Dean Nardi's Best Jazz Albums Of 2025

The End-of-the-Year lists are upon us once again, and there were some special albums that spun in just-walking-the-dog heavy rotation. Specifically, when plugged into a trusty Walkman, it is the noise-dampening aspect of earphones that aids listening to and evaluating whether a particular album is worth inclusion, because in December you cannot escape the tired and true sounds of holiday/Christmas music with pitched voices playing over and over again until you want to mash a unappetizing festive fruitcake into your ears. That is one reaction. Don't get me wrong: Christmas is spiritually rewarding and fulfilling in the gift department as well, but there are some songs, such as "The Little Drummer Boy," which rum, pa-rum, pa-rums itself into your cerebral cortex like some malignant woodpecker because it is tedious and way over-played. Seriously, how did the ox and the lamb keep time?

But let's not waste anymore space on the drummer boy. This list offers one man's opinion on what records found me smiling like a cat that had just eaten a whole cage of canaries, thus silencing their off-beat warbling. It features a very special distinction in that you can purchase each and everyone on physical media, which disqualified from consideration any album that was digital or streaming only. It should be noted that our own money was used to buy a couple of these albums while artists or their agents supplied the rest. I mean, the press are entitled to freebies, aren't they, since we are collectively not a NGO.? Each album listened to in 2025 was professionally scored as either "good" or "not good" (which pre-PC speech used to be known as "bad"). The albums on the list below, of course, were sourced from the "good" pile until only the really, really good ones were sluiced out like gold nuggets from a stream (not streaming). In first place, while allowing as there is no such thing as perfection beyond our Savior, is Summit (Bespoke Jazz, 2025) by Nadav Remez, which marked a new creative high point in the guitarist's career, weaving together deeply personal themes with rich group interplay from musicians that have grown together during the years. It shows. The drum roll, please, and get away from me little boy with the drum kit.

Summit
Nadav Remez
HaRamaz Music
2025






Rendezvous -Jazz Meets Beethoven, Tchaikovsky & More
Jo-Yu Chen
Sony Music
2025






Just
Billy Hart
ECM Records
2025






After the Last Sky
Anouar Brahem
ECM Records
2025






Oneness
Sivan Arbel
Adhyâropa Records
2024






The Cave
Michala Østergaard-Nielsen
ILK Music
2025






Tokyo
Wolfgang Muthspiel
ECM Records
2025






Shadows and Silence: The Erik Satie Project
Tessa Souter
NOANARA Records
2025






Sayr: Salt | Thirst
Jussi Reijonen
Unmusic
2026






About Ghosts
Mary Halvorson
Nonesuch Records
2025