24 best jazz albums of 2015 by The Telegraph,UK

KENNY WHEELER: SONGS FOR QUINTET (ECM)

KENNY WHEELER: SONGS FOR QUINTET (ECM)
The fine trumpeter Kenny Wheeler died in September 2014 and this lovely album was recorded at Abbey Road nine months before he died. There is some sweet flugelhorn from the Octogenerian and particularly fine support from tenor saxophonist Stan Sulzmann. John Parricelli (guitar), Martin France (drums) and Chris Laurence (bass) complete the classy quintet. The CD comes with two impressive booklets with photographs of the quintet and of Wheeler's time with ECM. The album's nine tracks are full of sensitive ensemble playing and supple rhythms, and it finishes with the poignant Nonetheless. Songs for Quintet is an excellent testament to a Canadian-born star who did so much for jazz in the UK. ★★★★☆ Martin Chilton


JACK DeJOHNETTE: MADE IN CHICAGO (ECM) 
Jack DeJohnette brings together colleagues of 50 years standing – pianist Muhal Richard Abrams, sax players Roscoe Mitchell and Henry Threadgill and young cellist and bassist Larry Gray – and the range of expression these five players draw from their instruments is astonishing. ★★★★☆ IH 


BOB DYLAN: SHADOWS IN THE NIGHT (COLUMBIA RECORDS) 
Bob Dylan pays tribute to the jazz songs of Frank Sinatra, as he takes beautiful material written by such greats as Rodgers and Hammerstein and completely inhabits them, reimagining Some Enchanted Evening with the wistful intimacy of someone peering back through the mists of time. ★★★★★ Neil McCormick
   

TROYKA: ORNITHOPHOBIA (NAIM JAZZ RECORDS)
Ornithophobia is full of many-layered soundscapes which are often suggestive and aurally seductive, if somewhat chilly in emotional tone. Pianist Kit Downes, guitarist Chris Montague and drummer Josh Blackmore make the line-up, but often it seems as if we’re hearing half-a-dozen players, thanks to the clever guitar loops and over-dubbed synth lines. Adding his own touch of suggestive magic to all this is producer Petter Eldh, but thankfully he doesn’t sap the energy and drive of the playing, which is considerable. 
This energy comes from the deliberate mismatch between the hectic, pattering drum patterns and the repeating riffs, which are always arithmetically ingenious, if as hard and angular as steel girders. When heaped up into layers they almost defeat the ear’s attempts to unscramble them. It could all be too much, but there’s usually a moment when the pieces break out of their self-created labyrinth – as in the opening number Arcades, where the music emerges unexpectedly into a wide-open harmonic space. In the closing number Seahouses (the Northumberland coast is another theme in this album), the pattern is reversed. Gentle synth. chords fade into one another, like layers of mist on an early morning sea, but over the horizon something threatening and super-fast eventually approaches. Overall this album is musically intriguing, and full of ear-tickling sounds, but only rarely loveable. ★★★☆☆ IH 


AARON GOLDBERG: THE NOW (SUNNYSIDE RECORDS)
The Now is a very polished album, divided between Aaron Goldberg's own compositions, a few jazz standards, and some delightful reworkings of Brazilian songs. ★★★☆☆ IH 


EMILY SAUNDERS: OUTSIDERS INSIDERS (MIX SOUNDS)
There's no doubting the strong vocal technique of Emily Saunders, who trained in Jazz Voice at Trinity Conservatoire, and her phrasing is one of the pleasures of her second album. The nine original jazz numbers, which range across jazz ballads and Sixties soul jazz, allow for strong instrumental solos from a band comprising the excellent Byron Wallen on trumpet along with Trevor Mires (trombone), Bruno Heinen/Steve Pringle (keys), Dave Whitford /Paul Michael (bass) Jon Scott (drums) and Fabio De Oliveira/ Asaf Sirkis (percussion). Highlights include the crisp voice-and-piano ballad You With Me and the optimistic Summer Days. Those who like their jazz sultry and languid will enjoy the album although it will be interesting to see if Saunders brings more fire into future work. ★★★☆☆    MC 


REBECCA FERGUSON: LADY SINGS THE BLUES (RCA RECORDS) 
Rebecca Ferguson's run through of Billie Holiday classics could have been bolder but she sings with sass and feeling. ★★★☆☆ MC 


JOE ALBANY: AN EVENING WITH JOE ALBANY (STEEPLECHASE RECORDS)
Something of a rarity. There are 17 tracks on this concert recorded at the Cafe Montmartre in Copenhagen in May 1973, when American bebop pianist Joe Albany (who died in 1988) was 49. April in Paris shows off his skill for embellishing a tune; I Can’t Get Started is less assured. Nevertheless, a welcome chance to hear an original jazz musician, who played Charlie Parker. ★★★☆☆ MC 

   
PETE OXLEY AND NICOLAS MEIER: CHASING TALES (MGP RECORDS)
Guitar duos are reasonably rare in jazz yet the difference in styles from Pete Oxley and Nicolas Meier is the strength of the album as they come together in a mostly acoustic album. Chasing Tales shows off their elaborate, harmonically rich melodies and clever solos. Two masterly guitarists creating an array of changing moods. ★★★★☆ MC 


WILD CARD: ORGANIC RIOT (TOP END RECORDS) 
Wild Card are a fine live jazz act and they manage to capture their gig energy on Organic Riot. The album blends hard-bop, Afro, Latin and Funk, all held together by producer and French-born guitarist Clément Régert. He and organist Andrew Noble (and drummer Sophie Alloway) are joined by some strong guests, including Graeme Flowers on trumpet and Roberto Manzin on tenor saxophone. Natalie Williams sings well on Feeling Good and Wash Him Out. The longest track, at more than eight minutes, is Flood and it's full of treats.  ★★★★☆  MC


ALEXANDER VON SCHLIPPENBACH TRIO: FEATURES (INTAKT RECORDS) 
This CD must be in the running for the Least Appealing Title for a Jazz Album prize, but fortunately the contents are livelier than the packaging. The ponderous liner notes tell us the album is a summary of how far the trio has come in 45 years playing together, which is evidently a very long way indeed. The three players – pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, saxophonist Evan Parker and drummer Paul Lovens – are veterans of the ‘free jazz’ scene. Some devotees of free jazz make a fetish of holding any echoes of ‘normal’ jazz at arm’s length. These three have been around too long to be dogmatic, and much of the pleasure of this album lies in savouring the little hints of blues and vamping stride patterns and old-fashioned ‘licks’ that flit across the music’s surface. The opening meditation from von Schlippenbach sounds like his take on 1950s classical modernism, but lurking inside the star-like points of sound is the ghost of a ‘jazzy’ seventh chord. Each of the following fourteen ‘Features’ is like a little character study, launching off with an idea – a repeated note, a whirling figure on the sax or cymbals – and allowing it to wander where it will. Several times a number ends with a descent down into the bass, so neatly contrived it might have been arranged in advance. The most haunting Feature is the eleventh, where Parker’s long multiphonic sound, like a bird that never needs to breathe, is framed in delicate piano and percussive commentaries. Free jazz can never be 'easy listening', but the witty, relaxed interplay on this album comes close to it.  ★★★★☆  IH 


THE BEN COX BAND: THIS WAITING GAME (CINNAMON RECORDS) 
Ben Cox has a sweet and expressive voice and he shows he can handle a classic in the way (with help from Claire Martin) he tackles the 1939 song A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square. Cox's band, directed by pianist Jamie Safiruddin, interplay well with his voice on an album produced and co-arranged by Ian Shaw. It's not straightforward jazz – And I Love Her by Lennon and McCartney is covered – but the jazz is done well, especially when Adam Chatterton (trumpet and flugelhorn), Flo Moore (electric and double bass), Will Glaser (drums) are sparking with Cox and Safiruddin. The vibrant This Happy Madness (with Emily Dankworth) is a highlight.  ★★★★☆ MC

DJANGO REINHARDT AT THE MOVIES (CHERRY RED RECORDS)
Taking music from Louis Malle's 1974 film Lacombe, Lucien and Woody Allen, this celebrates Django Reinhardt, the father of all jazz guitarists and a musician who inspired countless players from across the whole spectrum of popular and classical styles. Nuages is there of course, work with Stephane Grapelli and the songs Allen used in Stardust Memories and Sweet and Lowdown. Fans will have more complete compilations but if you are looking for an introduction to his work, then this is rather lovely.  ★★★★☆  MC 


BILLIE HOLIDAY: THE CENTENNIAL COLLECTION (LEGACY/COLUMBIA) 
We couldn't let April pass without a nod to the peerless Billie Holiday, who was born 100 years ago. This short and sweet Centennial Collection is a good snapshot of the late singer's early career, including Them There Eyes and Strange Fruit. It gets four stars rather than five because there are more comprehensive collections. But you can't beat Billie.  ★★★★☆  MC 
- Billie Holiday's top 10 songs

JOE STILGOE: NEW SONGS FOR OLD SOULS (LINN RECORDS)
Music should be fun and the new album from pianist and singer/songwriter Joe Stilgoe is just that. His own compositions (comprising 10 of the 12 songs) are quirky and interesting and there's a nostalgic charm to big band numbers such as Nobody Cares Like Me and Pocket Song. Tom Farmer (bass), Ben Reynolds (drums) and Billy Adamson (guitar) add fine support and there is a sweet duet with Liane Carroll on a cover of Brian Wilson's I Just Wasn't Made For These Times.  ★★★★☆  MC

JULIAN ARGÜELLES: LET IT BE TOLD (BASHO RECORDS)
The indomitably cheerful spirit of South African jazz is revived here, in the unlikely setting of a big band format. The performers are the Frankfurt Radio Big Band, and the arrangements are by saxophonist Julian Argüelles, who appears as soloist on several numbers. Argüelles is well placed to make such an album, having steeped himself in the sound of South African jazz as a young man. He played with émigré South African musicians who’d settled in this country in the Sixties, and was also a member of that now legendary band Loose Tubes, which itself was deeply influenced by South African jazz. Argüelles’s take on that tradition sometimes recalls Loose Tubes uproarious high spirits, in numbers such as Johnny Dyani’s Mama Marimba. This begins with a musical explosion, out of which the music gradually emerges. The band’s famously tight ensemble gives plenty of rhythmic kick to upbeat numbers like Dudu Pukwana’s Diamond Express, and Chris MacGregor’s Amasi feels like a crescendo of cheerfulness. Behind the sunny dancing quality you sometimes catch a deeper note of protest or religious feeling, as in the hymn-like ending to Mongezi Feza’s You Aint’t Gonna Know Me. And overall the soft palette of the Frankfurt band, with the trombones sounding as mellifluous as clarinets, gives an affectionate glow to everything. In all, it’s a joy.  ★★★★☆  IH 


PARTIKEL: STRING THEORY (WHIRLWIND) 
The combination of a jazz ethos with a mellifluous string sound is fraught with dangers, as Charlie Parker’s ‘strings’ album reminds us. Fortunately the importation of a string quartet into the lean, piano-less sound of jazz trio Partikel works wonders on this new album. Duncan Eagles, whose creamy mellifluous sax sound is a constant pleasure, is also a clever arranger for string quartet. He conjures all kinds of interesting textures from the medium, including a Xenakis-like modernist fury at the very beginning. 
It’s typical of the album that this abrasive beginning leads disarmingly to a sweetly pastoral number, which boasts a real shapely melody of old-fashioned suavity. All kinds of idioms rub shoulders on the album, ranging from a sturdy modal quality somewhat reminiscent of Mike Westbrook to a sultry Latin flavour. Lead violinist Benet Mclean is a wonderfully characterful soloist, as is bass player Max Luthert. Some may find both the sound-world and the actual compositions just too soft-edged and ingratiating, others will enjoy the way the whole album seems to glow with a new-dawn innocence. ★★★☆☆  IH 


PATRICK NAYLOR: DAYS OF BLUE (PATRICK NAYLOR) 
There is a lot to enjoy in the mellow Days of Blue, especially the sensitive guitar playing of Patrick Naylor. The 9mins26secs Blue Morning feels like a jam session and shows off the quality of the musicians involved. The Latin feel of Restless is also a treat. Naylor blends well with saxophone player Ian East on Lost Song and David Beebee (piano, bass), Milo Fell (drums), Natalie Rozario (cello) and Alex Keen (bass) offer fine support. There are also vocals from Sara Mitra and Stephanie O'Brien, who is joined by and Dan Teper (accordion) on the sweet Naggar. ★★★☆☆  MC 


LIAM NOBLE: A ROOM SOMEWHERE (BASHO)
Liam Noble’s new solo album is a box of surprises. The mysterious plucked notes at the very beginning reminds us that Noble is fascinated by the piano as a resource of pure sound, who often collaborates with players of more experimental hue like Mary Halvorson. But it’s not long before this leads into the cosy sentimentality of Wouldn’t it be Lovely. Noble isn’t one for cosiness and instead makes this unlikely choice of standard seem amusingly angular. A dry tenderness peeps through as well, but it’s held in check by Noble’s fascination with pattern and sound, and this tension is there throughout the album. He enjoys going against the grain of the instrument, as in Six White Horses, which recreates a banjo idiom on the piano, and this is followed by another clever bit of disguise in his own I Wish I Played Guitar. Sometimes I wished Noble would relax, indulge the piano’s potential for emotional amplitude, and go more with the grain of the standards he’s chosen, but the wit and intelligence of the playing are always absorbing. ★★★☆☆  IH 


INDRA RIOS-MOORE: HEARTLAND (DECCA) 
Indra Rios-Moore, who grew up on Manhattan's Lower East Side, is now a respected figure on Denmark's jazz scene and it's easy to see why from this classy and ambitious album. She ranges across bluesy jazz, such as Little Black Train, and is as comfortable on Duke Ellington's Azure as she is with David Bowie's Heroes. On Heartland, which is produced by Larry Klein, there is a Doc Watson cover and a gorgeous version of From Silence, which was written by Thomas Bartlett. Rios-Moore is worth getting to know.   ★★★★☆ MC 


THE BAD AND JOSHUA REDMAN: THE BAD PLUS JOSHUA REDMAN (NONESUCH) 
A meeting of jazz musicians who push boundaries. Trio The Bad Plus are joined by saxophonist Joshua Redman, and the intricate compositions challenge and inspire the soloists. I particularly liked Redman’s swing on Friend or Foe and the short and sweet Country Seat, written by pianist Ethan Iverson. Silence is the Question, also featuring Reid Anderson (bass) and David King (drums), is ambitious and nearly 14 minutes long.  ★★★★☆    MC 

JOSE JAMES: YESTERDAY I HAD THE BLUES: THE MUSIC OF BILLIE HOLIDAY (BLUE NOTE) 
José James has described Billie Holiday as "my mother in music" and the acclaimed vocalist does full justice to Lady Day in this tribute album produced by Blue Note president Don Was. The band is stellar band – and includes pianist Jason Moran, bassist John Patitucci and drummer Eric Harland – and the material to work with, including Body and Soul and Strange Fruit, is timeless. Just right for Billie's centenary year.    ★★★★☆  MC 


BEATS & PIECES BIG BAND: ALL IN (EFPI RECORDS) 
Beats & Pieces are an exuberant live band and composer and arranger Ben Cottrell has captured that energy on their new album All In. I liked the treatment of David Bowie's Let's Dance and there is plenty of old style big band verve on Rocky from a band that includes Finlay Panter, Nick Walters, Sam Healey and Graham South.   ★★★★☆ MC 

BOBBY BRADFORD & JOHN CARTER QUINTET: NO U-TURN (DARK TREE RECORDS)
Recorded in Pasadena (at Caltech's Baxter Lecture Hall in November 1975) this engaging album features clarinetist John Carter in a rare outing on soprano saxophone. As well as cornet player Bobby Bradford, the Los Angeles-based band has Robert Miranda on double bass and William Jeffrey on drums. A highlight is Circle, which shows how well Carter and Bradford weaved together musically. Another example of the value of the archives.  ★★★★☆ MC

JOEL HARRISON: SPIRIT HOUSE (WHIRLWIND RECORDINGS)
Washington-born composer Joel Harrison's guitar resonates through You Must Go Through a Winter, one of the multi-layered compositions on Spirit House that shows off how well he blends with Paul Hanson’s bassoon and Cuong Vu's subtle trumpet playing. The quintet on this textured album is completed by the deft Brian Blade on drums and Kermit Driscoll on bass. It's a languid and expressive album. Look out for the psychedlic feel of An Elephant in Igor’s Yard and the swing of Old Friends.  ★★★★☆ MC

DUKE ELLINGTON AND HIS ORCHESTRA: THE CONNY PLANK SESSION (GRÖNLAND)
This is a fascinating listen, partly because Plank really does give the band’s sound a feeling of multiple perspectives, with flute and horns and trombones and drum-kit all in their own acoustic spaces. And with Duke Ellington a retake is never just a retake. He seizes the opportunity to rework the music each time. ★★★★☆ IH

See full review of the Duke Ellington lost recordings

KAMASI WASHINGTON: THE EPIC (FLYLO)
As a saxophonist, Kamasi Washington soars on this bold, three CD, 172-minute epic. Washington, the LA-born 34-year-old who has played with Kendrick Lamar and Flying Lotus, gets the best out of a 10-piece band that includes Patrice Quinn's innovative soul vocals, electric bassist Thundercat and trombonist Ryan Porter. Epic has shades of Coltrane, Miles Davis and Weather Report and tips a nod to hip hop and funk. I particularly liked Final Thought and The Next Step. Ambitious, swooping and only for those with a long evening spare. ★★★★☆ MC

BRUNO HEINEN & KRISTIAN BORRING: POSTCARD TO BILL EVANS (BABBEL)
The two albums made by the great Bill Evans with the guitarist Jim Hall a half-century ago are among the most exquisite jazz records ever made. So for young British pianist Bruno Heinen and Danish guitarist Kristian Borring to make a recording of some classical Evans numbers might seem like lèse-majesté. In fact they don’t suffer by the comparison. They’ve avoided the compositions on those two albums, recording seven Evans originals, plus Bernstein’s Some Other Time, Kern’s All The Things You Are and an original number by Heinen entitled Postcard to Bill that could almost be a long-lost original by the great man.Each track is a model of quiet stylishness, with nicely witty touches like the striding bass in Interplay, over which the melody lopes like a gazelle, or the ending of Show Type Tune, where a dancing phrase steps elegantly up the keyboard until it almost disappears off the top. It’s a tribute to how well these players know each other that they can bowl along in swinging rhythms for a minute at a stretch, without treading on each other’s toes. By the fourth track I was beginning to wonder whether the album wasn’t tipping over from sophistication into preciousness, but on numbers like Five real energy breaks through the cool surface. ★★★★☆ IH

FRED HERSCH: SOLO (PALMETTO)
This is Fred Hersch’s tenth solo piano album, and it proves his nimble technique and restless imagination are undimmed, and more engrossing than ever. Everything about it bespeaks a loyalty to the mainstream: the choice of pieces (no Radiohead songs or rap numbers for Hersch), no reaching inside the innards of the piano in search of ‘atmospheric’ sounds, no venturing towards extremes of fortissimo or pianissimo. Familiar standards, treated within the familiar language of swing and bebop, stretched here and there towards Latin (there’s a lovely take on two Antônio Carlos Jobim songs) and classical music (Robert Schumann’s Pastorale) are all Hersch needs to create something extraordinary. Hersch tells us he was ‘in the zone’ the day this live recording was made, ‘a special place where everything is working – heart, mind and technique.’ This blessed state allowed him to do daring things, like the rhythmic gear-shifts in Monk’s In Walked Bud, with a sense of complete ease. Any time he appears to be tying himself in rhythmic knots, or skittering down a harmonic cul-de-sac, Hersch finds his way back to familiar territory with amusing Houdini-like ingenuity. Another pleasing feature of the CD is the way Hersch sidles up to a number via a long introduction, which in the case of Kern’s The Song is You is so ingenious it’s almost a disappointment when the song itself begins. There’s also an appealing honesty about the album, in the way Hersch stays faithful to a number's original nature. His oddly sinister version of Caravan, which tiptoes with delicate menace like a malevolent spider, is extraordinary partly because it brings out a lurking oddity in the piece itself, which we’d only half-noticed before. Hersch’s respect for his originals is actually a drawback in Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now. He doesn’t want to compromise the pellucid wise innocence of the original, so his freedom of manoeuvre is curtailed; he can’t bring in those harmonic quirks that make the other numbers so fascinating. It’s the only mis-step in an album that everywhere else is full of quiet (and sometimes not-so-quiet) delights. ★★★★☆ IH

YARON HERMAN: EVERYDAY (BLUE NOTE)
Israeli pianist Yaron Herman is an accomplished pianist and there is plenty to savour on Everyday, even small musical snacks such as Gentle With Open Hands, which is only 79 seconds long. The album was conceived and executed entirely with drummer Ziv Ravitz. Herman calls him his "musical brother" and you can see why on the moody track Retrograde, on which they blend together seamlessly. ★★★☆☆  MC 

MISHA MULLOV-ABBADO: NEW ANSONIA (EDITION RECORDS)
The talent gathered on this album is astonishing. There’s Jacob Collier, sensational young pianist and YouTube phenomenon, and a clutch of fine instrumentalists including trombonist Tom Green, saxophonist Matthew Herd and flugelhorn player James Davison. Renowned classical violinist Viktoria Mullova, cellist Matthew Barley and guitarist Nick Goodwin make guest appearances. At the centre of it all is bassist Misha Mullov-Abbado, son of Mullova and the late Claudio Abbado, who also has talent to burn. The compositions on this album are all his (apart from a witty arrangement of Earth, Wind and Fire’s September), and they show an amazing variety of mood, very artfully arranged. It kicks off with a sweetly innocent number, twittering bird-song offset by academically correct part-writing. It’s almost too sweet, but the dirty slouching swing of the next number offsets that impression very neatly. And so it goes on, each number pushing into a completely new area, but always displaying Mullov-Abbado’s gift for fashioning melodies that are shapely and almost remind you of something, but stay just this side of being hackneyed. In Satan, Oscillate my Metallic Sonatas he even dips a toe into modernism, with an intriguingly angular three-part invention emerging out of electronic spaciness. But it’s only skin-deep; warm harmonies eventually emerge, and the number ends squarely on a proper chord, just like all the others. The sheer profusion of different styles might make one wonder: where does Mullov-Abbado’s heart really lie, musically speaking? But there’s plenty of time for that to emerge. For now, best to simply enjoy this unfailingly inventive, artfully produced, and delightfully sunny debut. ★★★★☆ IH