Straka ny måned i det nye, skremmende året 2025. Men når du føler deg mest uttrygg, er et godt tips å finne fram en god plate, og gå inn i et annet og fremmed landskap. Her finner du gode tips fra de beste jazzredaksjonene i Europa, på hva som bør sjekke sut av nye utgivelser med improvisert musikk.

Lars Mossefinn, Dag og tid:
TREVERKET Et bedre sted (Eget selskap)

Patrik Sandberg, Orkesterjournalen:
MARSHALL ALLEN New Day (Week End Records)

Cim Meyer, All That …:
LAURANCE & LEAGUE Where You Wish You Were ( ACT)

Matthieu Jouan, citizenjazz.com:
LARA HUMBERT’S «I’M NOT DONE COOKING» Tome 1: Beauty and The Queen (self-released)

Axel Stinshoff, Jazz thing:
JULIA HÜLSMANN QUARTET Under The Surface (ECM)

Luca Vitali, Giornale della Musica:
JON BALKE Skrifum (ECM)

Yves Tassin, JazzMania:
PIERRE VAIANA Camera Obscura (Igloo Records)

Jos Demol, jazzhalo.be:
JOE FONDA QUARTET Eyes on the Horizon (Long Song Records)

Kaspars Zavileiskis, jazzin.lv:
TOMS RUDZINSKIS QUARTET Interception (Jersika Records)

Jacek Brun, www.jazz-fun.de:
FABIENNE AMBUEHL Thrive (Ubuntu Music)

Bega Villalobos, In&OutJazz:
LUÍS VICENTE TRIO Come Down Here (Clean Feed Records)

Mike Flynn, Jazzwise:
YAZZ AHMED A Paradise In The Hold (Night Time Stories)

Paweł Brodowski, Jazz Forum:
ADAM BAŁDYCH QUINTET Portraits (Imaginary Music)

Krzysztof Komorek, Donos kulturalny:
MAREK POSPIESZALSKI OCTET & ZOH AMBA Now! (Instant Classic)

Jan Granlie, salt-peanuts.eu:
STEIN URHEIM Speilstillevariasjoner (Hubro)

Christine Stephan, JAZZTHETIK:
PETROS KLAMPANIS – ZIV RAVITZ – KRISTJAN RANDALU Latent Info (enja)

Dick Hovenga, Written in Music:
BLACK FLOWER Kinetic (sdban Records)

Viktor Bensusan, jazzdergisi.com:
SULTAN STEVENSON El Roi (Edition)

Nuno Catarino, jazz.pt:
[AHMED] Giant Beauty (self-released)

Henning Bolte, freelance:
CLAUDIA SOLAL / BENJAMIN MOUSSAY Punk Moon (Jazzdor Series)

Sebastian Scotney, UK Jazz News:
MISHA MULLOV-ABBADO Effra (Ubuntu Music)

Why did I choose –

Jan Granlie:
The guitarist and composer Stein Urheim has been a prominent artist in the Hubro catalogue for more than ten years. In addition to releases under his own name, he has contributed to albums by Erlend Apneseth, Benedicte Maurseth, in duo with Jørgen Træen, and most recently, the excellent release Barfoot in Bryophyte with long-time collaborator Mari Kvien Brunvoll and the trio Moskus. On his latest project, he invited a group of unique musicians, resulting in his most original and uncompromising album to date. All the way this is music that is extremely personal in the landscape of folk music, original guitar music and electonica that is personal and great. This is, from my point of view, Urheim’s most experimental and well-worked album to date. Here he goes a good distance further than I can remember hearing him before, and with his exquisite guitar playing as the leading element, this has become a brilliant album.

Paweł Brodowski:
Following his duet with pianist Leszek Możdżer Passcaglia, this is Adam Bałdych’s second recording released by his own company Imaginary Music. The quintet of the violin virtuoso includes some of the finest Polish jazz musicians today: pianist Sebastian Zawadzki, saxophonist Marek Konarski, bassist Andrzej Święs and drummer Dawid Fortuna. Of the 16 pieces on Portraits, all are written by Adam, with the exception of one tune, in which the quintet is joined by two vocalists.
The titles have religious overtones. They form one continuous story full of drama and tragedy, introspection and reflection over human fate. The record sleeve features some touching, poignant liner notes.
In this brief comment I can add that I fully agree with Adam Baruch, who summed up his review of Portraits with the the following conclusion:ׅ “Overall, this is a true Masterpiece of an album in every possible sense: the compositions, the performances, the team effort of the ensemble, the interplay, the dynamics, in short everything just fits perfectly in place. It is Baldych’s most mature work so far, which will be extremely hard to follow.”
The recording of this project received suport from the Pilecki Institute, a government research center devoted to preserving the history and memory of Poland in the 20 century.

Patrik Sandberg:
«Two days after his 100th birthday, alto saxophonist Marshall Allen began recording the album New Dawn. Allen has been a member of Sun Ra’s Arkestra since 1958 and took over the management of the band in 1995. In his almost seven-decade career, Allen has never before released an album in his own name, so the debut has been a long time coming. New Dawn will
be released on the Week-End Records label mid February and contains seven tracks, all composed by the bandleader and according to Allen, is a love letter to time in space. Recorded under the supervision of Knoel Scott, the saxophonist colleague from Sun Ra Arkestra. Other musicians include Michael Ray and Cecil Brooks (trumpet), Jamaaladeen Tacuma (bass), Bruce Edwards (guitar) and George Gray (drums). On the title track, the ballad New Dawns Neneh Cherry participates.

Cim Meyer:
The result of this collaboration is greater than the sum of pianist Bill Laurance’s felted piano and Michael League’s stringed instruments: melodious, springy, elegant, varied and with incredibly beautifully produced sound. Especially the pieces 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 and 11, which finish this album, are difficult to sit still to.
Laurance is from southern California and League is from London – they have known each other for a dozen years, including from the group Snarky Puppy. But unlike the music there, WHERE YOU WISH YOU WERE is completely acoustic and intimate. The upright piano is extra «softened» and the string instruments are characterized by being fretless and we hear the Mediterranean oud throughout. Others have burned themselves by combining the piano’s fixed frequencies with the microtonality of fretless-stringed instruments. Here it comes together beautifully.

Nuno Catarino:
The English quartet brings together Pat Thomas on piano, Seymor Wright on alto sax, Joel Grip on double bass and Antonin Gerbal on drums. The group works on a contemporary reinterpretation of the work of composer and bassist Ahmed Abdul-Malik (1927-1993), an innovative musician who combined jazz with musical styles from the Middle East and North Africa. ‘Giant Beauty’ is a monumental work of inventive and vibrant jazz.

Henning Bolte:
Vocalist Claudia Solal sans doute is a unique sophisticated voice in jazz. Her latest duo album “Punk Moon” with pianist Benjamin Moussay has all of her distinct specialities in high measure and great variety.
She works with the shadows (and shadowing technique) of a lot of style elements from a variety of genres and is bold and able to coalesce those in the open diction of her musical excursions in a for me fascinating way.
Her voice swarms into touching and tender moods without sounding too sentimental or sweet. It is close and remote, whispering into listener’s ears and resonating far from the universe.
It’s her extraordonary refined phrasing and grounded open diction that fuels her hidden agility in her flight through the time in sound.
Solal and pianist Moussay don’t shy away from tiny or grand nor edgy or round, hammering or sliding musical gestures. They unify and convey those in astonishingly changing turns and haunting glides.

Sebastian Scotney:
Bassist Misha Mullov-Abbado lends a touch of class to all kinds of projects, from his duo with his mother, the distinguished classical violinist Viktoria Mullova, to the Za Gorami trio on ECM with Alice Zawadzki and Fred Thomas, to Sam Lee’s English folk band. EFFRA is a tribute to the London district of Brixton. The single «Subsonic Glow», is buoyant, swinging jazz. Also to be mentioned is the sad death of Ubuntu Music label boss Martin Hummel. The positivity, energy and “going-for-it” joy of EFFRA is everything he lived for.

Krzysztof Komorek:
The third album by Marek Pospieszalski’s octet is an exceptional release in many aspects. The leader of the project has accustomed us in recent years to an unusually high level of his artistic activity, and it is no different in the case under discussion here. Pospieszalski deserves credit here for excellent planning and outlining the foundations of the project. And we need to emphasise also the creativity of each of the instrumentalists – individually and the ensemble as a whole – for the ideal fulfilment and development of the proposed philosophy.

Jacek Brun:
Above all, it is different, innovative music, full of freedom, breath, relaxation and at the same time very interesting – a thematic interweaving that does not shy away from unrestrained improvisation. Fabienne Ambuehl hits the mark and takes us on a journey with beautiful compositions and great lyrics. She emphasizes erudition, creates unusual textures and invites us to listen carefully.

Bega Villalobos:
Luis Vicente, trumpeter- Gonçalo Almeida, double bass- Pedro Melo Alves, drums.
It’s the second release from a stellar trio that joins him with bassist Gonçalo Almeida and drummer Pedro Melo Alves. We’ve long known that communication and dialogue are central to Vicente’s approach, developed expansively across multiple contexts and instrumental configurations. At once complex and familiar, Come Down Here is an album that comforts and beckons—a special place to revisit time and time again.
Tony Dudley-Evans:

Yves Tassin:
A fine balance between clarity and darkness. (Georges Tonla Briquet)

Jos Demol:
This is a great album, one of the most mysterious and uplifting of 2024 (which I would have gladly included in my ‘best of’ list of the year had it been released a little earlier), performed by exceptional musicians who deserve to be better known. (Sergio Liberati)

Kaspars Zavileiskis:
Saxophonist Toms Rudzinskis is a solid asset in Latvian jazz. At the very end of 2024, Jersika Records released his album Interception, in which Rudzinskis embarked on a new quest for him – a combination of bop-style jazz with a string quartet. It is a return to more traditional jazz, as Toms had been fascinated by experimental big band and fusion music in recent years, but it justifies. The album features foreign friends – the great Japanese pianist Alex Koo and Italian double bassist Igor Spallati, plus, of course, Toms long-time friend, Latvian drummer Ivars Arutyunyan. The jazz chemistry is fully felt here and intercepts ones mind.

Matthieu Jouan:
Sometimes it only takes a few notes to reveal the full extent of a composer’s abilities, and that’s what’s happening with Lara Humbert on this project. The French pianist, who lives in Brussels, has gathered around her a team of sensitive musicians who are adept at reading and arranging. The result is beautiful, colourful, programmatic music that evokes cinematic images. A project to be heard more than once.