It seems that each year there are frequent comments about the amazing quality of recordings being released, and then the next year, same thing. Artists are making great music these days and I happily get to share that music with you on One Man’s Jazz.
I have as usual chosen my favourite releases for 2025, plucked from an ungodly number of hours of listening, that led to 52 shows of varying length of music created by artists from almost 40 different countries. I think that makes One Man’s Jazz a truly international show. The most played artists in ’25 were Ivo Perelman, Satoko Fujii and James Brandon Lewis. That’s pretty much par for the course the last few years, but the big change was Intakt Records becoming the most dominant label, followed by 577 Records and ECM. It used to be Clean Feed, but it appears that label may be coming to a close, at least for issuing new releases.
Here are my favourites. You can find most of these on Bandcamp.com, but for the ones you won’t, I’ve added a link. I’ll be playing music from all 25 in a monster show on January 8th.
Listed alphabetically by artist:
Bruno Angelini, Angelika Niescier & Sakina Abdou * Lotus Flowers (Abalone) France/Germany
Camila Nebbia, Marilyn Crispell & Lesley Mok * A Reflection Distorts Over Water (Relative Pitch) Argentina/USA
Cosmic Ear * Traces (We Jazz) Sweden
Dan Weiss * Unclassified Affections (Pi Recordings) USA
Felix Henkelhausen Quintet * The Excruciating Pain Of Boredom (Enja Records) Germany
Fieldwork * Thereupon (Pi Recordings) USA
Ivo Perelman * A Modicum Of The Blues (Fundacja Sluchaj) USA
Izumi Kimura & Gerry Hemingway * How The Dust Falls (Auricle) Ireland/Switzerland
James Brandon Lewis Quartet * Abstraction Is Deliverance (Intakt) USA
Linda May Han Oh * Strange Heavens (Biophilia) Australia
Mark Turner * Reflections on: The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (Giant Step Arts) USA
Mary Halvorson * About Ghosts (Nonesuch) USA
Myra Melford * Myra Melford Splash (Intakt) USA
Nels Cline * Concentrik Quartet (Blue Note) USA
Otherlands Trio * Star Mountain (Intakt) USA
Oversàez * Abstract Emotions (Boomslang) Germany
Peter Ehwald, Stefan Schultze & Tom Rainey * Public Radio (Jazzwerkstatt) Germany/USA
Peter Evans & Being And Becoming * Ars Ludicra (More Is More) USA
Rodrigo Amado The Bridge * Further Beyond (Trost) Portugal
Sam Gill’s Coursed Waters * Sensemaker (Earshift) Australia
Sylvain Darrifourcq, Manuel Hermia & Theo Ceccaldi * Unicorn & Flexibility (Hector) France/Belgium
Sylvie Courvoisier & Wadada Leo Smith * Angel Falls (Intakt) USA
Thomas Heberer’s Remedy * Hipp Hipp Hooray (Fundacja Sluchaj) Germany
Ville Lahteenmaki Trio * Second sight (RRGems) Finland
Wadada Leo Smith & Vijay Iyer * Defiant Life (ECM) USA
And just for fun, here’s another ten to keep you going:
Federico Calcagno & The Dolphians * Face The Music (Da Vinci Jazz) Italy
Fred Moten, Brandon Lopez & Gerald Cleaver * The Blacksmiths, The Flowers (Reading Group) USA
Gebhard Ullmann’s Conference Call * New Conference Call (Hat Hut Ezzthetics) Germany
Jacopo Fagioli * Dialogue (Aut Records) Italy
Jakob Bro, Wadada Leo Smith & Marcus Gilmore * Murasaki (Loveland) Denmark/USA
Jim Hobbs & Timo Shanko * The Depression Tapes (Relative Pitch) USA
Martin Kuchen Angles 11 * Tell Them It’s The Sound Of Freedom (Fundacja Sluchaj) Sweden
Marty Ehrlich Exaltation Trio * This Time (Sunnyside) USA
Satoko Fujii Tokyo Trio * Dream A Dream (Libra) Japan
Sylvie Courvoisier & Mary Halvorson * Bone Bells (Pyroclastic) USA