Simon Adams
Geri Allen & Kurt Rosenwinkel: A Lovesome Thing (Motéma MTMO427). Of the many albums I have reviewed or listened to in 2024, the one that stands out for me is, surprisingly, the Geri Allen and Kurt Rosenwinkel live set from Paris in 2021. Not my usual fare, but playing a duo together for the only time, Allen and Rosenwinkel delivered an utterly mesmerising set. In complete contrast, Shabaka Hutchings’ Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace (Impulse 602465050356) is beautiful music delivered at a high price, for it speaks of insecurity and pain, of a need for reassurance and comfort. A brave and intense album. And to continue my mea culpa to Alan Barnes, his duo set ’Tis Autumn (Woodville WVCD154) with pianist David Newton is pure pleasure.
John Adcock
Looking back over 2024 and thinking about what I have been listening to and reviewing, I would name Chief Keegan’s The Piles High Club as my album of the year. It bubbles with ideas, fun and that sense of a band enjoying themselves and wanting the listeners to enjoy it as much as they are. Funky organ jazz seems in good hands, and I hope they have more planned for 2025.
On the topic of jazz being in good hands, I enjoyed catching some of the BBC’s Young Jazz Musician of the Year on 24 November. I did not see all the programme but saw enough to sense that 22-year-old bassist Ursula Harrison would take some beating. There was something intuitive and natural about the way she played bass and engaged with fellow finalists when they performed as a group (Gunk, apparently). Equally impressive was the way in which all the young musicians embraced and adapted the ideas from the Charlie Parker number they performed. A great way to bring the competition to an end, and a really encouraging showcase of future talent and where it can take jazz in all its various and wonderful forms.
Derek Ansell
Just arrived recently, a previously unissued three-LP set from Resonance, Emily Remler: Cookin’ At The Queens, live in Los Vegas in 1984 and 1988. It’s a terrific set with Emily’s personal variations on Wes Montgomery. If Wes was smokin’ at the Half Note, Emily was certainly cooking at Queens. Carson Smith is on bass and Tom Montgomery on drums. Also much enjoyed, Chet Baker: Late Night Jazz, recorded in 1988 by the Norwegian label Hot Club and now reissued on Elemental.
Roger Farbey
Kevin Figes: You Are Here (new). Kevin Figes’ paean to the works of the late, great Keith Tippett is masterly in its own right. He reminds us that Tippett, in addition to being a brilliant pianist, was also a superb composer. It’s a gem from start to finish.
Louis Stewart & Jim Hall: The Dublin Concert (archive). Stewart and Hall’s duo album is an example of two guitar masters in a relaxed concert setting, effortlessly conjuring up masterly tunes and like their audience, enjoying the session immensely.
Fred Grand
Kjetil Husebø: Emerging Narratives (new). A serious work that brings a fresh sophistication to the ever popular field of ambient Nordic electro-jazz. Gerd Dudek, Buschi Niebergall, Edward Vesala: Open (archive). Remaster of a sublime 1977 set from FMP, Open is every bit the equal of ECM’s more celebrated free jazz from the period.
Andy Hamilton
This is always a tricky task, because of the plentiful production of really excellent albums – maybe we don’t have acknowledged masters of the stature of Billie Holiday, Lester Young, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman… But there are players who may come to be recognised as great, and among these is pianist Kris Davis, whose Run The Gauntlet (Pyroclastic) is my album of the year. Other contenders include Bill Frisell: Orchestras (Blue Note), The Necks: Bleed (Northern Spy), Stephan Crump: Slow Water (Papillon Sounds) and The Mayfield: The Mayfield(Intakt).
Nigel Jarrett
Annie Chen: Guardians (JZ Music JZC 24001) (new). Little surprise to me that the Beijing-born, New York-based singer Annie Chen’s new album is up for awards. Chen borrows freely from Chinese and other cultures to illustrate the environmental concept of animal life at bay. And why not? In a world finally consumed by climate change, there’ll be no jazz and no-one to listen to it. There are two Chen takes on works by 20th-century composers and a wealth of other musical allusions. Guardians is also the kind of album that listeners knocked aside by the rapidity of developments in jazz can employ to get their bearings – or not.
Victor Lewis: Know It Today, Know It Tomorrow (Crepuscule/Red Records RR12355-2) (archive). This 1992 session was notable for the presence of significant newcomers: tenor saxophonist Seamus Blake and bassist Christian McBride; also, for the presence of Lewis himself as a composer: he supplied all nine tracks – and what gems they were. Blake, particularly, was an eloquent newcomer to a jazz corpus in which to be original is always difficult. Blake plays as though unfazed by the example of his forebears while obviously not trying to avoid them, and McBride brings muscle to motion.
Leon Nock
Ella Fitzgerald: Sings The Cole Porter Song Book (Poll Winners Records 27363). I reviewed some 21 CDs in 2024 – eight brand new and 13 reissues – and the one standing head and shoulders above the other 20 was first released on vinyl 68 years ago. Ella’s Cole Porter Song Book oozes class from every groove: 32 stylish Porter songs, filtered through the pipes of an acknowledged mistress of jazz singing, backed by the cream of West Coast session musicians. Age has not withered nor custom staled its infinite variety.
Down For The Count At Cadogan Hall. In my book there’s very little than can equal let alone eclipse a live performance from a swinging big band – an audience with the Dalai Lama, the view from the Jungfrau, a one-on-one with Sinatra over a Jack Daniel’s or three – all, alas, beyond my pay-grade. I did, however, get to bask for a couple of hours in October 2024, over the next best thing, arguably the best swing band currently working, Down For The Count. My cup of tea runneth over.
Brian Payne
Owen Broder: Hodges – Front And Center Vol. 2 (Outside in Music OIM 2402). New York saxophonist and his tiptop quintet pay homage to Johnny Hodges with numbers from his small-group sessions of the 1950s. Broder’s splendid arrangements maintain the essence of the originals while injecting contemporary verve.
Snorre Kirk: What A Day! (Stunt Records STUCD24032). Norwegian drummer introduces Giacomo Smith (as, ss) and Joe Webb (p) to his quartet alongside Anders Fjeldstad (b). Kirk’s bright, melodic compositions sound as if they were created in the swing era yet they’re crisp and fresh with a modern sparkle. Superb.
Michael Tucker
Unleashed Cooperation: Trust (MultiKulti MPPA005) – There have been many terrific releases in 2024 but this cracking album, throughout as literate as it is imaginative and courageous, has to be my record of the year.
François van der Linde
Ulysses Owens Jr.: A New Beat! (new). Rarely if ever does one hear neo-hard bop performed as jubilantly and energetically as on drummer Ulysses Owens Jr.’s first live album. A perfect translation of The Jazz Messengers to the 21st century.
Emily Remler: Cookin’ At The Queens (archive). Live work of the ill-fated guitarist from 1984 and 1988 in Las Vegas is testament to her greatness as heir to the classic bebop guitarists.
Mike LeDonne Groover Quartet: Wonderful! (Cellar Music 032323) (new). The undisputed king of vintage organ-jazz mixes soul jazz with gospel choir, inspired by his mentally and visually impaired daughter Mary.
John White
My jazz record of the year has to be the Terry Gibbs Dream Band: Vol 7 – The Lost Tapes, 1959 (Whaling City Sound). Discovered by accident in the Gibbs residence, it is equal – if not superior to – the previous six Dream Band releases. Wish Terry a happy 100th birthday if and when you acquire it. Staggering…
Matthew Wright
QOW Trio: The Hold Up (Ubuntu UBU0151) (new). I enthused about this back in February and nothing has changed my mind; in fact after seeing them at the Toulouse-Lautrec in October, it has reaffirmed how good a live band they are.
Chet Baker Quartet: In Paris (New Continent 101009) (archive) Some strong candidates including Rollins at the Village Vanguard, but with Baker’s playing, Bob Zieff’s unusual compositions and most of all, the last recordings of the mercurial Dick Twardzik, this takes it.
Mark Youll
From the late release, last December, of Simon Spillett’s Big Band tribute to Tubby Hayes, Dear Tubby H (which was on heavy rotation through to March at least), I went into 2024 to enjoy the highly funky and hip-hop influenced Mustard n’ Onions by Texan outfit Ghost-Note, a beautiful trio set from Scott Colley, Edward Simon and Brian Blade, Three Visitors, Kenny Barron’s new quartet on his stunning Beyond This Place, and the eventual release of an old set from pianist Michel Petrucciani, Jazz Club Montmarte 1988, featuring bassist Gary Peacock and the late, great Roy Haynes on drums.
Mad about trad, I also adored the authentic vibe of New Orleans blaring out of Tuba Skinny’s Hot Town, and then just before the year was out the wonderful Wave Theory from Australian composer and violinist Tamil Rogeon which, promoting a Latin influence nearly as strong as Roy Hargrove’s highly spirited Grande-Terre, more broadly brought to mind 70s electric-era Herbie Hancock.