a quintet with Bill Hardman on trumpet, Horace Parlan on piano, Sam Jones or Laymon Jackson on bass and Al Harewood on drums. This was just before Donaldson moved into the organ combos that would define the rest of his decade, which makes it the last clear window onto his bop-era playing.

Jackie McLean, Swing, Swang, Swingin'

Blue Note Classic Vinyl series. LP, 180g. Released 16 October 2026.

Same series, same day, different alto player. McLean's 1959 quartet session has Walter Bishop Jr. on piano, Art Taylor on drums and Jimmy Garrison on bass, two years before Garrison joined Coltrane. This album lives in the shadow of McLean's more famous records, but it's not entirely fair. It is a better place to start with McLean than most of the records people recommend first.

Cecil Taylor Unit, Live at the KiMo Theater, Albuquerque 1979

Black Editions Archive. 2LP, tip-on gatefold. Released 16 October 2026.

On 20 November 1979 Taylor brought his Unit to Albuquerque's KiMo Theater. Jimmy Lyons on alto, Ramsey Ameen on violin, Alan Silva on bass and cello, Jerome Cooper on drums, balafon and shehnai. Recorded for NPR's Jazz Alive the concert never aired. The tapes sat unheard for four decades until Tom Guralnick, producer of the 1979 concert, brought them to the attention of Black Editions Archive. A full Cecil Taylor concert from this period, sitting in a box for forty years, that really is remarkable.

Black Editions has treated it accordingly. Mastering by Joe Lizzi, lacquers by Kevin Gray, a 12-page listening guide by Ben Young. If you are new to Taylor, or avant-garde jazz, then maybe this is not for you. But if you already know Taylor and love him, this may be the most significant archival jazz find of the year.

Various Artists, Spiritual Jazz 19: West Coast USA, Parts 1 and 2

Jazzman. 2LP each. Released 2 October 2026.

Jazzman's long-running series reaches California in two volumes. Part 1 covers the 1950s and 60s: Pharoah Sanders, Harold Land, Charles Lloyd. Part 2 takes the 70s and 80s and goes deeper: Buddy Collette's "Safari West", Rickey Kelly's "Danakil Warrior", the Ed Kelly Ensemble. The deeper this series digs, the better it gets. Always amazing.

John Coltrane, John Coltrane with the Red Garland Trio

Craft Recordings, Original Jazz Classics series. LP, 180g. Released 9 October 2026.

Recorded 23 August 1957 with Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Art Taylor. Prestige released it in early 1958 as Prestige 7123, then reissued it in 1961 as Traneing In with a different cover. If you have seen both in a rack and assumed they were two different albums, you have plenty of company. Kevin Gray cut this one from tape. Our Prestige label guide will help you date an original.

Miles Davis Quintet, Relaxin' with the Miles Davis Quintet

Craft Recordings, Original Jazz Classics series. LP, 180g. Released 9 October 2026.

The second album Prestige released from the quintet's two 1956 marathon sessions, recorded to see out Davis' contract before he moved to Columbia. Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, Philly Joe Jones, with the studio talk left in. Kevin Gray (again). Steamin' follows in the same series on 4 December.

John Coltrane, John Coltrane 100: Selections from 1951 to 1967

Rhino. 6LP box and 2LP highlights. Released 2 October 2026.

The centenary box crosses labels, putting Atlantic recordings alongside Columbia and Impulse! material, starting in 1951, six years before Coltrane's first record as leader. Our honest view: if you are building a Coltrane collection, buy the individual albums. You will hear them better and spend less. The six-LP box makes most sense as a gift, or for someone who wants the whole arc in one place without doing the work of finding it.

Gabor Szabo, Dreams

Mr Bongo. LP, 140g, tip-on gatefold. Released 23 October 2026.

Szabo left Hungary in 1956 and by 1968 had his own label, Skye, co-founded with Gary McFarland and Cal Tjader. Dreams was recorded that August in Los Angeles and New York, arranged and produced by McFarland, with Jim Stewart on second guitar, Louis Kabok on bass, Jim Keltner on drums and Hal Gordon on percussion. The material takes in Manuel de Falla, Donovan's "Ferris Wheel" and Kodály, a fellow Hungarian, which is the most revealing choice on the record and the one that tells you what Szabo was really thinking about.

Jan Garbarek, Rites

ECM Luminessence series. 2LP. Released 16 October 2026.

Garbarek's 1998 double album reaches vinyl for the first time, which is long overdue. It came out at the peak of the CD era, which explains why it took 28 years. September's Stanley Cowell reissue came from the same ECM series, which is quietly becoming one of the better reissue programs running.

Also out in October

• Bill Evans, California Here I Come (Verve Vault, 9 October): the 1967 Village Vanguard trio with Eddie Gómez and Philly Joe Jones, first released in 1982.
• Ahmad Jamal, Ahmad Jamal '73 (Verve Vault, 9 October).
• Joe Harriott, High Spirits, and Alan Skidmore Quintet, Once Upon a Time (British Jazz Explosion, 16 October). High Spirits gets its 1965 stereo mix on vinyl for the first time. Note: this series is mastered from 24/192 digital files, not tape.
• Dorothy Ashby and Frank Wess, In a Minor Groove (Real Gone Music, 16 October).
• Freddie McCoy, Spider Man (Real Gone Music, all-analogue).
• Eddie Harris, The Electrifying Eddie Harris (Speakers Corner).
• Coleman Hawkins, Wrapped Tight (Verve/Impulse! Acoustic Sounds series, 23 October): Matthew Lutthans cut, QRP pressing.
• Marlena Shaw, The Spice of Life (Fontana Thousand Club, 23 October): Lutthans cut, 1,000 copies, already sold out at the source.
• Brigitte Fontaine, Comme à la Radio (Wewantsounds, 23 October): her 1970 album with Areski and the Art Ensemble of Chicago.
• Incorporated! (BGP, 30 October): a CTI compilation covering 1969 to 1974.

Looking ahead: November and December

Seventy years ago this week, Lee Morgan walked into a studio at eighteen and recorded his first album as leader, Indeed! (Blue Note 1538), with Clarence Sharpe, Horace Silver, Wilbur Ware and Philly Joe Jones. Brilliant Corners turns 70 as well: Monk recorded most of it on 9 and 15 October 1956 and finished on 7 December, when Clark Terry and Paul Chambers came in for "Bemsha Swing" and Monk recorded "I Surrender, Dear" alone.

The Coltrane centenary's biggest release arrives 6 November. Impulse!'s The Tiberi Tapes collects eleven performances from the reel-to-reel recordings saxophonist Frank Tiberi made in the audience at Coltrane's club dates from 1960: a 4LP set, a 3CD set and digital. A complete edition with more than 100 performances on USB, an LP and a book is planned for early 2027. The nine-LP Miles Davis and John Coltrane: The Complete Columbia Recordings 1955 to 1961 arrives the same day. On 13 November: Craft's three-LP The Savoy Recordings, Coltrane's 1958 sessions with Wilbur Harden, and Jazz Dispensary's reissue of Gary Bartz NTU Troop's I've Known Rivers & Other Bodies.

Blue Note Classic Vinyl continues on 20 November with Big John Patton's That Certain Feeling and Reuben Wilson's On Broadway, both from 1968, and on 11 December with Horace Silver's The Stylings of Silver (1957) and Sonny Clark's Leapin' and Lopin' (1961). Original Jazz Classics has a strong 4 December: the Bill Evans Trio's How My Heart Sings!, Coltrane's Soultrane, Sonny Rollins' Work Time and the Miles Davis Quintet's Steamin', all cut by Kevin Gray at RTI.

Record Store Day's Black Friday drop falls on 27 November. Ensemble Al-Salaam's Sojourner is due on LP through P-Vine around 18 November. And Strata-East announced on 22 October that Shamek Farrah's First Impressions (deluxe edition), Cecil Payne's Zodiac and Charles Brackeen's Rhythm X are coming, dates to follow. Tolliver on Structurally Sound this month and Cowell in September: the label's co-founders are having a good year.