Geno Thackara's Favorite Jazz Albums of 2024

The year has unfortunately not allowed for reviewing anything near as much as I'd hoped, but the lack of coverage certainly does not mean a lack of quality—as always, there are some picks that just keep finding their way back to my speakers again and again. I'll add a quick honorable mention for Ultraviolet's Ripples and Waves, a slinky quasi-world-dub treat that missed the window by coming just at the very end of 2023.

Yosef Gutman Levitt (featuring Gilad Hekselman)
Why Ten?
Soul Song Records

It's a rare instrumental voice that can be so expressive while staying so resolutely simple. While Levitt shuffles musical bits and pieces from travels all over, the personality at the heart of things is one of universal warmth and connection.



Arild Andersen/Daniel Sommer/Rob Luft
As Time Passes
April Records

Despite a certain wistfulness to the title theme, this one has no shortage of springy spirit (Andersen always being one to bring younger players to the table) in a manner that's still calming and quietly beautiful.



Fergus McCreadie Trio
Stream
Edition Records

Another fun romp both organic and heartwarming. The trio is a consistently long-running one with a consistent spirit to match, while the familiarity makes each outing no less surprising.



Maria Baptist
Hopes & Fears
Self Produced

Not just a consummate arranger and bandleader, Baptist can be as dynamic as an orchestra while pounding the keys by herself. This solo recital takes some big thoughtful flights, full of those title emotions and many more besides.




Daniel Herskedal
A Single Sunbeam
Edition Records

For someone whose music is always beautifully in tune with nature, he makes this one feel especially earthbound and still as atmospheric as ever. Not really ambient or Fourth World, it settles somewhere in between with a mood not quite of this world.



Seamus O'Muineachain
Liminality
Ghost Home Recordings

This could practically be classified as ambient, but manages to say a lot in both very few notes and a surprisingly short time. Dreamlike pacing and beautiful simplicity make a beguiling haze that easily feels like it could simply float endlessly between one thing and another.



Slowly Rolling Camera
Silver Shadow
Edition Records

This is the evocative soundtrack to the electro-jazz trio's own private midnight show, quietly immersive and picturesque as ever.



Brian Landrus
Plays Ellington & Strayhorn
Palmetto Records

While the material can't help being long-familiar, this is a highly knowledgeable treatment with a highly personal angle—largely sedate and mid-tempo, arranged for small combo with self-overdubs in a rich range of reed tones, and making that old-school cool feel charmingly out of time.



Paradise Cinema
returning, dream
Gondwana Records

Rhythms from the heart of Africa and atmospheres that hardly feel of this planet at all: the combo feels spun from a dream, and one that's equally sparse and vivid.