Listen to this!

My favorite recordings of 2025

Billy Hart, who appears on this list at least twice, at the Jazz Genius on the first weekend of the new year. (He co-led a trio with pianist Ethan Iverson, rounded out by bassist Joe Martin. The club is new and has a lot of promise.

RECORDS OF 2025

[Ahmed], Giant Beauty (fönstret)

Truly astonishing and audacious 4-disc set, in which a quartet of European players (Pat Thomas, Seymour Wright, Joel Grip, Antonin Gerbal) pays tribute to bassist Ahmed Abdul-Malik by reconfiguring four of his pieces — one per disc! — with remarkably concentrated improvisations. I saw Wright with John Butcher at Cafe Oto in London in February of 2025, it was amazing overall, and I was delighted when, at home a month later, Daniel Blumberg gave a shout out to Oto at the Oscars after he won a gold man for The Brutalist.

Bruder Selke & Midori Hirano, Split Scale (Thrill Jockey)

New Masada Quartet, Volume 3, Live At Roulette (Tzadik)

Painkiller, The Equinox (Tzadik)

Remarkably cohesive skullcrushing from a trio that cannot be in the same room together.

Ikue Mori, Of Ghosts and Goblins (Tzadik)

Billy Hart Quartet, Just (ECM)

Benjamin Lackner, Spindrift (ECM)

Fred Frith, Shelley Burgon, The Life And Behavior (Relative Pitch)

Sophie Agnel, John Butcher, Rare (Victo)

Paraphrasing John Belushi: “My advice to you is to get as many John Butcher records as possible.”

Roscoe Mitchell/Gratitude, One Head Four People (Wide Hive)

Quantum Blues Quartet, Quantum Blues (Ropeadope)

Burnt Sugar (The Arkestra Chamber), If You Can’t Dazzle Them With Your Brilliance, Baffle Them With Your Blisluth, Vol. 2 (Avant Groid Musica)

Henry Kaiser and Kurt Newman, After (Fractal)

Guru Guru, The 1971 Bremen Concert (MIG)

Branford Marsalis Quartet, Belonging (Blue Note)

I didn’t expect a Branford tribute to Keith Jarrett, but once I heard about it, I DID expect it to be this good.

Freddie Hubbard Live From The Blue Morocco (Resonance)

Kenny Dorham, Blue Bossa in the Bronx (Resonance)

Charles Mingus, The Buenos Aires Concerts (Resonance)

The indie jazz label Resonance really went to town with these three intense, beautifully recorded live sets.

Dan Weiss Quartet, Unclassified Affections (Pi)

Dave Liebman, Billy Hart, Adam Rudolph, Beingness (Meta)

Kevin Drumm, Sheer Hellish Miasma (Erstwhile)

Yikes!

Vanessa Rosetto, Pictures of the Warm South (Erstwhile)

Sarah Hennies/Richard Valitutto, SOVT (Elsewhere)

James Brandon Lewis Quarter, Abstraction is Deliverance (Intakt)

Hawkwind, There Is No Space For Us (Cherry Red)

Frank Zappa, Cheaper Than Cheep (Zappa)

Faust, Blickwinkel (Bureau B)

Henry Kaiser and Tengu, Night Lamp (Shrike)

Caspar Brotzmann Massker it’s a love song (Corbett Vs. Dempsey)

Good to have this stinger back.

Jimmy Lyons, Live From Studio Rivbea, 1974 & 1976 (No Business)

Alan Niblock, John Butcher, Mark Sanders, Tectonic Plates (577)

Steve Reich, Complete Works (Nonsuch)

Mary Halvorson, About Ghosts (Nonsuch)

Joseph Holbrooke, Lost Live 2001 — In Memoriam Derek Bailey and Tony Oxley (Tzadik)

The Armed, The Future Is Here And Everything Needs To Be Destroyed (Sargent House)

English Teacher, This Could Be Texas (Island)

Rock songs! Good ones! With Interesting Sonics!

Orcutt, Shelley, Miller, Complete on one disc (Silver Current)

The Kris Davis Trio, Run the Gauntlet (Pyroclastic)

Derek Bailey and John Stevens, The Duke of Wellington (Confront Core Series)

John Luther Adams, An Atlas of Deep Time (Cantaloupe)

Luciana Bass, Desatornillandonos (Relative Pitch)

Fieldwork, Thereupon (Pi)

Mendoza, Fluke-Mogul, Perez, Mama Killa (Burning Ambulance)

ANother redefinition of the Power Trio.

Cecil Taylor and Tony Oxley, Flashing Spirits (Burning Ambulance)

Larry Stabbins and Mark Sanders, Cup & Ring (Discus)

Sax explorer Stabbins, after having put the instrument down for a long spell, had a gratifying renaissance last year.

Matthew Shipp, The Cosmic Piano (Cantaloupe)

Walking the walk as he always does.

John Zorn Fantasma: Music from a Surrealist Mirror (Tzadik)

Misha Mengelberg/Sabu Toyazumi, The Analects of Confucius (No Business)

Shardik, Cruelty Bacchanal (Tzadik)

Happy Family, 4037 (Cuneiform)

Michael Hurley, Broken Homes and Gardens (No Quarter)

Sad to see him go. Glad to see him step up to the plate, or rather, sink down into the cushioned chair, one last time.

Shiyung Li, The Last Hive Mind (BMOP)

AMM with Sachiko M, Testing (Matchless)

One doesn’t look for explanations as to why, after more or less sacking Keith Rowe, Prevost and Tilbury got together with a musician whose instrument is the, um, sine wave. One merely gives thanks and enjoys life.

Keith Tippett, The Unlonely Raindancer (Discus) (reissue)

He has more to say to me every time I put him on.

Saint Etienne, International (Heavenly)

Lovely, bittersweet.

Gregg Belisle-Chi, Slow Crawl: Performing the Music of Tim Berne (Intakt)

Ivy, Traces of You (Bar/None)

Lovely, bittersweet.

John Zorn, Prolegomena (Tzadik)

Elliott Sharp’s Terraplane, Livin’ Hear (yellowbird)

Dem Old Cozmic Blooz, super cozmic department

John Butcher and John Edwards, This Is Not Speculation (Fundacja Shuchaj)

James McKain, Damon Smith & Weasel Walter, …seeing the way the mole tunnels… (International School of Evidence) FURIOUS!

Min Xiao-Fen featuring River Gurguerian, Metta (Asian Improv)

Jerome Dupree, Sylvie Courvoisier, Lester St. Louis, Joe Morris, Canyon (Fundacja Shuchaj)

Henry Kaiser and P.ST, The Wolf At The Door (Sub Rosa)

A particularly intense slab of Kaiser axe redefinition.

Uneven Eleven, Live In Brighton (Discus)

Mujician, In Concerts (Jazz In Britain)

Tippett and company giving and giving and giving over three discs.

Bruce Springsteen, Nebraska 82: Expanded Edition (Columbia/Legacy)

I’m from Jersey. He’s from Jersey.

Danielle De Grutola, Henry Kaiser, Benedicto Maurseth, Stein Urheim, Be Here Whenever (OK World)

Tomas Fujiwara, Dream Up (Out Of Your Head)

Samuel Reinhard, For Ten Musicians (Elsewhere)

Angles 11, Tell Them It’s The Sound of Freedom (Fundacja Shuchaj)

Remarkable big band.

Laura Cetilia, Gorgeous Nothings (Elsewhere)

Shoko Numao, The Siwnin Sails (Elsewhere)

Alchemical Theatre (Tzadik)

Billy Woods, Golliwog (Backwoodz Studioz)

I.P.Y., IPY25 (Tzadik)

Melaine Dalibert and David Sylvian, Vermillion Hours (Ici et Ailleurs)

Armand Hammer and The Alchemist (Backwoodz Studioz)

Bill Orcutt, Another Perfect Day (PAL)

Peter Knight, For A Moment The Sky Knew My Name (Room 40)

Billy Hart, Multidimensional (Smoke Sessions)

John Butcher, Phil Durrant, Mark Wastell, Poznan: Approximate Density (Confront)

Larry Stabbins, Keith Tippett, Louis Moholo-Moholo Live in Foggia (Ogun)

John Butcher’s Dragon 10, Spontaneous Live Series 017 (Spontaneous Music)

Evan Parker, Paul Rogers, Louis Moholo, tebugo (Jazz in Britain)

Leaflight (John Butcher, Ute Wasserman, Martin Blume), Close Calls (Weight of Wax)