Free Jazz Collective’s Top Albums of 2024 ~ The Free Jazz Collective

• Isabelle Duthoit & Franz Hautzinger –

  Dans le Morvan

  (Relative Pitch)[read here]

• Stian Westergus & Maja S. K. Ratkje –
  All Losses Are Restored (Crispin Glover) [read here]
• Joe Mcphee (with Ken Vandermark) –
  Musings of a Bahamian Son: Poems and Other Words by Joe Mcphee (Corbett vs Dempsey)
• Alexander Hawkins / Sofia Jernberg – Musho (Intakt)
• The Attic & Eve Risser – La Grande Crue

  (NoBusiness)

• John Butcher – Fluid Fixations (Weight of Wax)
• ØKSE  – self-titled (Backwoodz Studioz)
• أحمد [Ahmed] – Giant Beauty (Fönstret[
• Nacka Forum –

  Peaceful Piano (Moserobie)[read here]

• Joëlle Léandre / Elisabeth Harnik / Zlatko Kaučič –

  Live in St. Johan (Fundacja Słuchaj) [read here]

Ferruccio Martinotti

• Ballister – Smash and Grab (Aerophonic)
• Fire! – Testament (Rune Grammofon)
• Darius Jones – Legend of e’Boi (The Hypervigilant Eye) (Aum
  Fidelity)
• Ava Mendoza, Dave Sewelson – Of It but Not Is It (Mahakala)
• Pal Nilssen Love, Ken Vandermark –
  Japan 2019 (Pnl/Audiographic Records)
• ØKSE – self-titled (Blackwoodz Studioz)
• Reed, Edwards, Coudoux – self-titled (Relative Pitch
• Sakata, O’rourke, Rasmussen, Corsano –
  Live at Superdeluxe Vol. 1
  (Trost)
• Frederico Ughi – Infinite Cosmos Calling You You You (577
  Records)
• Weird of Mouth – self-titled (Otherly Love)

Historic/Archival

• Brotzmann, Kondo, Parker, Graves – Die Like a Dog ( Cien
  Fuegos)
• Charles Gayle/ Milford Graves/ William Parker – WEBO (Black
  Editions Archive)
• Mal Waldron & Steve Lacy –
  The Mighty Warriors: Live in Antwerp (Elemental Music) 
• Gush – Afro Blue (Trost)

Fotis Nikolakopoulos

• Ute Kanngießer/Eddie Prévost/Seymour Wright – Splendid Nettle
  (Matchless Recordings)
• Ben Bennett/Michael Foster/Jacob Wick – Carne Vale (Relative
  Pitch Records)
• TRAPEZE – LEVEL CROSSING (circum-disc, late 2023)
• yPLO – ob TRU (Feedback Moves)
• Feichtmair/Koliibri/Krist/Novotny/Pröll/Winter/Winter –
  Adschi
  (Creative Sources)
• Schubert/Rupp/Ohlmeier – Entropy Hug (not applicable)
• divr – Is This water (We Jazz)
• Nathan Hubbard / Kyle Motl – Obsidian (Confront Recordings)
• Wilson Shook/Ted Byrnes – Joy (Other Ghosts)
• Nick Dunston – Colla Voce (Out Of Your Head Records)

Historic/Archive

• Charles Gayle/ Milford Graves/ William Parker – WEBO (Black
  Editions Archive)
  Though the list above is in no particular order, this doesn’t
  include WEBO. This box set was/is the most adventurous, fiery
  amazing music for me this whole year.
• Alice Coltrane – The Carnegie Hall Concert (Impulse!)
• Ofamfa – Children Of The Sun (Moved-By-Sound, Universal
  Justice Records)

Gary Chapin

1. Tim Berne’s Ocean’s And – Lucid/Still (Screwgun)
2. George Cartwright and Bruce Golden – Dilate (Self-released)
3. Ivo Perelman, Chad Fowler, Reggie Workman, and Andrew Cyrille –
   Embracing the Unknown
   (Mahakala)
4. Matthew Shipp Trio –
   New Concepts in Piano Trio Jazz (ESP-Disk)
5. Liba Villevecchia Trio + Luis Vincente – Muracik (Clean Feed)
6. Moor Mother – The Great Bailout (Anti-)
7. ØKSE – self-titled (Backwoodz Studioz)
8. Space – Embrace the Space (Relative Pitch)
9. حمد [Ahmed] – Giant Beauty (Fönstret)
10. Myra Melford’s Fire and Water Quintet –
    Hear the Light Singing
    (RogueArt)

Historic/Archival

1. Tim Berne/Bill Frisell – Live from Someplace Nice (Screwgun)
2. George Cartwright – Ghostly Bee (Mahakala)
3. Cecil Taylor – Live at Fat Tuesdays February 9, 1980
   (First-Archive-Visit)
4. Tim Berne and Mike Formanek – Parlour Games (Screwgun)
5. Derek Bailey and Paul Motian – Duo in Concert (Frozen Reeds)
6. Mal Waldron & Steve Lacy –
   The Mighty Warriors: Live in Antwerp
   (Elemental Music)

Book

• Phil Freeman –
  In the Brewing Luminous: The Life & Music of Cecil Taylor
  (Wolke Verlag)

Gregg Miller

1. AALY Trio – Sustain (Silkheart)
2. Wilson Shook & Ted Byrnes – Joy (Other Ghosts)
3. Russ Johnson, Tim Daisy & Max Johnson –
   Live a the Hungry Brain
   (Fundacja Sluchaj)
4. Sylvie Courvoisier – To Be Otherwise (Intakt)
5. Rich Pellegrin – Topography (Slow and Steady Records)
6. STHLM svaga –
   Plays Carter, Plays Mitchell, Plays Shepp (Thanatosis)
7. Jordina Milla & Barry Guy – Live in Munich (ECM)
8. Hubbub – abb abb abb (Relative Pitch)
9. Joelle Leandre – Lifetime Rebel (Rogueart)
10. John Butcher + 13 – Fluid Fixations (Weight of Wax)

João Esteves da Silva

• Nick Dunston – Colla Voce (Out of Your Head Records)
  Hands down the album of the year for me, regardless of “genres”. A
  real work of genius, and possible masterpiece of twenty-first
  century music, radically subverting opera conventions.

• Alexander Hawkins & Sofia Jernberg – Musho (Intakt
  Records)
  
  A breathtaking song cycle, eclectic and yet unified, by one of the
  world’s foremost creative singers and the great Oxford piano
  polymath, shattering the singer/accompanist hierarchy.

• Matt Mitchell – Illimitable (Obliquity Records)
  A fully improvised solo piano session for the ages. One to rank
  alongside stuff like Keith Jarrett’s Solo Concerts, Cecil Taylor’s
  Silent Tongues, or Craig Taborn’s Avenging Angel.

• Borderlands Trio – Rewilder (Intakt Records)
  In a year full of excellent piano trio albums, this one stood out. I
  currently know of no other band devoted to the art of spontaneous
  composition displaying quite the same degree of consistency.

• Stemeseder Lillinger – Antumbra (PLAIST-MUSIC)
  Genreless and wonderfully adventurous electro-acoustic music for the
  future, by a duo of groundbreaking musician-composers.

• STHLM svaga –
  Plays Carter, Plays Mitchell, Plays Shepp (Thanatosis
  Produktion)
  A delightful program, calling for the recognition of Black creative
  musicians as genuine composers, by an ensemble exploring the lower
  end of the dynamic range in an altogether rare way in jazz.

• The Attic & Eve Risser – La Grande Crue (NoBusiness
  Records)
  
  Rodrigo and Eve might have been an unexpected match, but the result
  is exceptional, and unlike anything either of them had done
  previously. A masterclass in focus and controlled intensity.

• Kim Cass – Levs (Pi Recordings)
  One of the freshest and most exciting works of New Brooklyn
  Complexity to come out lately. Utterly crazy writing, masterfully
  negotiated, to the point of sounding almost spontaneous.

• ØKSE – self-titled (Backwoodz Recordz)
  More than a successful fusion of hip-hop and avant-garde jazz, ØKSE
  has its very own, ultramodern aesthetic.

• Angles & Elle-Kari with Strings – The Death of Kalypso
  (Thanatosis Produktion)
  An exquisitely produced jazz opera, full of mystery and pathos,
  already sounding somewhat timeless.

Lee Rice Epstein

Ranked, as usual, because there can only be one number one.

1. Matthew Shipp Trio –
   New Concepts In Piano Trio Jazz (ESP-Disk’)
   
   This is it right here, the best album of the year. Shipp had a solo
   album that nearly took its place (if you know me, you know I try not
   to repeat players in my list), but this won me over early and
   nothing ever quite took its place…
2. Darius Jones – Legend of e’Boi (The Hypervigilant Eye) (AUM
   Fidelity)
   Except this one!! Which came very close to topping my list, as well.
   It’s a wild year for wild, brilliant music.
3. Allen Lowe & the Constant Sorrow Orchestra –
   Louis Armstrong’s America, Volumes 1–4 (ESP-Disk’)
   For some reason, we haven’t covered Allen Lowe’s music here, like,
   at all. Which is weird! Maybe this is the year all that changes.
4. Jason Stein, Marilyn Crispell, Damon Smith, Adam Shead –
   spi-raling horn (Balance Point Acoustics)
   Smith had an album drop late in the year that took my breath away,
   but this one stayed in rotation for months. Credit where due to its
   captivating sounds.
5. أحمد [Ahmed] – Giant Beauty (Fonstret)
   C’mon, we all know this is going to rate highly for so many reasons,
   not least of which being the band is on fire.
6. Space – Embrace the Space (Relative Pitch)
   Lisa Ullén, Elsa Bergman and Anna Lund, sometimes known as the
   rhythm section at the heart of Anna Högberg’s Attack, should be
   better known now as the piano trio Space.
7. Matt Mitchell – Illimitable (Obliquity Records)
   It seems like 2024 was the year of the piano trio, and I loved
   Mitchell’s latest. And yet, his solo album is a triumph.
8. Anthony Braxton – 10 Comp (Lorraine) 2022 (Tri-Centric)
   
   Two lineups tackling a new book of compositions, written not very
   long before going on the road. Braxton should be an inspiration to
   us all, there really are no limits.
9. John Zorn – New Masada Quartet, Vol. 3 (Tzadik Records)
   
   The first live album for this latest quartet of Zorn’s, released as
   a single track. You wouldn’t want to listen to it any other way.
10. Weird of Mouth – self-titled (Otherly Love)
    Rasmussen had maybe the best year ever, with half a dozen albums
    I’ve had on permanent rotation. This one just rose to the top of
    that pile in recent weeks, and wow is it a scorcher.

Martin Schray

• Ballister – Smash and Grab (Aerophonic Records, 2024)
  
  The best band in the free jazz world, I stick to it
  
• The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis – self-titled (Impulse)
  Punk/Hardcore clashes into Free Jazz
  
  
• Darius Jones – Legend of e’Boi (The Hypervigilant Eye) (AUM
  Fidelity)
  Possibly the best and most interesting
  saxophonist these days
• ØKSE – self-titled (backwoodz records)
  Free
  Jazz meets HipHop, finally with excellent results
  
• Fire! – Testament (Rune Grammofon) 
  No end-of-the-year-list without Fire! (Orchestra)

• David Maranha & Rodrigo Amado – Wrecks (Nariz Entupido)
  
  Is it possible to have an end-of-the-year-list without
  Rodrigo?
  
  
• Mats Gustafsson / Liudas Mockūnas-
  Watching a dog. Smiling. (NoBusiness)
  A dark raging hell
  ride. two masters at work
  
  
• Steve Baczkowski – Cheap Fabric (Relative Pitch)
  The
  pure essence of a free jazz saxophone
  
  
• Amalie Dahl/Henrik Sandstad Dalen/Jomar Jeppsson Søvik-
  Live in Europe (Nice Thing Records)
  Anyone who
  manages to elicit something new from this format deserves to be in
  theTopTen
• Dave Rempis & Tashi Dorji – Gnash (Aerophonic Records)
  
  Folk music, Bhutanese roots music, blues and
  psychedelic rock – true world music