Rolling Jazz 2026

Toast of the Nation 2026's sets are already posted, though I've just come in on the broadcast: what I've so far heard from Nicole Zuraitis & Friends upwas pretty tensile---the kind of Friends who could upstage a lesser vocal stylist without necessarily meaning to, but it didn't happen here. Took a while to warm up to some of Kassa Overall's musos, but it all came together. Sofia Rei's crew are the ones who are killing meee--never heard of her before! Still ahead:

Toast of the Nation takes note of a few magical live performances to emerge in 2025. We begin in New York, where drumming royalty Marcus Gilmore makes an auspicious Village Vanguard debut as a leader. Tyreek McDole serenades festival goers in Marciac, France. Amir ElSaffar reveals a new quartet in Berlin. Then we head to Philadelphia for the visionary Marshall Allen and his small group, Ghost Horizon. The set concludes with inspired performances from Kokayi at Big Ears in Knoxville and one of the last performances featuring Jack DeJohnette with George Colligan's Trio.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-nXegyTyuI

If, like me, you were upset that Kamasi Washington's soundtrack to the anime Lazarus (which stands up really well as a KW album) was only going to be available on vinyl, good news! They made a CD version for Japan. I've got a copy on the way to me, along with reissues of two grails from the BYG-Actuel catalog: Frank Wright's One For John (with Noah Howard on alto sax, Bobby Few on piano and Muhammad Ali on drums, also never before available on CD) and Alan Silva's Seasons (with the Celestrial Communication Orchestra, a 22-member group that included the whole Art Ensemble of Chicago, three pianists, multiple bassists, and a slew of horns - it's a triple LP now reissued as a 2CD set).

The Small's jam session ruiner/guitar guy debacle has been all over my social media (jazz jams often bring out the real weirdos, but I guess it's notable for going down at jazz jam central).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35tBA_5SlNY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ropCaQu2jLU

Can't bring myself to watch the second one.

Although it seems like the guy requested "Sunny" and they maybe played a Sonny Rollins tune instead ;)

xxxpost Kamasi is also on Saul Williams Meets Carlos Nino & Friends at TreePeople, the first International Anthem album to be nominated for a Grammy, and both tenors, Aaron Shaw as well as KW, are especially appealing in this overall bubble of live clarity---spoken word seems no prob here: Williams's voice fits in well, though the only lines that have grabbed me are about how Wall St. got its name. (Tenor may be mainly KW; it's one of several instruments played by Shaw).

Scrolling through the Smalls/Mezzrow email makes me think I've gotta get over there soon.

lol @ the dude crashing the Small's jam with a giant acoustic guitar

it is like some kind of Andy Kaufman performance

lol

tbh I feel bad for the guy

Jazz Legacies Fellowship Honors All-Star Concert was at Lincoln Center in NY last night. I was not there but read about it. the Jazz Legacies Fellowships provide unrestricted $100,000 grants to jazz elders. Performing last night were Valerie Capers, Amina Claudine Myers, George Coleman, Akua Dixon, Tom Harrell, Billy Hart, Bertha Hope, Roger Humphries, Carmen Lundy, Roscoe Mitchell, Johnny O’Neal, Shannon Powell, Julian Priester, Herlin Riley, Michele Rosewoman, Dom Salvador and Reggie Workman. The Mellon Foundation and Jazz Foundation of America fund this

That new Pat Metheny "Side EYE III" is pretty good. Some of the keyboard/synth stuff on that kinda echos sound wise some of those early ECM synthy touches with 2025 sounds (with the loops etc).

I was checking that out last night. I listened to the Side EYE I which was just the trio a while back and that has some cool stuff on it too.

What a great lineup, curmudgeon! Just made me think of Rudy Lawless, who played drums with Valerie Capers for many years and was a really great person to be around.

Honestly makes me so happy to see Shannon Powell & Herlin on there, and Roscoe Mitchell. Good job, rich people.

I need to check out those Metheny records, I love Joe Dyson.

End of an era: The Bad Plus (aka Reid Anderson, Dave King, and your gran on bongos) are hanging it up at the end of this year, after a tour featuring Craig Taborn and Chris Potter on which they'll play the music of Keith Jarrett's American Quartet.

might actually see this tour

Ben Monder came and went?

They're doing a couple of dates with Monder and Chris Speed in St. Louis this week, and a festival in June. The Potter/Taborn shows are in March and April.

The annual Francis Davis Jazz Critics' Poll is out. My label did quite well on the "Rara Avis" (reissues and archival releases) list; the Anthony Braxton Quartet (England) 1985 set was #4, and the Cecil Taylor/Tony Oxley album Flashing Spirits was #9.

concur on the new Metheny -- super good

I don't connect with Metheny's music very often. I've tried - and I've interviewed him; he seems to be a genuinely good dude. But what he does is Not For Me. That said, if his taking control of his post-ECM catalog means Zero Tolerance For Silence is coming back into print, I'm all for that.

Have you gone back to Trio->Live recently? That's sneakily become my fave Metheny, just burning.

I love this concept - Chris Weisman and Pablo Held wrote each other an album's worth of music on paper, then each arranged and recorded the other's music however they wanted to, and then they each released the album of the other person playing their new compositions:

https://pabloheld.bandcamp.com/album/chris-weisman-plays-my-music
https://chrisweisman.bandcamp.com/album/pablo-held-plays-my-music

I struggle with Metheny myself, but some of his stuff is pretty great. Honestly, my favorite single disc Metheny thing might be Works II.

His album of John Zorn compositions — Tap: Book Of Angels Vol. 20 — is really good. I listened to that last night. I also like his album From This Place, and a few other 21st century things. I think it's mostly the Pat Metheny Group stuff that sets my teeth on edge.

Yeah, haven't kept up with him in this century, but I always preferred some of the non-Group ventures, like with Haden and Ornette---also unexpectedly enjoyed [Fictionary, by Group mainstay Lyle Mays. One of my friends swears by some of his albums with Gary Burton, and. I've liked radio tracks from his album with Scofield.

Will have to check out his Zorn covers!

The Gary Burton album with Metheny, Roy Haynes, and Dave Holland is a classic, but the trio albums with Larry Grenadier and Bill Stewart are *fire* (esp. the live one).

Speaking of Metheny, can anyone tell me if this has been an official release or a streaming-only thing? It's pretty good.

Also pretty good is the Tales from The Hudson concert with Michael Brecker, Jack DeJohnette, Joey Calderazzo and Dave Holland . Metheny's solo in "Slings and Arrows" is stunning.

Heard two tracks from an upcoming Shabaka Hutchings album (coming out in March) and they both suuuuucked.

The second James Brandon Lewis/Messthetics record, also out in March, rips, though.

Yeah, this Shabaka is not great. The last one was a bit too bougie wellness jazz for my liking, so I was intrigued by the idea of him making his own beats, but the production is pretty tame, with generic ambient jazz synth sounds. There's some potentially interesting stuff going on rhythmically on the back half, but as with all his electronic projects, it needs to go harder. As for the rapping, his delivery is pretty monotonous. He's been playing live with Pat Thomas lately, so I'm hoping something more exciting will come out of that.

The thing with Shabaka is that he's a good player, particularly on clarinet, but he's never really lived up to the hype of being the UK's golden boy. His artistic curiosity is admirable, but Sons Of Kemet aside, I don't think he's really landed on anything truly distinctive or vital. I enjoyed The Ancestors record, but they felt like group efforts, and I think that he's probably at his best when he has collaborators who can inspire and challenge him.

Of the two that have been made public, Future Untold is a twinkly ambient blandfest, but the beat on this is quite fun, and I like the way the sax gets a bit spicier after the chromatic breakdown. But as with a lot of his stuff, I want him to take it a bit further, freer, weirder.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkV4FsZi-i8

art is cool for sure

I like that Shabaka track, the Baile funk-esque beat, the weird calliope-sounding flutes, bringing back the SoK rhythmic sax...

Just heard syndicated Jazz In The New Millenium's hour of Craig Handy: starts with version of "Watermelon Man" on Headhunters' live 2025 alb, then back to early 90s for live Mingus Big Band, forward a few years to "I Left My Baby," from the Kansas City soundtrack: Handy as Coleman Hawkins, with Curtis Fowlkes, David Fathead Newman, Kevin Mahogany, others; also with group 2nd-Line Smith, which is organ jazz meets New Orleans street, parade etc. elements (organist isn't trying to be the frontman here, wisely); The Latin Side of McCoy Tyner, with Conrad Herwig, and (great finale) James Brown's "Aint It Funky Now," with German combo BAM, back to 2025.

All of that really worked, plus some more with annotations I didn't take in (must start recording this show: there's no archive of any kind, much less downloads)

Here's that Kansas City track; Mark Whitfield's on there too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvYiRl6-FY8

That was arranged by Steven Bernstein, whose long-part-time band with Charlie Hunter, ", Bobby Previte, and Skerik (Omaha Diner) finally released its s/t album in 2025. Name is ironic tribute to where a guy got the idea for Top 40, on which all of the songs covered were originally No. 1, "at least briefly." Think some were Top 20, or other formats officially, but all are the unmistakably well-preserved, processed goods, though not too familiar, not as done here. Also not like the Mothers assaulting "Louie Louie," but witty, lithe, charming, hell maybe it's gay, I wouldn't know:https://charliehunter1.bandcamp.com/album/omaha-diner

(Also don't know why that ", is between Hunter and Previte.)

Cecil Taylor's final live performance — at the Whitney Museum on April 23, 2016, with Harri Sjöström on saxes, Okkyung Lee on cello, Jackson Krall on drums and Tony Oxley on electronics — will be released on CD by the Fundacja Sluchaj label. I was there, and wrote one of the two liner note essays.

https://sluchaj.bandcamp.com/album/words-and-music-the-last-bandstand

cecil is an automatic purchase for me

The show was fascinating - it's 80 minutes long, and about 30-35 minutes of that is him reading what starts out as a poem but becomes a long lecture on biology, human prehistory, and all kinds of other stuff. It's wild. (And the quality of the recording is great, btw.)

Utterly lost touch with jazz last year— couldn’t find myself excited by much on offer, with a few exceptions. One goal this year is to get back into it!

Just saw The Naked Gun last night, which I found to be moderately enjoyable trash– I mean good fun! – but now recalling the parody of jazz singing sequence that kind of bugged me.

Utterly lost touch with jazz last year— couldn’t find myself excited by much on offer, with a few exceptions. One goal this year is to get back into it!

Catch up last year with anything involving Luke Stewart (esp Silt Remembrance Ensemble), the Otherlands Trio (w/Darius Jones), anything with Mary Halvorson

I am utterly baffled by love for Halvorson. Totally unmoved by everything I have heard from her.

i’m a sucker for digital delay

Artlessly Falling is still the one Halvorson album I've really gotten into----from RJ 202i:

eah we were digging AF over on Robert Wyatt: Classic or Dud?:

He's good on that Code Girl album--sounds old, but vivid, to lingering impression after tracks are over---and alb is all good, by far the best Halvorson set I've heard so far, maybe because she's an accompanist here, to singers and instrumental "chamber" (but non-antiseptic) jazz combo & soloists.

― dow, Tuesday, 5 January 2021 19:45 (one month ago) link

i was a little cooler on the album overall, maybe it needs a few more spins to grow on me, but agree that Wyatt is fantastic on it

― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open)

t's a great setting for him and he sounds perfect on it even if I am not as high on as I was the first Code Girl record, but agreed I need some more time with it

― chr1sb3singer, Tuesday, 5 January 2021 20:47 (one month ago) link

I thought Amirtha Kidambi's vocals were very strong too, think she's the main singer other than Wyatt, although tenor saxophonist Maria Grand also gets voice credit on the bandcamp page. MH writing and picking but not singing is okay by me; People was like a Portlandia take off on jazz school nerds, although as such, could be entertaining, but it goes on a while. Anyway, this one is soooo much better, and whole thing is here:
https://maryhalvorson.bandcamp.com/album/artlessly-falling

― dow

Grand must be doing backing vocals e.g. on the refrain of "Mexican War Streets (Pittsburgh)". Kidambi was the only credited vocalist on the previous Code Girl and the non-Wyatt lead vocals on this album sound like the exact same voice to me.

― to party with our demons (Sund4r)

I shouldn't have slept on it - he's playing the Vanguard next week and tix are sold out. (I don't have the energy to do standby in this weather.)

Reminding me to check out the recent Lage round-up already stashed xpost here: https://xray.fm/programs/jazz-in-the-new-millenium
(thanx again to SlimAndSlam for posting that link.)

Before he says a word, JITNM's Rick Mitchell opens his Tyshawn Sorey set with all 7:22 or so of the Diehl-Brewer-Sorey trio's riveting "Enchantment" (did not know such depths could be found in the compositions of Horace Silver)---duh, since RM always lets the music do the talking, save for brief chronological intros or outros to tracks from history of the artist---in this case, though other career highlights are mentioned, Mitchell mostly picks smaller groups, and covers, incl. ones taking off from familiar material: leader Vijay Iyer's "Because of Guns (Hey Joe Redux)," and a swirling "Jitterbug Waltz," via the above trio plus Osby---also, continuing with my education, there's Harold Mabern's "In What Direction Are You Headed": same trio, Sorey swinging the groove--and because it's no longer on the radio, I could replay parts of Geri Allen's "Drummer's Song," with Iyer at his most lithe and atypically light-hearted, Sorey on just the right notes too.
(In future plays, may fast-forward through the part of the Steve Coleman venture where percussionist unnecessarily horns in on the vocals.)
https://xray.fm/broadcasts/53524

Splurged on the Miles Davis Live at the Plugged Nickel box set, truly an amazing document of group improvisation at its finest. I'm going to be exploring this for a long time. Just an amazingly talented group of musicians. My highest possible recommendation.

https://milesdavisstore.com/products/the-complete-plugged-nickel-live-1965-10-lp-box-set

the messthetics record is incredible, my god

the messthetics record is incredible, my god

way more fusion/proggy

The new Lewis/Messthetics record is heavier, skronkier, and proggier than the debut. It rips.

The Plugged Nickel box is amazing. I couldn't detect any difference between my original 1995 set and the new one in terms of sound quality. They even maintained the clumsy fade-out/fade-in between the two halves of the second set, even though you could easily fit it on a single CD in 2026 (it's 79 minutes or so once you get rid of that transition), and they didn't make the super annoying guy who keeps talking to Davis during the second night of performances any lower in the mix.

ha yeah I noticed that guy, i guess there was always "that guy" at shows

audible old-fashioned cash register going “ka-ching” still there

?

Just checked out another xpost JITNM set: Julian Lage, v. dope (likewise the most recent on there, Lionel Louke, who also has a new album)
Lage link:https://xray.fm/broadcasts/68711
and here's Loueke:https://xray.fm/broadcasts/68713

I reviewed two new books about Prestige Records, one focused on the music and the other on the album art.

Missed this record last year, but it's a good one. John O'Gallagher with Ben Monder, no bass, and both Billy Hart and Andrew Cyrille on drums.

https://johnogallagher-whirlwind.bandcamp.com/album/ancestral

Also missed that the John Scofield/Dave Holland duo album came out last November on ECM, but it's lovely. Could be a new playalong classic for instagram drummers, lol.

A new Harriet Tubman album and an announcement of a new Tyshawn Sorey album in May on Pi Recordings.

Do I need another $47 Tyshawn Sorey CD? Yes.

No shade on the Harriet Tubman/Georgia Anne Muldrow collab, but I can't help but come up w/ the groaner that with that op-art album cover they missed an opp to name it "Harriwether Post Pavilion"

(-weather, whoops)

47 dollars budo? are you shipping it to Tahiti or something?

hehe i was just exaggerating to be dramatic

for some reason i remember spending big bux on one of his CDs, maybe pillars b/c it's a 3xCD

The new Tyshawn is incredible. Opens up the Max Roach material in a way that recalls his own trio, but with more intensity and fire (also certain parallels with [Ahmed] there). The band is brilliant and the great Fay Victor's appearance on the title track takes it to the next level. At the end of the 90 minutes all I could say was "fucking hell".

Tyshawn is also on the superb new DoYeon Kim album, channeling his love of technical death metal drumming at times. Folks should also check out the new TAK Ensemble, which has his beautiful piece For jaimie branch.

didn't know there was a new Sorey. Absolutely up for it.

https://tyshawn-sorey.bandcamp.com/album/members-dont

that's 2 new ones then, because also there is Monochromatic Light (Afterlife)

Oh yeah, that one is stunning too.

Oh hey, new Gregory Hutchinson album (of Miles tunes) with Ambrose, Ron Blake, Gerald Clayton, Joe Sanders, and Emmanuel Michael.

Man, the Flea album is getting a full court press in the Jazz press (as well as rock press)

should be buried (under a bridge)

Man, the Flea album is getting a full court press in the Jazz press (as well as rock press)

Yeah, the way jazz mags are going "OMG they're looking at us!" is kinda embarrassing. I write for DownBeat, and the cover story they did with him is weeeeeak. (The album is a B+ IMO. 3 stars. I saw someone calling it "smooth jazz" and that's simply not true. It's somewhere between L.A. scene jazz — I mean, the band is basically Jeff Parker's ETA group — and, like, The Smile or Atoms For Peace.)

The trumpet playing is the weak part, that's the only thing that puts it into the Andre 3K category. Like, I love that he's been working on it for years and loves doing it, but this record with these players would not exist if he weren't famous for doing other things well.

The trumpet playing is fine. It's perfectly adequate to the music. If you pressed play on Flea's solo album expecting Woody Shaw or Freddie Hubbard, that's on you. And I think that's exactly what's going on - people are setting up false expectations and then shitting on the record for not meeting them.

It's fine for a bass player. But even though he's just playing melodies, I think there would be a different standard for any trumpet player with the likes of Jeff Parker and Deantoni Parks on a jazz record. But #2, yeah, I do agree that "jazz" is the wrong lens to view this record through, it's more in that L.A./Chicago/ambient vibey instrumental world for the most part, not improvised music.

"L.A./Chicago/ambient vibey instrumental" music is definitely having a moment, and I kinda can't wait for that moment to be over

Saw Maurice Louca's Fera earlier tonight at little Rhizome in DC. For this US tour the Egyptian Maurice Louca was on guitar and electronics, Ayman Asfour also from Egypt on violin, Dylan Greene, Asian American jazz and global music player on drums and percussion, and jazz musician Luke Stewart on double bass (plus clarinet & some other hand held percussion) Louca's music melds psychedelic rock trance drone, Egyptian shaabi, and jazz. Louca also plays in Alan Bishop's Dwarfs of East Agouza. Bishop was in the Sun City Girls .

jazz musician Tomeka Reid was in the audience

You guys know Flea plays trumpet right? Flea plays trumpet. He is in the Red Hot Chili Peppers and plays bass but he plays trumpet too. Flea plays trumpet. Do you know Flea, from Red Hot Chili Peppers plays the instrument known as trumpet? Flea plays trumpet. He's actually a trumpet player. He's in the Red Hot Chili Peppers but he's the one who isn't a sex pest. Well, actually he is, but he plays trumpet. Flea plays trumpet. Rick Beato told me Flea plays trumpet.

Listening to the new Ahmed album Play Monk. I have never connected with Ahmed's music, not even a little bit, but maybe this one will succeed where all their previous works have failed.

Oh new Ahmed, it isn't out yet is it?

next month

I have never connected with Ahmed's music, not even a little bit

what do you dislike about it? If dislike too strong a word, what about it leaves you cold? I'm a little surprised a Cecil fan would not find something to like about Pat Thomas, at the very least

I just... don't like it. It's one of those things where yeah, I like lots of things like this, but this particular version does nothing for me. And honestly, I've never heard anything from Thomas that I really liked; not his solo piano work, not his electronic stuff, none of it. I think ultimately it's that Thomas comes out of European improv, not jazz, so his music lacks the cohesion of Taylor's. Taylor's music had rigorous discipline and his improvisations were much more structured (in the architectural sense, not the "worked out beforehand" sense) than people think. Thomas always sounds like he's flailing around to me, and his music has a very static energy as a result - I find myself thinking, Oh, is he still going?

I mean, I'm not a musicologist, and words are just words, but Pat Thomas's playing strikes me as quite "rigorously structured" in a very nearly a Taylorian way

It's not a binary. Thomas comes out of jazz, he comes out of European improv, and he also comes out of European classical and Caribbean diaspora traditions, from calypso to reggae to dub to jungle. But when it comes to jazz, the man knows more about the music's history and the way it works than any of us ever will. The way he gets inside Ellington, Monk, Herbie Nichols, Cecil Taylor et al is just stunning.
Last year in Chicago, he played an ad hoc trio set at Hungry Brain with Joshua Abrams and Mike Reed and they absolutely swung. I really hope they can get together again and tour/record, because that felt like a consummate jazz trio from the off.
I've never had the sense he's flailing about. He's got incredible technique and plays with total intention and precision, even at his most abstract. He is extremely rigorous in everything he does - he really puts in the hours practicing - and there's a very clear architecture to his compositions, eg The Solar Model of Ibn Al-Shatir. Just beautiful and profound solo piano music.
He does like to lock into a chordal motif, particularly in [Ahmed], but it's anything but static - he's always stretching the forms, the metre, the dynamics.
Maybe you need to see him in person. Hopefully he'll make it back over to the States soon.

The perils of not downloading your Bandcamp purchases: I bought the first Ahmed album and without warning it was deleted from BC (and my collection) and another version is now available for purchase, but the one I paid for is gone.

Do you mean the box set? I know they've repressed that one a few times but the earlier version should still be available on the page if you bought it! otoh, If you mean one of the earlier two, I wonder what they changed for the new versions - they appear to be the same (I check this page often hoping they will repress the first two albums on CD)

Ah, I see - just got the email about the "new" version of New Jazz Imagination, which looks identical to the one that was on there before. Strange!

yeah it was New Jazz Imagination

That has happened to me, too, and I bought a cassette. It's a bummer. In my case, an email to the label got 'em to send me the files, but I wish I could stream the album straight from Bandcamp, and I can't.

Jon Irabagon, Ingrid Laubrock, James Brandon Lewis and Linda May Han Oh all got Guggenheim fellowships this morning. Emailing them all now to see if I can borrow twenty bucks...

I’m a huge fan of Laubrock, nice to see