The 10 Best Jazz Albums of 2024(by Slate)

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   New Recordings
1. Charles Lloyd, The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow (Blue Note)
At age 85, still at near-peak form, Charles Lloyd blows the tenor sax and flute here with flair, clarity, passion, and swing, propelled by an unwavering appetite for risk-taking. He’s backed by top-notch musicians who are decades younger—pianist Jason Moran, double bassist Larry Grenadier, and drummer Brian Blade—who keep him forever on his toes, and vice versa. About one-third of this 90-minute set (spread out on two LPs or two CDs) could be skipped (too much modal noodling), but the other two-thirds are sublime. A gorgeous record.
2. Kahil El’Zabar’s Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, Open Me, a Higher Consciousness of Sound and Spirit (Spiritmuse)
Kahil El’Zabar should be way better known than he is, but maybe he doesn’t care; 71 years old, he rarely leaves his hometown Chicago, except to tour Europe. Too bad for us New Yorkers. He’s one of the most riveting percussionists, maybe the most original, and this album is a wonder. It celebrates the 50th anniversary of his main group, Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, a trio of percussion and two horns, augmented here by violin and cello. Though still without piano or bass (the pillars of harmony and time in most jazz groups), the music is as ripe and full as it needs to be. The opener is a mesmerizing cover of Miles Davis’ “All Blues,” Kahil sounding the theme on kalimba while also moving shakers and ankle bells, with Alex Harding and Corey Wilkes joining on baritone sax and trumpet, respectively. The rhythm lags, speeds up, and lags before settling into a groove. Other highlights include an incantatory “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.” The two-LP vinyl pressing is also one of the best-sounding albums in years.

3. Wadada Leo Smith and Amina Claudine Myers, Central Park’s Mosaics of Reservoir, Lake, Paths and Gardens (Red Hook)
This album is as strange and unlikely as its title, a suite of duets between trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and pianist Amina Claudine Myers, both 82 years old, veterans of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Music (the Chicago-based avant-garde collective that also groomed Lester Bowie, Henry Threadgill, Anthony Braxton, and many others, including—see above—Kahil El’Zabar), though Myers has also worked on Broadway, while, in recent years, Smith has composed music inspired by American landmarks of natural beauty. Hence this album, which really does evoke the ethereal calm and underlying turbulence of New York’s Central Park. Smith blows just the right tones, often whole notes, blending harmony and dissonance; Myers ekes ripples bordering on rapids from the keyboard. There’s nothing New Age about these duets, though it is moody, melodic, and captivating. (And the LP, mastered at 45 rpm, sounds amazingly lifelike.)

4. David Murray, Francesca (Intakt)
David Murray was the tenor saxophonist of the 1980s and ’90s, as a junior member of the World Saxophone Quartet, then as leader of a dozen different ensembles (from duets to big band and everything in between), playing a range of music (much of it self-composed) from frenzied to swooning, with solos of pleasingly jarring intervals laced with sapphiric blue notes, veering between Albert Ayler’s wails and Ben Webster’s sultry vibrato, all of it tapping into the rhythms of the earth. He doesn’t record as often as he used to, but his latest album, Francesca—featuring his new quartet, notably the wondrous pianist Marta Sanchez—shows him in full possession of the magic.

5. Ben Allison, Steve Cardenas, and Ted Nash, Tell the Birds I Said Hello (Sonic Camera)
The trio of Allison, Cardenas, and Nash (playing double bass, saxophone, and guitar, respectively) has previously released album-length covers of Jim Hall, Carla Bley, and Leonard Bernstein with a jaunty blend of wit, beauty, and deftly dancing-in-your-head interplay. Now the group injects new spirits into the music of pianist-composer Herbie Nichols, a contemporary of Thelonious Monk’s, who died of leukemia in 1963 at the age of 44. Both too formal and too eccentric to make a dent in his day, Nichols has since been revived, notably by Allison and Nash a decade ago, a labor of love they now continue, reinspired by a treasure chest of never-before-played sheet music supplied by a Nichols relative just a few years ago. This is very, very cool music—as Allison puts it, “full of life, humor, and clever twists and turns.”

Edited by snobb - 9 hours 30 minutes ago at 10:30am

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snobb Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Visit Members Homepage Add to Buddy List Forum Admin Group Site Admin Joined: 22 Dec 2010 Location: Vilnius Status: Offline Points: 29587	Post Options Post Reply Quote snobb Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: The 10 Best Jazz Albums of 2024(by Slate) Posted: 9 hours 43 minutes ago at 10:17am
	New Recordings 1. Charles Lloyd, The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow (Blue Note) At age 85, still at near-peak form, Charles Lloyd blows the tenor sax and flute here with flair, clarity, passion, and swing, propelled by an unwavering appetite for risk-taking. He’s backed by top-notch musicians who are decades younger—pianist Jason Moran, double bassist Larry Grenadier, and drummer Brian Blade—who keep him forever on his toes, and vice versa. About one-third of this 90-minute set (spread out on two LPs or two CDs) could be skipped (too much modal noodling), but the other two-thirds are sublime. A gorgeous record. 2. Kahil El’Zabar’s Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, Open Me, a Higher Consciousness of Sound and Spirit (Spiritmuse) Kahil El’Zabar should be way better known than he is, but maybe he doesn’t care; 71 years old, he rarely leaves his hometown Chicago, except to tour Europe. Too bad for us New Yorkers. He’s one of the most riveting percussionists, maybe the most original, and this album is a wonder. It celebrates the 50th anniversary of his main group, Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, a trio of percussion and two horns, augmented here by violin and cello. Though still without piano or bass (the pillars of harmony and time in most jazz groups), the music is as ripe and full as it needs to be. The opener is a mesmerizing cover of Miles Davis’ “All Blues,” Kahil sounding the theme on kalimba while also moving shakers and ankle bells, with Alex Harding and Corey Wilkes joining on baritone sax and trumpet, respectively. The rhythm lags, speeds up, and lags before settling into a groove. Other highlights include an incantatory “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.” The two-LP vinyl pressing is also one of the best-sounding albums in years. 3. Wadada Leo Smith and Amina Claudine Myers, Central Park’s Mosaics of Reservoir, Lake, Paths and Gardens (Red Hook) This album is as strange and unlikely as its title, a suite of duets between trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and pianist Amina Claudine Myers, both 82 years old, veterans of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Music (the Chicago-based avant-garde collective that also groomed Lester Bowie, Henry Threadgill, Anthony Braxton, and many others, including—see above—Kahil El’Zabar), though Myers has also worked on Broadway, while, in recent years, Smith has composed music inspired by American landmarks of natural beauty. Hence this album, which really does evoke the ethereal calm and underlying turbulence of New York’s Central Park. Smith blows just the right tones, often whole notes, blending harmony and dissonance; Myers ekes ripples bordering on rapids from the keyboard. There’s nothing New Age about these duets, though it is moody, melodic, and captivating. (And the LP, mastered at 45 rpm, sounds amazingly lifelike.) 4. David Murray, Francesca (Intakt) David Murray was the tenor saxophonist of the 1980s and ’90s, as a junior member of the World Saxophone Quartet, then as leader of a dozen different ensembles (from duets to big band and everything in between), playing a range of music (much of it self-composed) from frenzied to swooning, with solos of pleasingly jarring intervals laced with sapphiric blue notes, veering between Albert Ayler’s wails and Ben Webster’s sultry vibrato, all of it tapping into the rhythms of the earth. He doesn’t record as often as he used to, but his latest album, Francesca—featuring his new quartet, notably the wondrous pianist Marta Sanchez—shows him in full possession of the magic. 5. Ben Allison, Steve Cardenas, and Ted Nash, Tell the Birds I Said Hello (Sonic Camera) The trio of Allison, Cardenas, and Nash (playing double bass, saxophone, and guitar, respectively) has previously released album-length covers of Jim Hall, Carla Bley, and Leonard Bernstein with a jaunty blend of wit, beauty, and deftly dancing-in-your-head interplay. Now the group injects new spirits into the music of pianist-composer Herbie Nichols, a contemporary of Thelonious Monk’s, who died of leukemia in 1963 at the age of 44. Both too formal and too eccentric to make a dent in his day, Nichols has since been revived, notably by Allison and Nash a decade ago, a labor of love they now continue, reinspired by a treasure chest of never-before-played sheet music supplied by a Nichols relative just a few years ago. This is very, very cool music—as Allison puts it, “full of life, humor, and clever twists and turns.” Edited by snobb - 9 hours 30 minutes ago at 10:30am

snobb Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Visit Members Homepage Add to Buddy List Forum Admin Group Site Admin Joined: 22 Dec 2010 Location: Vilnius Status: Offline Points: 29587	Post Options Post Reply Quote snobb Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 9 hours 36 minutes ago at 10:24am
	6. Matthew Shipp, New Concepts in Piano Trio Jazz (ESP Disk) Matthew Shipp has deep roots in the avant-garde, but, much more than many pianists in that realm (who tend to focus on solo voyages), he has explored structures and paths in group improvisation, and this latest venture marks a creative peak of versatility and virtuosity. Calling the album New Concepts … may be a bit of hype, but only a bit. Buckle in, and open your mind. 7. Ethan Iverson, Technically Acceptable (Blue Note) Ethan Iverson may be best known as the pianist in the Bad Plus, the trio that made a big splash in the early 2000s by fusing jazz idioms with pop tunes by Blondie, Nirvana, Aphex Twin, and ABBA, but he’s been coming into his own since 2017, when he quit the band, in order to explore traditional jazz and 20th-century classical more deeply, and especially since 2021, when he signed with Blue Note. This is his second album with the label, and it can be said he’s arrived. It’s a sketchbook of an album, few tracks longer than four minutes, carving a theme, swirling a couple of variations, then moving along. Some tunes have the playful wit of the Bad Plus. Others cover the waterfront. One, an Iverson number, has the hardcore swing vibe of a Kansas City blues by Basie. He winds up with a through-composed sonata, but not before covering “ ’Round Midnight,” with Rob Schwimmer coaxing its melody on a theremin, which sounds remarkably like a woman singing. 8. Chris Potter, Eagle’s Point (Edition) This is the most straight-ahead album on the list. Chris Potter is a saxophonist who plays with such buoyant zest that you forget he’s been around for 35 years (he exploded onto the scene in 1989, at age 18) and such breezy phrasing that you might miss the blazing virtuosity upon first hearing. Here he’s backed by a midcareer supergroup—pianist Brad Mehldau, bassist John Patitucci, and drummer Brian Blade—that paints inside the lines but with insouciant mastery. 9. Ben Wolfe, The Understated (Resident Arts) A supremely descriptive title, the album finds bassist Ben Wolfe—little known even to aficionados but a staple on the New York jazz scene—leading a standard quartet through 10 tunes of his own composing, most of them ballads but quietly teeming with complex currents. Saxophonist Nicole Glover traces the deceptively simple melodic lines; Orrin Evans and Sullivan Fortner trade off on piano harmonies; Aaron Kimmel shimmers over the trap set; Wolfe anchors it all with subtle command. 10. John Hollenbeck and NDR Bigband, Colouring Hockets (Flexatonic) Composer-drummer John Hollenbeck has a Dada sensibility. One of his albums was called Songs I Like a Lot; another was Royal Toast, about which he explained, “I like toast, and I noticed that if you put royal in front of something, it seems elevated.” But he is also an agile composer who can blend wit and depth, in ensembles of all sizes, without coming off like a prankster. Here, he features the big band of the North German Broadcasting Corp. and a handpicked rhythm section that includes four percussionists, including Patricia Brennan on marimba. A merry, knotty head-twister of fractured times is had by all. Edited by snobb - 9 hours 34 minutes ago at 10:26am

snobb Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Visit Members Homepage Add to Buddy List Forum Admin Group Site Admin Joined: 22 Dec 2010 Location: Vilnius Status: Offline Points: 29587	Post Options Post Reply Quote snobb Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 9 hours 33 minutes ago at 10:27am
	Historical Recordings 1. Miles Davis, Miles in France 1963 & 1964 (Legacy) This six-CD box contains the entirety of five concerts (four of which have never before been released), capturing the protean trumpeter in his mid-’60s transition, reprising his songbook from the decade before (mainly standards and a few pieces from Kind of Blue) but reshaped and revitalized by his young new bandmates (Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Tony Williams, and, at first, George Coleman, succeeded by Wayne Shorter) eager to join the free-jazz revolution, which Davis had resisted but here starts to adapt with fiery aplomb. Thrilling. 2. Sonny Rollins, Freedom Weaver: The 1959 European Tour Recordings (Resonance) This three-disc set (previously available only as bootlegs) captures Rollins, arguably the greatest-ever improviser on tenor sax (the only other contender would be Coltrane), at one of his peaks, touring Europe with a piano-less trio (Henry Grimes on drums and a rotation of Kenny Clarke, Pete La Roca, or Joe Harris on drums), exploring standards with gripping intensity. 3. McCoy Tyner and Joe Henderson, Forces of Nature: Live at Slugs’ (Blue Note) This is a surprise. Pianist McCoy Tyner and tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson weren’t avant-gardists, but here’s this newly discovered tape of them joining with the adventurers Henry Grimes and Jack DeJohnette on bass and drums, in 1966, the year when many jazz musicians turned leftward in the wake of rock’s explosion, at Slugs’ Saloon, an avant-garde dive in New York’s East Village—and it’s a hair-raiser, the pair charging the ramparts like war-torn revolutionaries, yet, even so, without losing a grip on melody or rhythm. A major discovery. from https://slate.com Edited by snobb - 9 hours 32 minutes ago at 10:28am

The 10 Best Jazz Albums of 2024(by Slate)

New Recordings

1. Charles Lloyd, The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow (Blue Note)

2. Kahil El’Zabar’s Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, Open Me, a Higher Consciousness of Sound and Spirit (Spiritmuse)

3. Wadada Leo Smith and Amina Claudine Myers, Central Park’s Mosaics of Reservoir, Lake, Paths and Gardens (Red Hook)

4. David Murray, Francesca (Intakt)

5. Ben Allison, Steve Cardenas, and Ted Nash, Tell the Birds I Said Hello (Sonic Camera)

6. Matthew Shipp, New Concepts in Piano Trio Jazz (ESP Disk)

7. Ethan Iverson, Technically Acceptable (Blue Note)

8. Chris Potter, Eagle’s Point (Edition)

9. Ben Wolfe, The Understated (Resident Arts)

10. John Hollenbeck and NDR Bigband, Colouring Hockets (Flexatonic)

Historical Recordings

1. Miles Davis, Miles in France 1963 & 1964 (Legacy)

2. Sonny Rollins, Freedom Weaver: The 1959 European Tour Recordings (Resonance)

3. McCoy Tyner and Joe Henderson, Forces of Nature: Live at Slugs’ (Blue Note)