ches smith

The 18 Best Jazz Albums of 2024

The 18 Best Jazz Albums of 2024

This was another year of riches in the best jazz and creative music, with barriers between the tradition and the avant-garde melting away.

The 50 Best Albums of 2024 So Far

The 50 Best Albums of 2024 So Far

The 50 best albums of 2024 offer sublime music as major artists return with new work and brilliant new sounds bubble up from the underground and worldwide.

Ches Smith’s ‘Laugh Ash’ Is Exhilarating Music

Ches Smith’s ‘Laugh Ash’ Is Exhilarating Music

Ches Smith has real jazz chops, but he creatively blends tonal jazz, harmonic freedom, electronics, classical “new music”, and traditions from around the world.

The 20 Best Jazz Albums of 2022

The 20 Best Jazz Albums of 2022

Jazz, born of the creative brilliance of Black American culture and now wonderfully global, is passionately alive in 2022. These are the year’s best jazz albums.

JazzMatters: Best New Jazz and Creative Music – May 2022

JazzMatters: Best New Jazz and Creative Music – May 2022

Critic Will Layman listens to jazz podcasts, muses on Charles Mingus, reads Jason Miles, and discusses the best new jazz recordings of May 2022.

Bassist John Hebert Reimagines Vintage Charles Mingus for the New Era

Bassist John Hebert Reimagines Vintage Charles Mingus for the New Era

The sweet-and-sour combinations of sounds and personalities on John Hébert’s Sounds of Love are of the moment and reach back a half-century to remind of a treasure.

Kris Davis’ ‘Diatom Ribbons’ Is the Most Versatile and Bracing Jazz Recording of 2019

Kris Davis’ ‘Diatom Ribbons’ Is the Most Versatile and Bracing Jazz Recording of 2019

New Jazz pianist and composer Kris Davis makes a recording that presses with excitement into hip-hop and groove music without sacrificing any daring or compromising her vision.

As Sun of Goldfinger Emerges, Genre Disappears

As Sun of Goldfinger Emerges, Genre Disappears

Like his earlier Prezens project, jazz guitarist David Torn's latest band Sun of Goldfinger thrives on surprise and texture instead of form or tradition.

Marc Ribot and His “Rock” Trio Ceramic Dog Deliver a Gut Punch to Our Life and Times

Marc Ribot and His “Rock” Trio Ceramic Dog Deliver a Gut Punch to Our Life and Times

YRU Still Here?'s undercurrent muddies the water just enough to remind the listener that Marc Ribot and Ceramic Dog will never take the easy way out, even during the best of times.

Ben Goldberg: Subatomic Particle Homesick Blues / Unfold Ordinary Mind

Tim Berne: Snakeoil