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Glenn Astarita's Best Jazz Albums Of 2025

By Glenn Astarita
January 11, 2026
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Another year, another reminder that jazz refuses to stay in its lane. The ten albums that grabbed me most in 2025 don't follow any neat narrative or trend—they're just the records I kept coming back to, the ones that made me hit repeat or sit up and pay closer attention. Some are from veterans who still have plenty to say, others from artists I'm just discovering. A few feel like natural progressions, while others surprised me in ways I'm still processing. What they all share is that they stuck with me long after the first listen, which in an age of endless options is about the highest compliment I can pay.

Ches Smith
Clone Row
Otherly Love Records

Markus Reuter
Truce <3
MoonJune Records

Of the Near and Far
Patricia Brennan
Pyroclastic Records

Splash
Myra Melford
Intakt Records

Strange Heavens
Linda May Han Oh
Biophilia Records

Abstraction Is Deliverance
James Brandon Lewis
Intakt Records

Focus
Soft Ffog
Is It Jazz?

Uplift
Tatsuya Nakatani
Edgetone Records

Et Bedre Sted
Treverket
Eget Selskap

Burning Wick
Satoko Fujii
Libra Records

Trio Of Bloom
Nels Cline
Pyroclastic Records

About Ghosts
Mary Halvorson
Nonesuch Records

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