3 New (Jazz) Albums You Need to Hear
The spirit of improvisational music is very much alive
On these calm summer mornings, I sit outside with my coffee and watch the bumblebees as the poppy flowers wake up.
Watching the bumblebees do their work, my mind wanders to Gaza and Tehran, to Kyiv and Los Angeles.
The Buddhist nun and teacher Pema Chödrön urged us to “learn how to relate sanely with difficult times”, instead of adding “more depression, more discouragement, or more anger to what’s already there.”
It’s difficult not to get depressed, discouraged or furious by what’s happening in the world these days.
I’ve asked myself whether I should actually be dealing with issues of music and culture at all right now. The world’s on fire, so how can I spend my time and energy with some new record, book or film?
That type of thinking is tempting, but ultimately destructive.
In fact, I believe it’s more important than ever to speak up for the arts. There’s a reason why fascist regimes go after academics and artists first, and why they suppress free expression through music, literature and cinema.
The arts feel dangerous to them. They’re about beauty and truth, and fascists hate both. Music can bring people together instead of deepening the divisions. It can provide catharsis, but also an escape, if just for a moment in time. The arts have the power to transcend matters of politics and history.
In this newsletter, I am writing mostly about instrumental music which is, to quote Tunisian oudist Anouar Brahem, “by nature an abstract language that does not convey specific ideas. It is aimed more at emotions, sensations, and how it’s perceived varies from one person to another.”
Even without a concrete, political message, this music’s profound humanity can create an antipole to the darkness and despair around us, lending us a slight glimmer of hope, a rush of empathy and compassion – which might be more than any actual protest music could achieve.
The purpose of today’s note is to make you aware of some outstanding instrumental music released over the last weeks.
These three albums below might be filed into jazz, but they explore the genre’s fringes rather than keep to the limits of the classic frameworks. What unites them is that they’re all shaped by improvisational music practice – a tradition rooted in free expression and mindful awareness. Most of all, it requires truly listening to each other.
I think the world could use a little more of this right now.
Mary Halvorson – About Ghosts (Nonesuch, 2025)
Since the end of the pandemic, American guitarist and composer Mary Halvorson has recorded a couple of brilliant albums with a sextet named after the first and most lauded of them, Amaryllis.
Combining dense polyrhythms and complex melodies, their strange but weirdly accessible math jazz has been revitalizing the genre.
“It's like regular jazz, except nothing sounds familiar”, an anonymous YouTube commenter writes.
Halvorson originally cut her teeth in Anthony Braxton’s ensembles. She’s been a staple of New York’s improvised music community since the late 2000s and lauded for her innovative recorded works during the 2010s. In 2019, she became a MacArthur fellow.
Around the same time, she assembled a new group to tour and record with – a sextet of stellar players including Adam O’Farrill on trumpet, Jacob Garchik on trombone, Nick Dunston on double bass, Tomas Fujiwara on drums and Patricia Brennan on vibraphone.
During the pandemic, Halvorson kept writing music for this group that had not yet stood on stage together. In spring 2022, when the world slowly started moving again, Nonesuch unleashed two brilliant albums upon the public, Amaryllis and a sister album with a string quartet, Belladonna.
Halvorson was instantly showered with praise – and rightfully so. Amaryllis marked both a quantum leap and a breakthrough for her.
After the follow-up Cloudward, which saw them further fleshing out their distinctive sound, the third Halvorson/Amaryllis album, About Ghosts, has now arrived.
The group was expanded to an octet by the addition of two horn players – Brian Settles on tenor, and the 27-year old Immanuel Wilkins on alto, hot off his acclaimed Blue Note album Blues Blood.
The music introduces this enhanced brass section while retaining the distinctive Amaryllis sound, including the crisp production courtesy of Deerhoof’s John Dieterich.
Halvorson remains a singular talent of her generation. Her guitar style fuses complex fingerpicked melody lines with hints of noisy distortion, a harsh, spiky tone, and innovative pedal work. Her rampant, challenging compositions feature addictive melodies with unusual time signatures and unexpected twists and turns.
About Ghosts zeroes in on the intricate qualities of the individual members as well as the collective, whether it’s in the fiery opening of “Carved From”, the bluesy stop-and-go of the title track or the explorative, colorful textures of “Amaranthine”.
At this point, the group has built an identity that represents a perfect balance of tradition and exploration – building on the spirit of improvisational practice, but creating something more organized and through-composed along the way.
Amina Claudine Myers – Solace Of The Mind (Red Hook, 2025)
Last year’s duet from reedist Wadada Leo Smith and pianist Amina Claudine Myers, Central Park's Mosaics of Reservoir, Lake, Paths and Gardens, was one of my favorite jazz albums of 2024 – made by two artists in their 80s.
Red Hook label owner and producer Sun Chung now followed it up with the 12th solo album from Amina Claudine Myers, providing new recordings of works from her extensive career. Captured over two days in late 2023, it’s a rear-view mirror look from a true master of her craft.
Spending her childhood in rural Arkansas in the 1950s, Myers formed deep roots in blues, R&B and gospel, as well as learning classical music in high school. By the mid-1960s, she’d moved to Chicago and became involved with the burgeoning AACM collective, getting deep into free jazz and group improvisation.
She’s lived in New York City since the late 1970s, but kept recording with key AACM figures like Lester Bowie or Muhal Richard Abrams. Both her brilliant 1979 record Song for Mother E and 1980’s Salutes Bessie Smith were re-released by Leo Records in collaboration with
last year.On Solace of the Mind, Myers is revisiting tunes from various stages of her solo career. Make no mistake though – this is not an exercise in nostalgia. This music feels extremely alive from the first few notes and chords.
At 82, Myers is a pianist that can summon vivid images through the most minimal gestures; as often with aging players on her level, she’s able to employ the grace and restraint that only comes through decades of practice. Referencing the blues and gospel of her upbringing as well as the free-spirited improvisational practice of her AACM years, she’s long since arrived at an idiosyncratic style that is unmistakably her own.
Solace of the Mind is not a challenging album per se, but it’s a record that requires some space, calm and undivided attention. It requires you to sit down for 41 minutes, in the midst of the hectic chaos of contemporary life.
Be assured you will return cleansed and rejuvenated though. If you’re still asking yourself if music can actually heal, well here’s your answer.
Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer – Different Rooms (International Anthem, 2025)
This album probably doesn’t even qualify as jazz – but Jeff Parker and Josh Johnson have contributed to it, and it’s released on Chicago’s progressive jazz powerhouse International Anthem, so I took the liberty to include it here because it’s just so good.
Synthesist Jeremiah Chiu and violist Marta Sofia Honer have previously collaborated on 2022’s Recordings from the Åland Islands, a record that took the listener on an ambient journey to an archipelago in the Baltic Sea.
Different Rooms was created in an urban environment; Chiu and Honer have their studios next to each other, hence the title of the record. They were literally often both working on the same record in different rooms, layering viola parts here while creating sounds through granular synthesis there.
Their practice is rooted in improvised music; the album itself is comprised of elements taken from studio and live improvisations, field recordings and tape manipulation. Still, the music feels somehow through-composed. Due to the combination of analogue synth and strings, it also has a classic 1980s minimalism feel to it. There’s a Brian Eno nod in the song title to “Before And After Signs”, and during a Bandcamp listening session of the album with the artists present, Chiu admitted to playing “a ton of Roedelius tapes” during its creation – these are references that absolutely make sense.
Different Rooms is a cycle of collages that tends to get more interesting with each listen, as it’s uncovering its secrets slowly. It’s meticulously sequenced in the style of a palindrome, with motifs introduced at the beginning and revisited at the end, and a middle part of two long tracks at the end of Side A and the beginning of Side B that just brim over with creative ideas while never overwhelming the listener.
This is daydream music in the most positive sense – quite the opposite of mindless background muzak. It’s not intrusive, just extremely stimulating and inspiring. When Eno said ambient music should be “creating a space to think”, I guess he was imagining music like this.
Loving the Mary Halvorson album on your recent rec.
Looking forward to checking these out, thanks!