10. Jacob Garchik – Ye Olde II — At the End of Time (Yestereve)
Jacob Garchik is a trombonist, composer, and arranger who works in daring formats, such as a full jazz big band but with no rhythm section. Ye Olde’s At the End of Time is the second outing from his so-called heavy metal ensemble, with three guitars and a Zappa-esque approach to attack and arrangement. “Caro Ortolano” brings to mind FZ’s classic The Grand Wazoo — a blend of rock, jazz, and parade music that is the soundtrack to a B-movie.
Like its 2015 predecessor, this music is couched as accompaniment to a sci-fi narrative set both 500 years in the past and 100 billion years in the future. However, you don’t have to care about the high-concept elements to appreciate how great a trombone solo sounds when it is lifted by three of the best guitarists in New York City. This isn’t easy listening jazz, but it is a hoot while being daring. – Will Layman
9. Mary Halvorson – About Ghosts (Nonesuch)
About Ghosts is the third recording from Mary Halvorson‘s band Amaryllis, a sextet of New Jazz all-stars: Jacob Garchik (trombone), Nick Dunston (bass), Tomas Fujiwara (drums), Patricia Brennan (vibraphone), and Adam O’Farrill (trumpet), in addition to the leader’s bendy-assertive electric guitar. The music finds ways to feel fresh even when it is beautiful in sonority and melody.
Halvorson writes outside the tradition when it comes to harmonic progressions, but her horn arrangements are lush within that structure. She adds other elements to About Ghosts that thicken the sound: saxophonists Brian Settles and Immanuel Wilkins and her own small synth. Sometimes jagged and sometimes creamy, this music sounds like nothing else out there. Thank goodness. – Will Layman
8. Matt Mitchell – Sacrosancticity (Obliquity)
Pianist Matt Mitchell put out a mind-blowing album of entirely improvised solo piano last year: Illimitiable. Sacrosanctity is from the same recording session but is slightly more approachable, being a group of seven tracks at ballad tempo. Comparisons to Keith Jarrett’s entirely improvised solo piano albums are inevitably facile, but Mitchell’s knottier and more abstract playing contains some of Jarrett’s musical DNA.
“Fillip Leaps” is an eight-minute track that begins with compulsive patterns expressed as cycled melodic phrases (not quite arpeggios, but leaping melodic patterns that rise and fall) that outline harmonic movement. Like Jarrett, Mitchell establishes the form and feeling and then shifts to other, related episodes. Mitchell turns his two hands into independent melodic lines, which allows him to begin spinning a rhapsodic right-hand melody that takes flight with as much drama and virtuosity as any on a Jarrett solo album. Is there a more complete pianist in jazz over the last 20 years? – Will Layman
7. Peter Evans / Being & Becoming – Ars Ludicra (More Is More)
Peter Evans is a trumpet player of extraordinary range, facility, and imagination. Jazz is too narrow a category to capture all his work, though many may know him from being a founding member of the meta-jazz group Mostly Other People Do the Killing. This is the third studio album from this quartet, featuring Evans on trumpets, piano, and electronics, Joel Ross on vibraphone and synth, Nick Jozwiak on bass and synth, and Michael Shekwoaga Ode on drums (as well as a guest flautist on one track).
The span of music is considerable, from pastoral balladry to slamming grooves, with improvisation that doesn’t obey many standard harmonic rules. However, the band’s core sound gives them focus. Joel Ross, known for brilliant but more mainstream modern jazz on his Blue Note dates as a leader, is utterly unleashed here — is there such a thing as a nu-metal vibraphonist? The sharp metallic quality of his instrument reverberates joyously with Evans’ clarion tones. The use of electronics and synthesizers is done with unusual creativity. – Will Layman
6. Amir ElSaffar – New Quartet Live at Pierre Boulez Saal (Maqām)
Amir ElSaffar has been having a good year. After launching his label, Maqām Records (named after the Middle Eastern musical language that employs a microtonal tuning system), the trumpeter released an album by legendary Iraqi Maqām vocalist Hamid Al-Saadi, and, for the imprint’s second album, ElSaffar teamed up with three other musicians for a stunning new live album that places Maqām in a modern jazz setting.
The result is a performance that is graceful, deliberate, and often intense, fueled by somewhat unusual instrumentation – the lack of a bass, not common in a jazz recording, may seem jarring at first. Still, it allows the rest of the musicians to explore a wide-open space. – Adriane Pontecorvo
5. Linda May Han Oh – Strange Heavens (Biophilia)
Strange Heavens is a rare “trumpet trio” recording, but led by the prolific and versatile bassist-composer Linda May Han Oh. It is also a mostly straight-ahead jazz record with ten new songs by the leader that flex and breathe in the jazz tradition, some uptempo and some as lovely ballads. There are also tunes by Geri Allen and Melba Liston.
Oh’s acoustic bass often plays the melodies in octaves or harmony with trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire. She also anchors the rhythm section by locking into a breathtaking swing, a funky backbeat, or colorful orchestration with drummer Tyshawn Sorey. The ballads are among the set’s highlights, especially “Just Waiting”, a deep-blue torch song that could serve as a dangerous theme for a modern film noir that sonically describes an atmospheric alley in a city you are dreaming about. – Will Layman
4. Jon Irabagon – Server Farm (Irabbagast)
Irabagon is a magician and shapeshifter, a composer whose imagination goes from lyrical grace to controlled chaos and back again. His first stellar album of 2025 was this one, featuring a powerfully unconventional ten-piece band of cutting-edge improvisers — two guitars, mad keyboards (piano, Rhodes, and Prophet synth from Matt Mitchell), trumpeter Peter Evans, vocals and violin, both electric and acoustic basses, drummer Dan Weiss, and percussion/laptop from Levy Lorenzo.
There are brass licks that sound like Count Basie, free improvisation, dreamy tenor playing over dancing figures for vibraphone, and hooky melodies galore. My favorite track sounds very nearly like the accessible jazz CTI Records released in the 1970s. There is no better 2025 jazz album to demonstrate how the vanguard of the art also appeals to your backside. – Will Layman
3. Mourning [A] BLKstar – Flowers for the Living (Don Giovanni)
Mourning [A] BLKstar are an Afrofuturist collective from Cleveland, weaving a fascinating tapestry of jazz, soul, hip-hop, and experimental music to investigate the shifting shape of Black music and culture in the 21st century. Obviously, this will include far too much pain, hardship, injustice, and inequality. A lot of media reduces the Black experience to suffering, flattening the beauty, strength, and complexity into just more trauma porn.
Cleveland soul jazz collective Mourning [A] BLKstar give voice to Black joy and excellence on Flowers for the Living without succumbing to saccharine corniness. Lyrically, thematically, it’s incredibly positive, powerful, and uplifting. Musically, it’s got shadows as well as light, delivering a rich, nuanced album that lives and breathes, dancing and singing as well as shouting and occasionally throwing stones. – Adriane Pontecorvo
2. Patricia Brennan – Of the Near and Far (Pyroclastic)
Last year’s Breaking Stretch by mallet percussionist Patricia Brennan was my favorite of the year, and the follow-up very nearly repeated at the top. This recording is even more astonishing and bold: fusing a killer jazz quintet (piano, guitar, vibes, drums, and bass), a string quartet, and a turntablist. The result is music that is experimental at times but also thrilling and flashy. I came away from tunes like “Andromeda” with my head spun around, the same way my adolescent ears reacted to Birds of Fire by the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Which is not to say that this sounds like 1970s fusion, but rather that the music is exciting, new, and powerful. Some of the electronics-enhanced material does sizzle with fire. – Will Layman
1. Fieldwork – Thereupon (Pi)
This trio — Tyshawn Sorey on drums, Vijay Iyer on piano, and alto saxophonist Steve Lehman — last released an album in 2008. Since then, each has become a highly influential figure in 21st-century jazz. Their recorded reunion, however, is not “heavier” for all of their weight on the scene. It is better described as buoyant and open, building on the idea that animated the three previous recordings: that daring music in the jazz tradition can be propulsive and carefully structured even as it radically expands that tradition. This is the best of the four albums: ferociously focused and remarkably accessible for music that remains abstract and harmonically dense. Indeed, parts of this record are exceptionally grooving and full of joy. – Will Layman