John Sharpe's Best Releases of 2024

From the 200 or so discs that I heard in 2024, here are the ten new issues and three gems saved from obscurity, which gave me the most pleasure. As always these selections are entirely subjective, and take no account of the many other albums which I would no doubt have loved if I had heard them. So perhaps it's better to view these selections as a chance to pick up on something that you might otherwise have missed. As a fan I always look forward to the annual year end lists for precisely that reason. If you share my taste (that's the critical bit), then something here might just be for you!

حمد [Ahmed]
Giant Beauty
Fönstret

A five CD box set which never lets up. The intuitive ways in which the quartet interlock and combine imbue the resultant music with an alchemical blend of immediacy, power, and at times a visceral intensity. They sound like nothing else. The Necks, Joshua Abrams' Natural Information Society or Anthony Braxton's Ghost Trance Music are the most proximate parallels, but none sports the same whiff of danger. If the monumental dimensions don't appeal, then a contemporaneous single album Wood Blues (Astral Spirits, 2024) delivers a similarly excellent ride.

John Blum / David Murray / Chad Taylor
The Recursive Tree
Relative Pitch

Three uniformly potent partners mesh in a spontaneous and intense outpouring. That leaves pianist John Blum as the least well known member of the threesome. That he studied with seminal masters such as Cecil Taylor (and even worked for him as a rehearsal pianist) and Borah Bergman, gives a clue to his style: percussive, high energy, predominantly atonal yet with connections back to bop and before. The presence of form-seeking improvisers such as Murray and Taylor provides a superb showcase for the pianist's pyrotechnics.

Patricia Brennan Septet
Breaking Stretch
Pyroclastic

On her third leadership date, vibraphonist Patricia Brennan takes the strong foundation established by her percussion heavy quartet on 2022's More Touch, and uses the addition of three horns to erect the towering edifice of Breaking Stretch. Brennan's imaginative and varied writing extracts the maximum richness and excitement from her crew. The album boasts a vertiginous underpinning complexity, courtesy of drummer Marcus Gilmore and percussionist Mauricio Herrera in particular, which threatens to pull the unwary into a dizzying embrace.

Ingrid Laubrock / Tom Rainey
Brink
Intakt

Saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and drummer Tom Rainey remain a consummately empathetic pairing blessed with boundless imaginations. The pair impart a clear sense of intent and structure to almost everything here. Such attention to shape is what helps distinguish the truly great improvisers and both Laubrock and Rainey belong in this camp. Laubrock's simultaneously poised and experimental voice can never be second guessed, while Rainey meanwhile possesses an armory equal to any approach, whether fulfilling the role of sensitive accompanist or willful provocateur.

John Butcher /Pat Thomas /Dominic Lash / Steve Noble
Fathom
577 Records

Finely-judged sounds studded in space. Bursts of incipient rhythm. Wafts of fire music zip. Those are just some of the fruitful products of the British foursome of saxophonist John Butcher, pianist Pat Thomas, bassist Dominic Lash and drummer Steve Noble. Everyone enthusiastically erases the admittedly porous boundary between improv and free jazz. And they are comfortable with silence. No-one sees the need to fill the silence unless they have something to say. As it happens they have a lot to say, but cannily choose their moments. A superior jaunt from an outfit that should have a bright future.

Rob Brown Quartet
Oblongata
Rogue Art

Although reedman Rob Brown has a string of small group outings to his name, dating back to his first, Breath Rhyme (Silkheart) in 1990, Oblongata may be one of his finest. The 2022 studio session reunites him with some of his most enduring collaborators, namely trombonist Steve Swell, bassist Chris Lightcap and drummer Chad Taylor. In some ways it presents as a classic free jazz extravaganza, in that Brown's scripts presage a sequence of solos and sometimes duos before a reprise, but careful variation guarantees that the format never grows stale.

Satoko Fujii Tokyo Trio
Jet Black
Libra

On Jet Black, pianist Satoko Fujii premieres an edgy new trio completed by Tokyo-based bassist Takashi Sugawa and drummer Ittetsu Takemura, two band leaders in their own right. They revel in unruly attitude, even as they totally buy into the idiosyncratic universe demarcated by Fujii's six charts. Both adopt unlikely tactics which keep both listeners and bandmates on their toes. Does the pianist accentuate the wayward aspects of her own playing more as a result? It sometimes seems that way. The juxtaposition of devil-may-care sensibilities with more ordered elements is an alluring strategy which Fujii exploits to the full.

Angelica Sanchez / Barry Guy / Ramón López
Live at Jazzdor
Maya

The 50-minute set by pianist Angelica Sanchez, bassist Barry Guy and drummer Ramon Lopez at Jazzdor in the French city of Strasbourg in 2023 demonstrates an affinity marked by spirited interplay, thorny percussive thickets and satisfying on-the-fly lyricism. The principal feel is one of unbridled exploration. And all three enjoy two key attributes for its successful accomplishment: open ears and lightning fast responses.

Olie Brice / Rachel Musson / Mark Sanders
Immense Blue
West Hill

Three superlative performers, who share a chemistry which heightens their responsiveness, trust and interaction to remarkable levels. All that can be heard in a near hour long program containing three joint inventions culled from a show in north London's Vortex in October 2022. Through an organically evolving tangle of timbre, pitch and pulse they explore every feasible permutation in the line up to create a wonderfully persuasive set of free jazz.

Kirke Karja / Étienne Renard / Ludwig Wandinger
Caught in My Own Trap
BMC

Although Estonian pianist Kirke Karja claims the lion's share of the composer credits, the band comes across as a communal enterprise in which French bassist Etienne Renard and German drummer Ludwig Wandinger play equally significant parts. As a consequence there is no disjunct between the scores and the subsequent extemporizations, which infuse contemporary classical influences with a weighty rhythmic overlay and a hefty dose of unfettered expression.

Charles Gayle / William Parker / Milford Graves
WEBO
Black Editions

This fabled performance lives up to all the hype. Rescued from the library of the late drummer Milford Graves, this 3 LP set, also available as a download, reveals an incendiary free jazz trio from 1991 in which everyone brings their A-game. While Graves and William Parker were already major figures, although criminally under-represented on disc in the case of the drummer, Charles Gayle was still an underground legend who had only just issued his first recordings on the Swedish Silkheart imprint at the age of 52.

Gush
Afro Blue
Trost

Time offers perspective. The three members of the Swedish band Gush -pianist Sten Sandell, drummer Raymond Strid and saxophonist Mats Gustafsson -were amazed at the quality of the music on this tape when they heard it again a quarter of a century after it was recorded, having forgotten about it completely in the interim. And they are right to be taken aback. The recording from a concert in Stockholm in December 1998 is simply magnificent. Perhaps unsurprisingly in retrospect as all three participants have since become recognized as among their country's premier exponents on the European free jazz and experimental scene.

Arthur Blythe Quartet
Live From Studio Rivbea
NoBusiness

This tremendous set by saxophonist Arthur Blythe constitutes the second entry in a series of releases harvested from the late Sam Rivers' Studio Rivbea archive. (The first, by Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre, is scarcely less worthy of attention). Accompanied by bass, drums and percussion, though just solo for the lengthy opener, the album unveils newcomer Blythe in adventurous, raw and emotive mood some seven months before the recording of his inaugural date as leader The Grip (India Navigation, 1977).

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