The 20 best new jazz albums of 2025: Jazzwise critics' poll
Thursday, November 20, 2025
Results from our end-of-year poll with Mary Halvorson and Sylvie Courvoisier claiming victory...
This year's Albums of the Year Critics Poll results highlight one obvious trend from the 115 different titles nominated by Jazzwise writers: female jazz artists are breaking through on a remarkable scale, with strength and depth across the board – their adventurous music-making powered by fierce imaginations and fearless performances. Our New Release winners, Sylvie Courvoisier and Mary Halvorson, are both cutting-edge artists pushing the contemporary envelope. Selwyn Harris’ review in the April issue of Jazzwise named Bone Bells “one of the most inspired and kaleidoscopic contemporary jazz pairings in recent times,” and clearly, he’s not wrong – as many agreed.
Look out too for significant recordings from Terri Lyne Carrington and Christie Dashiell, Linda May Han Oh, Georgia Mancio, and Emma Rawicz, adding to this timely breakthrough. And among their male contemporaries, there’s outstanding music too – from Branford Marsalis’ exceptional take on Keith Jarrett’s Belonging; the extraordinary live quartet led by Gonzalo Rubalcaba; a sublime new trio album from Charles Lloyd; and, of course, the ear-grabbing debut from vocal sensation Tyreek McDole.
1 Sylvie Courvoisier & Mary Halvorson
Bone Bells
Pyroclastic Records
'Bone Bells isn’t only their strongest duo offering to date but one of the most inspired and kaleidoscopic contemporary jazz pairings in recent times.'
2 Cécile McLorin Salvant
Oh Snap
Nonesuch
'From the dreamlike, stream-of-consciousness of ‘I Am a Volcano’ to a beautiful treatment of Matsuo Bashō’s celebrated haiku ‘A frog jumps in’ as a metaphor for art-making, sonically, thematically, emotionally, Oh Snap is a remarkable album even by Cécile McLorin Salvant's exalted standards.'
3 Branford Marsalis
Belonging
'The Branford Marsalis Quartet is the first major American ensemble to explore the potential of the European Quartet’s groundbreaking album of half a century ago, and by placing their own collective identity upon it, emerges as possibly the Marsalis Quartet’s defining album.'
Blue Note
4 Terri Lyne Carrington & Christie Dashiell
We Insist! 2025
Candid
'While Carrington is often playing, she deliberately takes a more background role and the approach of the whole enterprise is more diffuse and collectivist.'
5 = Linda May Han Oh
Strange Heavens
Biophilia Records
'This is contemporary US jazz at its undiluted best – at once both in-the-tradition and non-mainstream – and one destined for the end-of-year-best lists.'
5 = Yazz Ahmed
A Paradise In The Hold
Night Time Stories
'One of Ahmed’s standout records in a genre entirely of her own making.'
7 Ambrose Akinmusire
Honey From A Winter Stone
Nonesuch
'Akinmusire’s ensemble steers into intriguing waters where taut improvisation, challenging narration and understated but effective electro-pop cohere in a sound that is emphatically and provocatively contemporary.'
8 = Emma Rawicz
Inkyra
ACT Music
'A thrilling, multi-coloured, chromium-plated rollercoaster of a ride.'
8 = Mary Halvorson
About Ghosts
Nonesuch
'An impressive ensemble feat. ‘Carved From’, pocket synth and all, carries us away on a carousel of sound.'
8 = Georgia Mancio & Alan Broadbent
A Story Left Untold
Roomspin Records
'The album weaves together 10 songs exploring themes of memory, love, loss, and hope which showcase an exceptional songwriting partnership.'
11 = Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Chris Potter, Eric Harland, Larry Grenadier
First Meeting Live At Dizzy’s Club
5Passion Records
'Most impressive are the band’s internal dynamics, grasp of form and ability to conjure light and shade on the fly.'
11 = Tyreek McDole
Open Up Your Senses
Artwork Records
'McDole’s impossibly rich baritone with its multifarious timbral qualities carries everything before it.'
13 = Brigitte Beraha’s Lucid Dreamers
Teasing Reflections
Let Me Out Records
'The album coalesces around the closing ‘What Does It Mean (to be)’, which asks the big question through a beauteous melody. But, of course, there is no answer. Or perhaps too many. An album of the year.'
13 = Laura Jurd
Rites & Revelations
New Soil
'It might be a contrary approach to the kind of ethereal folk-jazz musicianship associated with ECM, but Rites & Revelations is a blast of fresh air.'
13 = Brad Mehldau
Ride Into The Sun
Nonesuch
'Mehldau employs a versatile instrumental palette with constant transitions between piano solo, trio and guitar-song formations with colourful extensions by way of the pianist's exquisitely-arranged pastoral chamber woodwind and strings groupings.'
16 = Charles Lloyd
Figure In Blue
Blue Note
'In live performance, the spiritual feel of Lloyd’s playing is so strong, you can almost reach out and touch it. Wisdom of the ages conveyed in music, his message is peace and a love of humanity.'
16 = The Necks
Disquiet
Northern Spy
'Disquiet is a set of journeys of a lifetime. One of the best albums of 2025, undoubtedly. Travel well, friends.'
18 Josephine Davies & The Ensō Ensemble
The Celtic Wheel Of The Year Suite
Ubuntu Music
'This is a captivating album of occasionally unsettling but always very listenable music. Outstanding.'
19 = Joshua Redman
Words Fall Short
Blue Note
'Regardless of the diverse subgenre-mix or format, Redman is playing his best self these days.'
19 = Alex Hitchcock
Letters From Afar
New Soil
'This is complex, challenging music and the band simply eat it up and make it their own, but Hitchcock still stamps his own distinctive artistic character across everything that happens.'
