AllMusic 2016 Year in Review
Favorite Jazz Albums
The year's finest jazz albums included an innovative concept album from Wilco's Nels Cline, a collection of improvised solo albums by Keith Jarrett and the final homecoming performance by the late Japanese pianist Masabumi Kikuchi.
Allison Miller's Boom Tic Boom / Allison Miller
The third album of highly creative jazz from drummer Allison Miller's all-star ensemble.
The '70s soul- and contemporary R&B-inflected debut album from the winner of the 2014 Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition.
Ruminative, bittersweet ECM debut from the jazz trumpeter recorded in the wake of his father's death.
On its fourth album, the Canadian jazz group greatly expands its sound with new influences and several guest artists.
An engaging album of live performances from the jazz duo, culled from their 2011 European tour.
Carla Bley / Andy Sheppard / Steve Swallow
The third album of gorgeously rendered, classically influenced jazz from the trio.
Charlie Haden / Charlie Haden & the Liberation Music Orchestra
Time/Life (Song for the Whales and Other Beings)
A gorgeous, elegiac album from Haden's long-running, socially minded big band with pianist Carla Bley.
Everybody Has a Plan Until They Get Punched in the Mouth
The guitarist and his quartet extrapolate on the blues and vintage R&B on this set cut live in the studio.
For his second HighNote effort, the pianist is joined by bassist Buster Williams and drummer Lenny White.
Dave Douglas / Dave Douglas & High Risk
The second album of improvised soundscapes between trumpeter Dave Douglas and electronic musician Shigeto.
The saxophonist's quartet delivers a fitting tribute to David Bowie, inspired by their experience working with him on Blackstar.
The Hammond B-3 icon makes his Blue Note return with this dynamic soul-jazz showcase.
Brazil's musical renaissance man records in the U.S. with producer Kamau Kenyatta and a dream team of studio aces deliver excellent results.
The acclaimed British jazz trio's third album of evocative, genre-bending instrumentals.
The unlikely musical pairing of an octogenarian vanguard jazz trombonist and a young contemporary singer/songwriter results in swinging delight.
The fourth album by the pianist's Trio Project is its most creative, musically diverse, accessible, and sophisticated.
Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra / Wynton Marsalis
An ebullient live recording of Marsalis' composition commemorating the 200th anniversary of Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church.
Joe Lovano / Joe Lovano Quartet
A superb 2005 performance that marked the final collaboration between saxophonist Joe Lovano and legendary pianist Hank Jones, who died in 2010.
Backed by a fine Latin ensemble, the pianist delivers an all-acoustic set of inventive, memorable tunes on her 27th album.
![A Multitude of Angels [Live at Teatro Comunale, Modena, 1996]](https://fastly-s3.allmusic.com/release/mr0004640389/front/400/afn4V3nQ1R4sKpmVmSWJdJhUoDg0hsvx4F4sL4oO-nA=.jpg)
A Multitude of Angels [Live at Teatro Comunale, Modena, 1996]
Four amazing self-recorded solo improv concerts captured in Italy in 1996 -- the last before he was sidelined for two years by illness.
The saxophonist heads his ensemble on songs that combine aggressive post-bop improvisation and subtly infectious dance rhythms.
Kurt Elling / Branford Marsalis / Branford Marsalis Quartet
A sophisticated, swinging, and poetic collaboration that illuminates the talents of both Marsalis and Elling.
La Orquesta Sinfonietta / Michael Spiro / Wayne Wallace
Led by Wayne Wallace and Michael Spiro, this large group criss-crosses the musical history and traditions of the New World with grooves galore.
The acclaimed vocalist delivers an intimate set of covers recorded with her trio at the Parish Church of Saint Mary the Virgin in England.
Marcus Strickland / Marcus Strickland's Twi-Life
On his Blue Note debut, the saxophonist premieres a new band on a set of funky, ambitious tunes.
The Concord debut from the 2014 Thelonious Monk Institute's International Jazz Competition-winning Chicago trumpeter.
The final homecoming concert in Tokyo by the iconoclastic Japanese jazz pianist is a stunning portrait in self-revelation.
Mat Maneri / Ches Smith / Craig Taborn
The drummer's debut as a leader for ECM is an exercise in explorative lyricism and improvisational intuition for trio.
On his ECM leader debut, the Norwegian bassist surrounds himself with friends to deliver a set of intimate, smart, expansive compositions.
An ambitious improvised set of sci-fi and space-themed tracks from the keyboard-and-drum duo.
The founding Weather Report bassist and his sextet offer a bracing homage with variations of tunes recorded during and after his tenure with the group.
The iconic guitarist and a 22-piece chamber orchestra deliver a startling, innovative jazz concept record on love and romance.
Nik Bärtsch / Nik Bärtsch's Mobile
After a decade of silence, the Swiss pianist and composer resurrects his first recording ensemble and issues a gem.
A stupendous album, one of the best of Molvær's career, proving once again that he's still way out there on his own.
Cuong Vu Trio Meets Pat Metheny
A boundary-pushing collaboration between the avant-garde trumpeter and the superstar jazz guitarist.
Peter Brötzmann / Hamid Drake / William Parker
On their first recording together since 2003, this unit reveals their powerful, poetic, improvisational language undiminished by time's passage.
Ravi Coltrane / Jack DeJohnette / Matthew Garrison
The debut offering by this trio places the great drummer in the company of two contemporary masters.
Robert Glasper / Robert Glasper Experiment
This quartet explores new directions by composing and producing collectively for the first time, without sacrificing their accessibility.
A conversational album of warm, romantic standards from these two legendary jazz comrades.
On his debut, the producer, percussionist, and composer blurs lines between modern jazz and ancient Indian and African musical traditions.
Recorded in a single day in Johannesburg with seven South African musicians, the saxophonist's "nine part psalm" is a masterwork.
The trumpeter's kinetic funk-jazz and Afrobeat-infused follow-up to his 2009 breakthrough Rising Son.
The maverick jazz piano trio returns to its roots, reworking a set of well-curated pop covers and an Ornette Coleman tune.
The trumpeter brings his spiritual, groove-oriented funk-jazz vision into sharp focus on his fourth album.
Tora Augestad / Frode Haltli / Svante Henryson / Trygve Seim
This wonderful chamber song cycle -- begun in 2003 -- is a watermark achievement for the composer and saxophonist.
Tord Gustavsen / Simin Tander / Jarle Vespestad
The pianist's new trio with German-Afghan vocalist Simin Tander explores traditional songs and poetry as panlinguistic improvisational devices.
A Cosmic Rhythm with Each Stroke
A duo collaboration that transcends those limits to display a shared musical mind and emotional language.
The composer and his Golden Quintet deliver a masterwork examining the central ideas behind our National Parks and his own.
The Austrian guitarist expands his trio to a quintet in a relaxed yet dazzling series of new tunes and leaves plenty of room for solos.
This South London duo smears spiritual jazz funk onto broken beat, hip-hop, and more on their startling full-length debut.