Home » Jazz Articles » Year in Review » Dan McClenaghan's Best Jazz Albums Of 2025

Dan McClenaghan's Best Jazz Albums Of 2025

By Dan McClenaghan
December 3, 2025
View read count

The albums on this Best of the Year list were picked on the run, as the months unfolded. Sometimes, second-guessing comes into play at the time of compilation. Not this time. All of these recordings are worthy of being called the Best of 2025.

Andrew Hill
A Beautiful Day, Revisited
Palmetto Records

Iro Haarla
Under the Firmament
Texicalli Records

Claire Ritter
Songs Of Lumiere
Zoning Records

Marc Copland
Alter Ego Lausanne 2022
The Montreux Jazz Label

Jon Irabagon
Server Farm
Irrabagast

Satoko Fujii
Dream a Dream
Libra Records

Charlie Ballantine
East by Midwest
Origin Records

Phillip Haynes
Transition (s)
Corner Store Jazz

Jo-Yu Chen
Rendezvous: Jazz Meets Beethoven, Tchaikovsky & More
Sony Music

Atzko Kohashi
Porgy
Jazz In Motion Records

Michael Dease
City Life: Music of Gregg Hill
Origin Records

Denny Zeitlin
With a Song In My Heart: Exploring The Music of Richard Rodgers
Sunnyside Records

Vijay Iyer
Thereupon
Pi Recordings

Roberto Magris
Lovely Day (s)
JMood Records

George Coleman
George Coleman with Strings
HighNote Records

Anat Fort
The Dreamworld of Paul Motian
Sunnyside Records

Carmen Staaf
Sounding Line
Sunnyside Records

Dayna Stephens
Monk'D
Contagious Music

Satoko Fujii
Burning Wick
Libra Records

Tags

Comments

PREVIOUS / NEXT

West Coast Echoes
< Previous

Of the Near and Far
Next >

Support All About Jazz

All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.