The Best New Jazz Releases and Reissues: September 2026
The best new jazz of September 2026 starts with Emma Dayhuff's Mountains, a bass-led modern jazz record with Isaiah Collier on tenor. On the reissue side the month belongs to Sonny Clark's The Art of the Trio in Blue Note's Tone Poet series, and to the first release outside Japan of The Third World-Underground by Dollar Brand, Don Cherry and Carlos Ward.
John Coltrane turned 100 on 23 September. You would expect the record shops to be buried in him, and they will be, just not yet. Most of the serious centenary vinyl lands in October and November (more on that at the end). September's Coltrane moment came instead from a working band, which feels about right.
New jazz releases, September 2026
Emma Dayhuff, Mountains
Division 81 Records. 2LP and CD. Released 4 September 2026.
The record of the month, and it isn't close. Dayhuff grew up in Montana, came through Chicago's creative music scene and now works out of Los Angeles, and Mountains is the sound of all three places in symphony. Her bass sits dead centre of every arrangement, even when Isaiah Collier is tearing the roof off on tenor. Paul Cornish (piano), Jonathan Pinson (drums) and Corey Wilkes (trumpet) make up the core, with guitarist Andrew Renfroe and vocalist Akenya Seymour adding colour. Spiritual jazz heat, straight-ahead discipline, and a double LP to put it on. An outstanding album indeed. And collectors take note, it includes a previously unrecorded composition by the bassist and composer Bill Lee.
Audrey Powne, Bodies of Water
BBE Music. LP. Released 25 September 2026.
The Melbourne-born, London-based trumpeter, singer and producer follows her 2024 debut From the Fire with something looser and stranger. The foundation was cut over two days at Electric Garden in Brooklyn with bassist David "DJ" Ginyard and drummer Jonathan Barber, and Powne spent much of 2025 layering trumpet, voice and keys on top. Also featuring collaborations with guitarist Randy Runyon and mix engineer Lewis Moody (another Melbourne export), Bodies of Water shape shifts through traditional jazz, R&B, Afrobeat, hip hop and ambient arrangements. The album wears its J Dilla debt openly but there are plenty of surprises here too. Definately one of the more interesting Australians working in jazz right now, Powne was a 2025 DownBeat Critics Poll Rising Star, and this record makes it clear why.
Ezra Collective, Here Because of Hope
Partisan Records. 2LP, LP and CD. Released 11 September 2026
The Mercury Prize winners return and aim big. A record in three movements, tracing Black music from West Africa through the Caribbean to London. Femi Koleoso, TJ Koleoso, Joe Armon-Jones, James Mollison and Ife Ogunjobi are joined by Pa Salieu, Lila Iké and Leona Lewis. It's a party record with a thesis, which is a hard trick, and Ezra pull it off triumphantly. Of course.
Gretchen Parlato, The Wise Ones
Edition Records. LP (gold vinyl) and CD. Released 11 September 2026 (digital 28 August).
Fifteen years after In a Dream, Parlato goes back to the people who made it with her: Robert Glasper, Gerald Clayton, Mark Guiliana and co-producer Alan Hampton, with Becca Stevens, Amber Navran and Meshell Ndegeocello as guests. Close-miked, unhurried, rhythmically sly. Glasper's mesmerising Rhodes on Stevie Wonder's "If It's Magic" is worth the price alone.
Kris Davis Trio, Lost in Geneva
Kris Davis and 4166 Records. CD. Released 25 September 2026.
Davis, bassist Robert Hurst and drummer Johnathan Blake recorded this in a single day, 15 September 2025, at Oktaven Audio in Mount Vernon, New York. It's about as straight-ahead as Davis gets, which with her means the form keeps stretching and snapping back. Her arrangement of Morton Feldman's "Nature Piece" is a highlight. CD only for now; with luck a vinyl issue follows.
Hamed Sadeghi, Comfortable
Released by the artist. CD. Released 5 September 2026.
The best record made in Australia this month comes from Sydney. Sadeghi, the tar player behind the Eishan Ensemble, writes for an octet of local heavyweights: Lloyd Swanton of The Necks on double bass, Sandy Evans and Michael Avgenicos on saxophones, Paul Cutlan on bass clarinet, Thomas Avgenicos on trumpet, and percussionists Adem Yilmaz and Sohrab Kolahdooz. The opener, "Inheritance", reworks a reng in the Persian Homāyoun mode, and from there composed lines keep opening into improvisation and closing again. Anyone who loves Anouar Brahem's ECM records would be happy here. CD only.
Visions of Nar, Awakening
Earshift Music. Released 18 September 2026. Physical format not confirmed at time of writing.
Pianist Zela Margossian and saxophonist Jeremy Rose lead this Armenian folk and jazz project, with Hilary Geddes on guitar and Bobby Singh on tabla. Recorded live at the Australian Chamber Orchestra's Pier 2/3 studios in Sydney, it's a warmer, more rhythmic record than their debut Daughter of the Seas. Earshift has quietly become one of the most reliable labels in the country, and this is another reason why.
Best jazz reissues, September 2026
Sonny Clark, The Art of the Trio
Blue Note Tone Poet series. 2LP, 180g. Released 25 September 2026.
The reissue of the month, and one for anyone who has ever hunted Japanese Blue Note pressings. The set gathers Sonny Clark Trio, recorded in October 1957 with Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones, with two further trio sessions from November and December 1958 (Jymie Merritt and Wes Landers, then Chambers and Landers) that were later released in Japan as Blues in the Night and The Art of the Trio. This is the first time they've shared a package. Joe Harley produced, Kevin Gray cut it from the analogue tapes, RTI pressed it, and the booklet has new notes by Syd Schwartz plus Francis Wolff photographs nobody has seen before. Clark's touch on standards like "Blues in the Night" is pure hard bop elegance. If you've been paying Japanese import prices for those two titles, you can relax.
Dollar Brand, Don Cherry and Carlos Ward, The Third World-Underground
Wewantsounds. LP and CD. Released 11 September 2026.
Recorded live at Jazzhus Montmartre in Copenhagen on 14 November 1972 and released only in Japan, in 1974, on Trio Records' Nadja imprint. Until now that is. Dollar Brand (Abdullah Ibrahim) plays piano and sings, Cherry plays trumpet and percussion, Ward plays alto, and the set moves effortlessly between South African melody and open-ended improvisation. An essential document that captures the three artists at the height of their careers. The Trio originals might remain the ones to chase, but at least we can all have a listen now.
Sam Rivers, Dimensions & Extensions
Blue Note Tone Poet series. LP. Released 4 September 2026.
Recorded in 1967, shelved, and not released until 1986. Rivers leads Donald Byrd, James Spaulding, Julian Priester, Cecil McBee and Steve Ellington through his own compositions, right at the edge of the avant-garde but never letting go of the blues. Kevin Gray cut it from tape; RTI pressed it. One of the less obvious Tone Poet picks, and one of the best.
Sonny Rollins, Sonny Rollins, Vol. 2
Blue Note Tone Poet series. LP (mono). Released 4 September 2026.
The 1957 session with Thelonious Monk and Horace Silver splitting the piano chair (they share it on "Misterioso"), J.J. Johnson on trombone, Paul Chambers on bass and Art Blakey on drums. A Kevin Gray mono cut of a record so good it doesn't need selling.
Woody Shaw, Song of Songs
Jazz Dispensary Top Shelf series (Craft Recordings). LP, all-analogue. Released 4 September 2026.
Shaw's second album as leader, released on Contemporary in 1973 after Blackstone Legacy. One side is acoustic; the other leans on George Cables' electric piano, and the whole thing reaches back to Gillespie and Ellington while pushing forward. Released as part of the always brilliant Jazz Dispensary Top Shelf series.
Stanley Cowell Trio, Illusion Suite
ECM Luminessence series. LP. Released 18 September 2026.
The pianist's 1973 trio date with Stanley Clarke on bass and Jimmy Hopps on drums. Cowell co-founded Strata-East, and if you know him only from that catalogue, this is the gentler, more lyrical side of the same mind.
Eddie Gale, Black Rhythm Happening
Blue Note Classic Vinyl series. LP. Released 18 September 2026.
The Sun Ra trumpeter's second Blue Note album, from 1969, folding free jazz, gospel, soul and African music into one joyful noise. Cut from tape by Kevin Gray and pressed at Optimal.
The Three Sounds, Soul Symphony
Blue Note Classic Vinyl series. LP. Released 18 September 2026.
Also 1969. Producer Monk Higgins surrounds the piano trio with horns, strings and guitar, and the side-long title track pushes soul jazz somewhere far more adventurous. Same Kevin Gray and Optimal team.
Prestige Moodsville series launch
Craft Recordings and Acoustic Sounds. LPs. Released 18 September 2026.
Craft has revived Prestige's late-night Moodsville imprint with three opening titles: Moodsville Volume 1 by the Red Garland Trio with Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis (1960), Moodsville Volume 8 by the Frank Wess Quartet (1960), and Coleman Hawkins' The Hawk Relaxes (1961). Matthew Lutthans cut them from tape at the Mastering Lab and QRP pressed them. Ballads, low lights, no hurry jazz. Clean originals are hard to find, so this series could matter.
Grant Green, His Majesty King Funk
Verve Acoustic Sounds series. LP. Released 25 September 2026.
Green's 1965 Verve date, which is more soul jazz rather than funk, despite the name. With Larry Young on organ. Lutthans cut, QRP pressing. Wes Montgomery's California Dreaming (1967) arrived in the same series the same week, if your tastes run smoother.
Edu Lôbo, Cantiga de Longe
Week-End Records. LP. Released 11 September 2026.
The Brazilian pick. Lôbo's 1970 album wraps sharp ideas inside gentle MPB, made under Brazil's military dictatorship, with Hermeto Pascoal and Airto Moreira among the players. Cologne's Week-End Records has done it properly. In the same week Vampisoul reissued Marcos Valle's Vento Sul (1972), his left turn with the prog band O Terço, which is worth hearing alongside it.
Marlena Shaw, Live at Montreux
Elemental Music. LP. Released 25 September 2026.
Shaw's 1974 Blue Note live set, sliding between soul, blues, pop and jazz in front of a Swiss crowd that knows exactly what it's getting. Blue Note hasn't given it a proper vinyl reissue in years, so Spain's Elemental has stepped in. Mastering source isn't stated.
The Coltrane centenary shelf (so far)
Impulse! and Blue Note. Released September 2026.
Two Coltrane titles arrived this month, and neither is the main event. Essential John Coltrane (Impulse!, 2LP, 11 September) is a ten-track primer drawn from A Love Supreme, Live at Birdland, Crescent and the Hartman and Ellington collaborations. Fine for a newcomer. Blue Note also put Blue Train into its budget Essential Vinyl series on blue vinyl, cut from digital masters. It will start someone's jazz life somewhere, but the Tone Poet edition remains the one to own. August's Original Jazz Classics pressing of Coltrane (Prestige 7105), Kevin Gray's cut of his first album as leader, is still the best centenary purchase on the shelf.
Looking ahead: October and November
The centenary vinyl arrives properly over the next eight weeks. Rhino's six-LP John Coltrane 100: Selections from 1951 to 1967, the first career retrospective to cross label lines, is out 2 October, with a two-LP highlights set the same day. Original Jazz Classics follow on 9 October with John Coltrane with the Red Garland Trio and Relaxin' with the Miles Davis Quintet, and Ballads joins Verve's Essentials series the same day. Then the big one: The Tiberi Tapes, Frank Tiberi's long-rumoured amateur recordings of Coltrane live between 1960 and 1964, arrive on Impulse! as a 4LP set on 6 November, alongside a nine-LP reissue of Miles Davis and John Coltrane: The Complete Columbia Recordings 1955 to 1961. Craft's three-LP The Savoy Recordings, Coltrane's 1958 sessions with Wilbur Harden, follows on 13 November, the same day Jazz Dispensary's Top Shelf series reissues Gary Bartz NTU Troop's I've Known Rivers & Other Bodies.
