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John Sharpe's Best Releases of 2024

By John Sharpe
January 3, 2025
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From the 200 or so discs that I heard in 2024, here are the ten new issues and three gems saved from obscurity, which gave me the most pleasure. As always these selections are entirely subjective, and take no account of the many other albums which I would no doubt have loved if I had heard them. So perhaps it's better to view these selections as a chance to pick up on something that you might otherwise have missed. As a fan I always look forward to the annual year end lists for precisely that reason. If you share my taste (that's the critical bit), then something here might just be for you!

??? [Ahmed]
Giant Beauty
F?nstret

A five CD box set which never lets up. The intuitive ways in which the quartet interlock and combine imbue the resultant music with an alchemical blend of immediacy, power, and at times a visceral intensity. They sound like nothing else.

The Necks

band / ensemble / orchestra

" data-original-title="" title="">The Necks,

Joshua Abrams

bass, acoustic

" data-original-title="" title="">Joshua Abrams' Natural Information Society or

Anthony Braxton

woodwinds
b.1945

" data-original-title="" title="">Anthony Braxton's Ghost Trance Music are the most proximate parallels, but none sports the same whiff of danger. If the monumental dimensions don't appeal, then a contemporaneous single album Wood Blues (Astral Spirits, 2024) delivers a similarly excellent ride.

John Blum / David Murray / Chad Taylor
The Recursive Tree
Relative Pitch

Three uniformly potent partners mesh in a spontaneous and intense outpouring. That leaves pianist

John Blum

piano
b.1968

" data-original-title="" title="">John Blum as the least well known member of the threesome. That he studied with seminal masters such as

Cecil Taylor

piano
1929 - 2018

" data-original-title="" title="">Cecil Taylor (and even worked for him as a rehearsal pianist) and

Borah Bergman

piano
1933 - 2012

" data-original-title="" title="">Borah Bergman, gives a clue to his style: percussive, high energy, predominantly atonal yet with connections back to bop and before. The presence of form-seeking improvisers such as Murray and Taylor provides a superb showcase for the pianist's pyrotechnics.

Patricia Brennan Septet
Breaking Stretch
Pyroclastic

On her third leadership date, vibraphonist

Patricia Brennan

vibraphone

" data-original-title="" title="">Patricia Brennan takes the strong foundation established by her percussion heavy quartet on 2022's More Touch, and uses the addition of three horns to erect the towering edifice of Breaking Stretch. Brennan's imaginative and varied writing extracts the maximum richness and excitement from her crew. The album boasts a vertiginous underpinning complexity, courtesy of drummer

Marcus Gilmore

drums
b.1986

" data-original-title="" title="">Marcus Gilmore and percussionist

Mauricio Herrera

percussion

" data-original-title="" title="">Mauricio Herrera in particular, which threatens to pull the unwary into a dizzying embrace.

Ingrid Laubrock / Tom Rainey
Brink
Intakt

Saxophonist

Ingrid Laubrock

saxophone
b.1970

" data-original-title="" title="">Ingrid Laubrock and drummer

Tom Rainey

drums
b.1957

" data-original-title="" title="">Tom Rainey remain a consummately empathetic pairing blessed with boundless imaginations. The pair impart a clear sense of intent and structure to almost everything here. Such attention to shape is what helps distinguish the truly great improvisers and both Laubrock and Rainey belong in this camp. Laubrock's simultaneously poised and experimental voice can never be second guessed, while Rainey meanwhile possesses an armory equal to any approach, whether fulfilling the role of sensitive accompanist or willful provocateur.

John Butcher /Pat Thomas /Dominic Lash / Steve Noble
Fathom
577 Records

Finely-judged sounds studded in space. Bursts of incipient rhythm. Wafts of fire music zip. Those are just some of the fruitful products of the British foursome of saxophonist

John Butcher

saxophone
b.1954

" data-original-title="" title="">John Butcher, pianist

Pat Thomas

piano
b.1960

" data-original-title="" title="">Pat Thomas, bassist

Dominic Lash

bass, acoustic
b.1980

" data-original-title="" title="">Dominic Lash and drummer

Steve Noble

drums
b.1960

" data-original-title="" title="">Steve Noble. Everyone enthusiastically erases the admittedly porous boundary between improv and free jazz. And they are comfortable with silence. No-one sees the need to fill the silence unless they have something to say. As it happens they have a lot to say, but cannily choose their moments. A superior jaunt from an outfit that should have a bright future.

Rob Brown Quartet
Oblongata
Rogue Art

Although reedman

Rob Brown

saxophone, alto
b.1962

" data-original-title="" title="">Rob Brown has a string of small group outings to his name, dating back to his first, Breath Rhyme (Silkheart) in 1990, Oblongata may be one of his finest. The 2022 studio session reunites him with some of his most enduring collaborators, namely trombonist

Steve Swell

trombone
b.1954

" data-original-title="" title="">Steve Swell, bassist

Chris Lightcap

bass
b.1971

" data-original-title="" title="">Chris Lightcap and drummer

Chad Taylor

drums
b.1973

" data-original-title="" title="">Chad Taylor. In some ways it presents as a classic free jazz extravaganza, in that Brown's scripts presage a sequence of solos and sometimes duos before a reprise, but careful variation guarantees that the format never grows stale.

Satoko Fujii Tokyo Trio
Jet Black
Libra

On Jet Black, pianist

Satoko Fujii

piano
b.1958

" data-original-title="" title="">Satoko Fujii premieres an edgy new trio completed by Tokyo-based bassist

Takashi Sugawa

bass

" data-original-title="" title="">Takashi Sugawa and drummer

Ittetsu Takemura

drums

" data-original-title="" title="">Ittetsu Takemura, two band leaders in their own right. They revel in unruly attitude, even as they totally buy into the idiosyncratic universe demarcated by Fujii's six charts. Both adopt unlikely tactics which keep both listeners and bandmates on their toes. Does the pianist accentuate the wayward aspects of her own playing more as a result? It sometimes seems that way. The juxtaposition of devil-may-care sensibilities with more ordered elements is an alluring strategy which Fujii exploits to the full.

Angelica Sanchez / Barry Guy / Ram��n L��pez
Live at Jazzdor
Maya

The 50-minute set by pianist Angelica Sanchez, bassist Barry Guy and drummer Ramon Lopez at Jazzdor in the French city of Strasbourg in 2023 demonstrates an affinity marked by spirited interplay, thorny percussive thickets and satisfying on-the-fly lyricism. The principal feel is one of unbridled exploration. And all three enjoy two key attributes for its successful accomplishment: open ears and lightning fast responses.

Olie Brice

bass, acoustic
b.1981

" data-original-title="" title="">Olie Brice /

Rachel Musson

saxophone, tenor

" data-original-title="" title="">Rachel Musson /

Mark Sanders

drums
b.1960

" data-original-title="" title="">Mark Sanders
Immense Blue
West Hill

Three superlative performers, who share a chemistry which heightens their responsiveness, trust and interaction to remarkable levels. All that can be heard in a near hour long program containing three joint inventions culled from a show in north London's Vortex in October 2022. Through an organically evolving tangle of timbre, pitch and pulse they explore every feasible permutation in the line up to create a wonderfully persuasive set of free jazz.

Kirke Karja / ?tienne Renard / Ludwig Wandinger
Caught in My Own Trap
BMC

Although Estonian pianist

Kirke Karja

piano

" data-original-title="" title="">Kirke Karja claims the lion's share of the composer credits, the band comes across as a communal enterprise in which French bassist

Etienne Renard

bass, acoustic

" data-original-title="" title="">Etienne Renard and German drummer

Ludwig Wandinger

drums

" data-original-title="" title="">Ludwig Wandinger play equally significant parts. As a consequence there is no disjunct between the scores and the subsequent extemporizations, which infuse contemporary classical influences with a weighty rhythmic overlay and a hefty dose of unfettered expression.

Charles Gayle / William Parker / Milford Graves
WEBO
Black Editions

This fabled performance lives up to all the hype. Rescued from the library of the late drummer

Milford Graves

drums
1940 - 2021

" data-original-title="" title="">Milford Graves, this 3 LP set, also available as a download, reveals an incendiary free jazz trio from 1991 in which everyone brings their A-game. While Graves and

William Parker

bass
b.1952

" data-original-title="" title="">William Parker were already major figures, although criminally under-represented on disc in the case of the drummer,

Charles Gayle

saxophone
1939 - 2023

" data-original-title="" title="">Charles Gayle was still an underground legend who had only just issued his first recordings on the Swedish Silkheart imprint at the age of 52.

Gush
Afro Blue
Trost

Time offers perspective. The three members of the Swedish band Gush -pianist

Sten Sandell

piano

" data-original-title="" title="">Sten Sandell, drummer

Raymond Strid

drums
b.1956

" data-original-title="" title="">Raymond Strid and saxophonist

Mats Gustafsson

woodwinds
b.1964

" data-original-title="" title="">Mats Gustafsson -were amazed at the quality of the music on this tape when they heard it again a quarter of a century after it was recorded, having forgotten about it completely in the interim. And they are right to be taken aback. The recording from a concert in Stockholm in December 1998 is simply magnificent. Perhaps unsurprisingly in retrospect as all three participants have since become recognized as among their country's premier exponents on the European free jazz and experimental scene.

Arthur Blythe Quartet
Live From Studio Rivbea
NoBusiness

This tremendous set by saxophonist

Arthur Blythe

saxophone, alto
1940 - 2017

" data-original-title="" title="">Arthur Blythe constitutes the second entry in a series of releases harvested from the late Sam Rivers' Studio Rivbea archive. (The first, by

Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre

woodwinds
1936 - 2013

" data-original-title="" title="">Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre, is scarcely less worthy of attention). Accompanied by bass, drums and percussion, though just solo for the lengthy opener, the album unveils newcomer Blythe in adventurous, raw and emotive mood some seven months before the recording of his inaugural date as leader The Grip (India Navigation, 1977).

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