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)

Artlessly Falling is still the one Halvorson album I've really gotten into

Seconded; I can appreciate all the subsequent Halv albums but AF was my first and Wyatt was my way in. He's only on three tracks but I really love the whole cosy tactile warmth of the whole record. I do need to spend more time with the first Code Girl album

Code Girl is my least favorite MH project. I really like the current ensemble, and Thumbscrew (particularly their album of Anthony Braxton compositions) and her septet/octet with Susan Alcorn on pedal steel.

the duet albums with Courvoisier have no vocals and may hit the spot for some of you

Yeah, I've kinda liked some where she isn't the leader, for inst this, from Pazz & Jop 2017 ballot comments:

ERR Guitar, by Elliott Sharp with Mary Halvorson and Marc Ribot. No other instruments, and none missed, for a while longer than expected, because these three are compatible, establishing an extended sonic vocabulary, incl. occasional Spanish chords, zig-zag repartee, pedals I think, Sharrockian slide, modulation in mid-run or as run (no electronic thingies of course, just peg-twisting), a whole lotta pluckin/, pickin', chirpin goin' on (coulda used more chords, Spanish or whatever), kinda thin but not too, unlike my attention level at times, but they kept bringing me back, though I couldn't say where, since these 12 might as well have been one track---almost, but extended finale "Kernel Panic" does finally bring some (some) distortion and heat.
...this 65-minute set is pretty agreeable, on the whole---and immediately upstaged by Nels Cline's "So Hard It Hurts/Touching," conceptually and expressively. Oh, Spotify!

Oh yeah, I did really like the 2021 Sylvie C duet album and the 2022 Thumbscrew - there have been more of each apparently which I should dig into. I'm all for vocal Halvorson/ensemble records though; recommendations for these are appreciated, particularly any earlier ones

https://krisdavis.bandcamp.com/album/the-solastalgia-suite

new Kris Davis quartet with some classical players sounds good, been a fan of hers for a long time so imagine this will be good but just listening for the first time now.

With Halvorson I love her playing but while I find her recent leader albums are impressive, they haven’t quite made me go wow! Maybe I need to spend more time with them. Really like Meltframe, her solo guitar record with the great version of Carla Bley’s Ida Lupino.
She’s fantastic on the new Tomeka Reid Quartet album. Rips a killer noisy solo on the single.
https://outofyourheadrecords.bandcamp.com/track/oo-long

Would also recommend Ches Smith’s Clone Row which has her and Liberty Ellman trading guitar lines. Caught them live in London last month and it was a guitar nerd thrill to see them in action.

Do we have a Luke Stewart thread? I love him from a distance and want to dig in

clone row is awesome and Ches Smith is an unheralded monster!

Thanks. I know him from WPFW which is frankly the best radio station ever

i can chime in with a few LS records i like: Exposure Quintet from 2020, the two Silt Trio records, the collaboration record with Jarvis Earnshaw (REALLY like this one), and Janel Leppin's Volcanic Ash Ensemble

i wish i could be more specific or comment on more of his output, but that's about all that i've been meaningful exposed to

The summer in my last band collaborated with Janel Leppin. I’ll start there

Drummer

Second on those Luke Stewart recommendations. The History Dog record from last year was cool. Quite loose and jammy with a million ideas bouncing around, and the spoken word might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but when they focus in on electro-acoustic textures it’s really strong. Stewart and trumpeter Chris Williams are key to that - see the latter’a great duo HxH with Lester St Louis.
Big fan of Stewart’s solo bass records, electric and acoustic. Heavy and deep!

Cool! Thanks yall. WPFW has an app if you want to hear some great jazz recommended by DC folks. Just tune in week nights after 7:00 est

Hearing that Richie Beirach has passed

Been a rough few months for ECM artists.

just caught up with Thomas Fujiwara's Dream Up from late last year. Fucking immense album imo.

he’s one of my faves, as well

Yeah, that's a great record. Patricia Brennan was pretty much 2025's jazz MVP - she was on six albums (one of her own and five others) and they were all great thanks in large part to her work.

i’m finally going to see Kris Davis live Friday at Blues Alley. I’ve missed a bunch of opportunities, including a gig at the Stone I was at where she had to cancel because she was stick in traffic.

There’s some really great stuff on mccoy mrubata’s new album “children on the fromt line”

Some I could skip but glad I made it to the second half

ahmed has had to cancel the upcoming Brooklyn shows

This is a truly good record, vibe & communication are pristine (Kenny Reichert)

https://shiftingparadigmrecords.bandcamp.com/album/live-in-chicago-2

Nice month for reissues: Julius Hemphill's Dogon A.D., Noah Howard's Black Ark, and Phil Cohran's African Skies via various labels

Who's putting out Black Ark? I have an almost 20-year-old CD reissue but would be interested to know about a new version...

New Ron Carter gospel album is not at all what I expected and it's incredible