By Tom Hull

The creative force behind jazz is so strong and so universal that the music will continue to sustain us through whatever perils and calamities the upper echelons of business and politics land us in.

This is the 19th annual edition of the Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll, named for its founder and guiding light. The first poll, in 2006 at the Village Voice, surveyed thirty New York writers. But the poll quickly went nationwide and ultimately international, passing through Rhapsody and NPR before landing at The Arts Fuse in 2022. This year we invited some 280 distinguished jazz journalists and broadcasters, and received and compiled 177 ballots with lists of their top ten new jazz albums, plus lists of several more specialized categories. I’ve written a bonus essay, The Nuts and Bolts, which offers a more detailed (and more personal) overview of the poll: how it works, what it measures and what it means (and doesn’t), and about my own role in making it happen. So I’ll refrain from such topics here, and just present the facts: five lists of albums sorted by points (ties broken by votes in parentheses), each list followed by a few observations of bits I find interesting — brief of necessity, as I’d never finish otherwise.

One thing I’m not going to try is present some sort of “state of the union” address, as Francis Davis excelled at when he was conducting the poll, or as Robert Christgau did when he was running the Village Voice‘s Pazz & Jop poll — a massive undertaking but one which, unlike its ’60s model, never seemed to give jazz its due. My own tastes have always been a bit too eccentric to offer a fair summary of whatever passed for consensus thinking in any given year. Nor am I sure that it even makes sense to talk about consensus when the winner only appears on 33.3% of the ballots, and more albums (387) wind up with just one vote than with two or more (226): only 12.3% of the new albums that received votes wound up with five votes or more. So while we focus, as our culture trains us to do, on the winners here, serious data nerds, as well as fans whose curiosity runs deeper and/or farther afield than Downbeat or Jazzwise, will want to spend some time exploring the archive website. As with the later Pazz & Jop years, it’s easy to jump from totals to lists of the critics who voted for each album, to those critics’ ballots and the other recordings they voted for. Perhaps at some future point we’ll come up with some nifty data analysis tools that might, for instance, help identify clusters of voters or select subsets of data.

But from my own sketchy study, I’m left with one impression: that the creative force behind jazz is so strong and so universal that the music will continue to sustain us through whatever perils and calamities the upper echelons of business and politics land us in. And this resilience will not be led by the brilliant and delightful albums which sit atop our charts, but by the extraordinary diversity of creative music all around us. The winners here will celebrate for a few days, but the poll gives the rest of us a map to a much larger world to explore, and hints at terra incognita.

New Albums

Voters were asked to pick up to 10 jazz albums released in 2024 (or 2023 albums that were “new to them” in 2024). Jazz was whatever the voters thought it was, and no votes were rejected or even questioned because they didn’t fit our own conceptions. An album was considered as new if all of the music on it was recorded within the last 10 years (2015 or later), and none of the music was previously released. Lists could be ranked or unranked. Albums on ranked lists were awarded using a sliding scale starting at 3.0 for 1st place, 2.4 for 2nd, 2.0 for 3rd, and on down to 1.0 for 10th. Albums on unranked lists were awarded 1 point each. (In effect, they were all treated as 10th place albums.) Of our 177 voters, 41 presented unranked lists (23.1%).

Here are the top 60 new albums. For a full list of all 613 albums that received votes, look to the complete Totals. My notes follow.

1. Patricia Brennan Septet, Breaking Stretch (Pyroclastic) 101.8 (59)
2. Vijay Iyer, Compassion (ECM) 80.2 (48)
3. Charles Lloyd, The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow (Blue Note) 77.3 (45)
4. Mary Halvorson, Cloudward (Nonesuch) 56.1 (34)
5. Wadada Leo Smith & Amina Claudine Myers, Central Park’s Mosaics of Reservoir, Lake, Paths and Gardens (Red Hook) 52.9 (29)
6. Kris Davis Trio, Run the Gauntlet (Pyroclastic) 52.3 (35)
7. Matthew Shipp Trio, New Concepts in Piano Trio Jazz (ESP-Disk) 47 (29)
8. Darius Jones, Legend of e’Boi (The Hypervigilant Eye) (AUM Fidelity) 44.8
9. David Murray Quartet, Francesca (Intakt) 41.9 (27)
10. أحمد [Ahmed], Giant Beauty (Fönstret) 38.7 (18)
11. Tyshawn Sorey Trio, The Susceptible Now (Pi) 37 (24)
12. Immanuel Wilkins, Blues Blood (Blue Note) 35.6 (22)
13. Kenny Barron, Beyond This Place (Artwork) 28.9 (18)
14. Tomeka Reid Quartet, 3+3 (Cuneiform) 27.8 (19)
15. The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis (Impulse!) 26.2 (19)
16. Steve Coleman and Five Elements, PolyTropos/Of Many Turns (Pi) 25.3 (16)
17. Kahil El’Zabar’s Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, Open Me, a Higher Consciousness of Sound and Spirit (Spiritmuse) 24.3 (11)
18. Tarbaby, You Think This America (Giant Step Arts) 22.7 (17)
19. Jeff Parker ETA IVtet, The Way Out of Easy (International Anthem) 22.7 (14)
20. Allen Lowe & the Constant Sorrow Orchestra, Louis Armstrong’s America (ESP-Disk) 21.6 (13)
21. James Brandon Lewis Quartet, Transfiguration (Intakt) 21.1 (14)
22. Luke Stewart Silt Trio, Unknown Rivers (Pi) 20.3 (13)
23. Fay Victor, Herbie Nichols SUNG: Life Is Funny That Way (TAO Forms) 20.3 (10)
24. Miguel Zenón, Golden City (Miel Music) 18.1 (11)
25. Joel Ross, Nublues (Blue Note) 17.7 (13)
26. Walter Smith III, Three of Us Are From Houston and Reuben Is Not (Blue Note) 16.1 (12)
27. Alan Braufman, Infinite Love Infinite Tears (Valley of Search) 16 (12)
28. Peter Evans, Extra (We Jazz) 15.8 (9)
29. Chris Potter-Brad Mehldau-John Patitucci-Brian Blade, Eagle’s Point (Edition) 15.7 (11)
30. Nala Sinephro, Endlessness (Warp) 15.5 (10)
31. Kim Cass, Levs (Pi) 15.1 (9)
32. Melissa Aldana, Echoes of the Inner Prophet (Blue Note) 14.5 (9)
33. Amaro Freitas, Y’Y (Psychic Hotline) 14.3 (8)
34. Julian Lage, Speak to Me (Blue Note) 14 (10)
35. Isaiah Collier & the Chosen Few, The Almighty (Division 81) 13.8 (9)
36. Jenny Scheinman, All Species Parade (Royal Potato Family) 13.8 (9)
37. Lakecia Benjamin, Phoenix Reimagined (Live) (Ropeadope) 13.5 (9)
38. Nubya Garcia, Odyssey (Concord Jazz) 13.4 (10)
39. Meshell Ndegeocello, No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin (Blue Note) 13.2 (6)
40. Jamie Baum Septet+, What Times Are These (Sunnyside) 13.1 (11)
41. Nduduzo Makhathini, Unomkhubulwane (Blue Note) 12.9 (9)
42. Bill Frisell, Orchestras (Blue Note) 12.6 (10)
43. Matt Mitchell, Zealous Angles (Pi) 12.4 (11)
44. Jihye Lee Orchestra, Infinite Connections (Motéma Music) 11.9 (7)
45. Joe Fonda Quartet, Eyes on the Horizon (Long Song) 11.8 (5)
46. Arooj Aftab, Night Reign (Verve) 11.7 (7)
47. Joëlle Léandre, Lifetime Rebel (RogueArt) 11.2 (8)
48. William Parker-Cooper-Moore-Hamid Drake, Heart Trio (AUM Fidelity) 11.1 (8)
49. Dave Douglas, Gifts (Greenleaf Music) 10.9 (7)
50. Shabaka, Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace (Impulse!) 10.9 (7)
51. Ches Smith, Laugh Ash (Pyroclastic) 10.8 (8)
52. Out Of/Into [Joel Ross-Gerald Clayton-Kendrick Scott-Matt Brewer-Immanuel Wilkins], Motion I (Blue Note) 10.8 (7)
53. Frank London/The Elders, Spirit Stronger Than Blood (ESP-Disk) 10.5 (8)
54. Christian McBride & Edgar Meyer, But Who’s Gonna Play the Melody? (Mack Avenue) 10.2 (8)
55. Fred Hersch, Silent, Listening (ECM) 10 (6)
56. Caleb Wheeler Curtis, The True Story of Bears and the Invention of the Battery (Imani) 9.7 (7)
57. David Maranha & Rodrigo Amado, Wrecks (Nariz Entupido) 9.6 (4)
58. Marta Sanchez Trio, Perpetual Void (Intakt) 9 (6)
59. Kamasi Washington, Fearless Movement (Young) 9 (6)
60. Jason Stein-Marilyn Crispell-Damon Smith-Adam Shead, Spi-raling Horn (Balance Point Acoustics) 8.5 (5)

Of the 613 different New Albums that received votes, 387 got 1 vote, 82 2 votes, 37 3 votes, 31 4 votes, and 76 5 or more votes.

Our mid-year poll identified three leading contenders for the top spot this year, each with the same number of votes (27) but ranked by points: Vijay Iyer, Compassion (ECM); Charles Lloyd, The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow (Blue Note); and Mary Halvorson, Cloudward. No surprises there. Iyer has been a three-time winner (2009, 2012, 2017), Halvorson had won in 2022, and Lloyd had five previous top-five finishes. They finished 2-3-4 this year, eclipsed by mallet player Patricia Brennan’s third album, Breaking Stretch (Pyroclastic). She’s not exactly a newcomer, having won our Debut category in 2021, and finished 16 in 2022. But this year she really kicked up the energy level, adding three horns who, along with percussionist Mauricio Herrera, helped Brennan earn 5th place votes in our Latin category. With other well established names filling out the top nine — and with one exception, the top sixteen, Brennan offered something new and exciting.

The exception was the British quartet Ahmed, formed as a trio by pianist Pat Thomas in 2017 as a tribute band to American bassist Ahmed Abdul-Malik (1927-93), later adding saxophonist Seymour Wright. Giant Beauty is their fifth album, a box with five full live sets from a stand in Sweden. If we had a system for handicapping records — compensating for how little known the artists were, how poorly distributed the labels, how little publicity they got, and possibly how un-pop the music was — their placing would be an unprecedented triumph. They’re only the second UK/Europe album ever to crack our top ten (the first was Sons of Kemet in 2021, but on Universal’s Impulse!; before that, the highest placement was French pianist Martial Solal at 11 in 2008 — sandwiched between Guillermo Klein (from South America) and Lionel Loueke (from Benin), but both on fairly major American labels.

None of which detracts from the well known and highly regarded musicians who filled out our top 16: Wadada Leo Smith (with Amina Claudine Myers), Kris Davis, Matthew Shipp, Darius Jones, David Murray, Tyshawn Sorey, Immanuel Wilkins, Tomeka Reid, James Brandon Lewis, and Steve Coleman. Like Brennan, Sorey (in 2007) and Wilkins (2020) were previous Debut winners. Reid’s debut came in 3rd in 2015, when Kamasi Washington won big. Jones’s debut came in 2nd in 2009, behind Darcy James Argue, while finishing 17 overall. Aside from Lewis, a two-time winner whose 2011 debut went undeservedly unnoticed, everyone else on that list started before the poll.

The rest of the top twenty, and indeed the rest of the top sixty, offer more surprises. At 17, Chicago percussionist Kahil El’Zabar made his first top-50 showing after more than 40 albums going back to 1981, with an even higher points/votes ratio than Ahmed’s. At 18, pianist Orrin Evans took the other approach, with six more votes than El’Zabar, but one of the lowest points/votes ratios (1.335 vs. 2.209 for El’Zabar and 2.150 for Ahmed). Evans has a long and distinguished career from 1995, with two previous top-fifty albums. They were followed by guitarist Jeff Parker, with his fourth top-fifty album, and saxophonist Allen Lowe, with his first (or second if you count his East Axis album, which came in 37 in 2021).

On down the list, the results only get curiouser and curiouser. Every album has its own interesting story to unpack, but if we don’t move on to the other lists, we’ll never finish.

Rara Avis

Voters were asked to pick up to 5 Rara Avis jazz albums released in 2024 (or 2023 albums that were “new to them” in 2024). An album was considered as Rara Avis if any of the music on it was recorded more than 10 years ago (in or before 2014), or if any of the music was previously released (so is being reissued). Lists could be ranked or unranked. Albums on ranked lists were awarded using a sliding scale starting at 2.0 for 1st place, 1.6 for 2nd, 1.4 for 3rd, 1.2 for 4th, and 1.0 for 5th. Albums on unranked lists were awarded 1 point each. (In effect, they were all treated as 5th place albums.) Of our 177 voters, 28 presented unranked lists (15.8%).

Here are the top 30 Rara Avis albums. For a full list of all 150 albums that received votes, look to the complete Totals. My notes follow.

1. McCoy Tyner & Joe Henderson, Forces of Nature: Live at Slugs’ (1966, Blue Note) 91.6 (62)
2. Alice Coltrane, The Carnegie Hall Concert (1971, Impulse!) 77.8 (50)
3. Sonny Rollins, Freedom Weaver: The 1959 European Tour Recordings (Resonance) 57.2 (39)
4. Mal Waldron & Steve Lacy, The Mighty Warriors: Live in Antwerp (1995, Elemental Music) 53.8 (36)
5. Miles Davis Quintet, Miles in France 1963 & 1964 [The Bootleg Series, Vol. 8] (Columbia/Legacy) 41.2 (28)
6. Art Tatum, Jewels in the Treasure Box: The 1953 Chicago Blue Note Jazz Club Recordings (Resonance) 34.8 (28)
7. Charles Gayle-Milford Graves-William Parker, WEBO (1991, Black Editions Archive) 32.4 (20)
8. Keith Jarrett-Gary Peacock-Paul Motian, The Old Country (1992, ECM) 31 (22)
9. Wayne Shorter, Celebration, Volume 1 (2014, Blue Note) 29.8 (22)
10. Emily Remler, Cookin’ at the Queens (1984-88, Resonance) 29.2 (23)
11. Andrew Hill Sextet Plus 10, A Beautiful Day Revisited (2002, Palmetto) 27.2 (20)
12. Sun Ra, At the Showcase: Live in Chicago 1976-1977 (Jazz Detective) 22.6 (19)
13. Sun Ra, Lights on a Satellite: Live at the Left Bank (1978, Resonance) 22.2 (15)
14. Roy Hargrove’s Crisol, Grande-Terre (1998, Verve) 20.6 (14)
15. Ron Miles, Old Main Chapel (2011, Blue Note) 19.4 (14)
16. Yusef Lateef, Atlantis Lullaby: The Concert From Avignon (1972, Elemental Music) 16.2 (13)
17. Charles Tolliver Music Inc., Live at the Captain’s Cabin (1973, Cellar Music) 16 (12)
18. King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, Centennial (1923, Archeophone) 14.8 (10)
19. Cecil Taylor Unit, Live at Fat Tuesday’s February 9, 1980 [First Visit] (1980, Ezz-Thetics) 14 (10)
20. Bobby Hutcherson, Classic Bobby Hutcherson Blue Note Sessions 1963-1970 (Mosaic) 13.6 (9)
21. Tomasz Stanko Quartet, September Night (2004, ECM) 12.4 (9)
22. Don Byas, Classic Don Byas Sessions 1944-1946 (Mosaic ’23) 12 (8)
23. Phil Haynes’ 4 Horns and What?, The Complete American Recordings (1989-95, Corner Store Jazz) 11 (7)
24. Charlie Parker, Bird in Kansas City (1941-51, Verve) 10 (7)
25. Bill Evans, In Norway: The Kongsberg Concert (1970, Elemental Music) 8.6 (7)
26. Terry Gibbs Dream Band, 7: The Lost Tapes, 1959 (Whaling City Sound) 8 (5)
27. Kurt Rosenwinkel, The Next Step Band: Live at Smalls 1996 (Heartcore) 7.6 (6)
28. Byard Lancaster, The Complete Palm Recordings 1973-1974 (Souffle Continu) 7.6 (5)
29. Sonny Rollins, A Night at the Village Vanguard: The Complete Masters (1957, Blue Note) 7.4 (6)
30. Louis Armstrong, Louis in London (1968, Verve) 7.4 (5)

As with New Albums, the top-three albums in the mid-year poll — Alice Coltrane, The Carnegie Hall Concert; Sonny Rollins, Freedom Weaver; and Mal Waldron & Steve Lacy, The Mighty Warriors — slipped a notch, behind a previously unreleased tape of McCoy Tyner and Joe Henderson from 1966, an early peak for both artists — they were 27 and 29 at the time, recording major albums for Blue Note just before the label started to tank, and were backed by Henry Grimes (bass, who at 30 had been on at least a dozen classic albums) and Jack DeJohnette (drums, barely known at 23).

Fifth place went to the latest Miles Davis Bootleg Series box, a rare chance to hear George Coleman in the Quintet, then compare the transition to Wayne Shorter. You can also listen to Shorter 50 years later, on Celebration, which came in at 9, and probably would have done better had more people realized it was vintage enough for this category. As it was, its 3 votes (6.4 points) in New Albums led us to add 3 points to his Rara Avis total, moving the album up from 11th to 9th. Errant New Albums votes also gave Ron Miles 3 points for Old Main Chapel (15), Andrew Hill 2 points for A Beautiful Day Revisited (11), while eight others picked up 1 point.

One thing to point out here is that while New Albums is mostly driven by artists that reflect a wide range of new jazz creation, Rara Avis is mostly directed by labels pursuing various business strategies. ECM, for instance, started releasing older Keith Jarrett tapes only after their best selling artist suffered a career-ending stroke. Their latest, The Old Country (8), is the farthest they’ve gone back in what seems to be a bottomless well. A different company would have packed the unreleased material into a “deluxe edition” of the old, but that’s not their style. Their Tomasz Stanko album (21) is another placeholder for an unavailable artist, as are Miles and Shorter at Blue Note.

By the way, both ECM and Blue Note are also following another strategy: releasing straight vinyl reissues of old albums. None of these came close to the top-30, but half a dozen got scattered votes further down. Several other labels are doing similar things — notably Craft, which has been tapping into the old Fantasy catalogs. But true reissues are pretty marginal in the standings of what used to be the Reissues category.

Meanwhile, labels like Resonance, Elemental, and Jazz Detective/Deep Digs have been dusting off archival tapes, putting them into attractive but still manageable packages with ample notes, and giving them some PR push, which this year has landed them Rollins (3), Art Tatum (6), Emily Remler (10), Sun Ra (12 & 13), Yusef Lateef (16), and Bill Evans (25), with eight more titles getting fewer votes. Cellar Music follows a similar business model with their Reel to Real label, but released Charles Tolliver (17) under their own name.

Vocal Jazz

Voters were asked to designate any of their top-ten New Albums or top-five Rara Avis albums to be counted in the Vocal Jazz category. Inclusion was optional, since not everyone agrees on what is or is not vocal jazz. In addition, participants were allowed to list up to three additional vocal jazz albums. There is no point system, so each item listed counted as one vote. Of our 177 votes, 42 did not select any album in this category (23.7%).

Here are the top 10 vocal jazz albums. For a full list of all 123 albums that received votes, look to the complete Totals. My notes follow.

1. Fay Victor, Herbie Nichols SUNG: Life Is Funny That Way (TAO Forms) 34
2. Samara Joy, Portrait (Verve) 31
3. Arooj Aftab, Night Reign (Verve) 16
4. Milton Nascimento & Esperanza Spalding, Milton + Esperanza (Concord) 16
5. Catherine Russell & Sean Mason, My Ideal (Dot Time) 16
6. Kurt Elling & Sullivan Fortner, Wildflowers Vol. 1 (Edition) 13
7. Meshell Ndegeocello, No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin (Blue Note) (11)
8. Jazzmeia Horn, Messages (Empress Legacy) 10
9. Sara Serpa, Encounters & Collisions (Biophilia) 9
10. Alexander Hawkins & Sofia Jernberg, Musho (Intakt) 7

The Vocal vote was close, 34-31, between two very different vocalists, and quite possibly two different views of what the category means. I tend to view Samara Joy and Fay Victor as heirs to styles and approaches exemplified by Sarah Vaughan and Betty Carter: the former used jazz as a pedestal upon which she showed incomparable voice and technique; the latter used her own remarkable voice as an instrument that grew organically out of her band. I’ve never been a big fan of either model, but I can’t help but feel a sense of awe at their accomplishments. As for the heirs, I loved Victor’s album — perhaps tapping into Herbie Nichols’ magic made the difference — while I was merely impressed (ok, very impressed, but not so much pleased) by the other. But lots of critics adore Vaughan much more than I do, which may be part of the reason the only slightly less obvious Cécile McLorin Salvant has won the category every time she put a record out (six times so far).

Samara Joy finished 9th with her debut album in 2021, and 2nd (behind Salvant) in 2023, so she was poised to take over, and indeed led the early voting even though Victor was ahead in New Albums (where she finished 23rd, beating Joy 10-4 in votes). Victor had seven previous albums receive votes, but her 2023 album just garnered 4 votes, and her previous high was 6 (for Wet Robots in 2018, although she also got 6 votes for co-credits led by Other Dimensions in Music and Roswell Rudd).

Third place was a tie between Catherine Russell, Arooj Aftab, and the Milton Nascimento & Esperanza Spalding duet album, which suggests how quickly this category spreads out. Russell and Jazzmeia Horn (8) are fairly conventional jazz singers, and Kurt Elling is widely regarded as the best the male sex can offer, but the others come from or are going to different places.

Latin Jazz

Voters were asked to designate any of their top-ten New Albums or top-five Rara Avis albums to be counted in the Latin Jazz category. Inclusion was optional, since not everyone agrees on what is or is not Latin jazz. In addition, they were allowed to list up to three additional Latin jazz albums. There is no point system, so each item listed counted as one vote. Of our 177 voters, 76 did not select any album in this category (42.9%).

Here are the top 10 Latin jazz albums. For a full list of all 85 albums that received votes, look to the complete Totals. My notes follow.

1. Miguel Zenón, Golden City (Miel Music) 18
2. Zaccai Curtis, Cubop Lives! (Truth Revolution Recording Collective) 16
3. Dafnis Prieto, 3 Sides of the Coin (Dafnison Music) 16
4. Milton Nascimento & Esperanza Spalding, Milton + Esperanza (Concord) 15
5. Patricia Brennan Septet, Breaking Stretch (Pyroclastic) 14
6. Amaro Freitas, Y’Y (Psychic Hotline) 13
7. Roy Hargrove’s Crisol, Grande-Terre (1998, Verve) 10
8. Conrad Herwig, The Latin Side of McCoy Tyner (Savant) 8
9. Gonzalo Rubalcaba & Hamilton De Holanda, Collab (Sony Music Brazil) 7
10. Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti & Frank Rosaly, MESTIZX (International Anthem) 5

Puerto Rican alto saxophonist Miguel Zenón’s domination of the Latin Jazz category has been even more complete than Salvant’s in Vocal: he won for the eighth time this year, extending his streak to four straight, five of the last six, and six of the last eight. Before 2017, the category was more competitive, with Zenón, Bobby Sanabria, and Arturo O’Farrill winning twice each (O’Farrill picked up his third win in 2020), and one each for Bebo and Chucho Valdès. That the vote was close this year — 18 for Zenón vs. a tie at 16 for Zaccai Curtis and Dafnis Prieto, with Milton Nascimento in 4th at 15 — was probably due to the perennial argument over what really is Latin Jazz. Zenón’s previous winners usually had Latin themes (like Alma Adentro: A Puerto Rican Songbook, Sonero: The Music of Ismael Rivera, and El Arte Del Bolero) but Golden City was a commissioned work about San Francisco and it was only a bit more Latin-tinged than his Ornette Coleman tribute (Law Years, which barely registered under Latin but got more votes in New Albums than his Latin winner).

The next three albums present technical problems for the poll. The categories are supposed to pick up extra albums that were overlooked under New Albums (and, very rarely, Rara Avis), but these show what can happen when voters are more sure of what albums they like than what category they might fit into.

Patricia Brennan’s Breaking Stretch got 14 votes under Latin, out of 59 votes in New Albums. I, for one, never made that connection, and I’m obviously not alone but, had I raised the question to voters, it is quite possible she could have won. I wasn’t aware that she was born in Mexico, nor am I sure that’s a relevant consideration. And, while I recall detecting a “Latin tinge” to the music, didn’t Jelly Roll Morton point out that everyone does that? In this case, percussionist Mauricio Herrera was the obvious source, but extra Latin percussion is pretty common. And while trumpeter Adam O’Farrill was in her band, I knew better than assume he would only play Latin jazz.

Brazilian pianist Amaro Freitas was more likely to be picked for Latin jazz, as 13 voters did, putting Y’Y in 6th, but 4 of the 8 who had his album on their New Albums lists didn’t list him under Latin (3 didn’t list anyone). Nine other voters only listed Freitas under Latin.

Then there is Roy Hargrove’s 1998 archival tape, Grand-Terre, which came in 7th with 10 Latin votes, but had received 14 votes in Rara Avis. Hargrove was more of a hard bop player, but his Cuban-themed Habaña was successful, so he put a slightly different big band together and played Afro-Cuban music in Martinique. Only three voters thought to vote for the album under Latin as well as Rara Avis: 11 had it in Rara Avis alone, while 7 had it in Latin alone. This is almost certainly a case where broader communication of the idea that voting in both categories was possible would have resulted in more votes, especially in Latin (where extending the vote wouldn’t have bumped any other album off — one voter took advantage of this to vote for 12 albums).

Debut Albums

Voters were asked to designate any of their top-ten New Albums to be counted in the Debut Albums category, and to vote for up to three additional debut albums. The idea is to identify individuals who produced their first significant work in the year. (Groups are only eligible if every member of the group is eligible, which rarely happens.) There is a technical definition, and votes which clearly violate it are rejected, but if an individual is very obscure, or if that person’s prior work is very obscure, the vote may be allowed. (I’ll note some examples later.) There is no point system, so each item listed counted as one vote. Of our 177 voters, 77 did not select any album in this category (43.5%).

Here are the top 10 debut albums. For a full list of all 89 albums that received votes, look to the complete Totals. My notes follow.

1. Riley Mulherkar, Riley (Westerlies) 19
2. Sarah Hanahan, Among Giants (Blue Engine) 16
3. Alfredo Colón, Blood Burden (Out of Your Head) 11
4. Neta Raanan, Unforeseen Blossom (Giant Step Arts) 8
5. Kim Cass, Levs (Pi) 7
6. Ivanna Cuesta, A Letter to the Earth (Orenda) 6
7. Julien Knowles, As Many, as One (Biophilia) 6
8. Lawrence Fields, To the Surface (Rhythm ‘N’ Flow) 5
9. Alden Hellmuth, Good Intentions (Fresh Sound New Talent) 5
10. April Varner, April (Cellar Music) 5

Debut has always been a trying category, in large part because it’s so hard to rack your brains to remember a name that you hadn’t heard of the year before. The category reminds me of Major League Baseball’s Rookie of the Year award. But they have a clear threshold to cross regarding when a player is ready. Whereas in jazz there are many ways to be disqualified before you get to an first album that a sufficient number of voters can access. I once joked that it was the award for whoever manages to save their virginity for Blue Note but, in retrospect, there weren’t even that many of those. Francis Davis countered by pointing out that many past winners turned out to have important careers. We have had several Debut winners later reach the top-ten (Darcy James Argue, Jaimie Branch, Tyshawn Sorey, Immanuel Wilkins) but others have not (Ryan Truesdell and Kamasi Washington, for example, finished top-ten with their debut albums, but haven’t returned that high). Patricia Brennan is the first Debut winner to win New Albums.

The Debut list is exceptionally long and competitive this year, but I don’t have much to say about it. Only one name in the top-ten was known to me before last year: Kim Cass, who collected 7 votes for 5th place. Cass would have been ineligible under previous rules, because he had a previous solo album (from 2015), and another previous album in which he was the 3rd artist co-credited. I changed the rule this year to count only the 1st listed co-credit, and also to overlook earlier debuts that were too obscure to bother with. (Since I reckon myself as a pretty fair judge of what’s known and unknown, this allowed me to save a lot of time looking up people I’ve never heard of on the off chance I could throw out a vote meant only to make someone obscure a bit better known.) I don’t have a firm rule regarding the dividing line between what is or is not “too obscure”, but a 10-year-old solo bass album only released as digital didn’t seem like a strikeout.

The problem, of course, is that even though I tried to inform voters about the eligibility of Levs, it is unlikely that many realized that. The result is that only 3 of the 9 who voted for Levs in New Albums also voted for it in Debut. An additional 6 votes would have lifted it from 5th to 3rd place. Undoubtedly, more awareness of his eligibility might have resulted in even more votes. I’m not terribly sad that Cass has been slighted, because he already has a fairly high profile, through his extensive side-work with Noah Preminger, Matt Mitchell, Kate Gentile, Frank Carlberg, Christine Correa, and now Patricia Brennan.

Way beyond the top ten, two more albums technically accepted as debuts came from artists who didn’t seem like they should be eligible: Karen Borca is a 76-year-old bassoonist who shared credits with Jimmy Lyons in the 1980s and whose headlined Vision Fest sets were belatedly released by NoBusiness in early 2024, only to be followed by her “proper debut”: a duo with Paul Murphy, who was clearly ineligible on his own (which itself would have been a knockout under the old rules); and André 3000, who was so famous from OutKast that calling his solo flute album a debut was faintly ridiculous, even if technically accurate. (After all, who would think of calling Plastic Ono Band John Lennon’s debut?)

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The Voters

The more I work on this, the more convinced I become that the real heroes of the poll are the voters. If I had the time, I’d like to introduce them all but, for now, you can at least look at the list below, or better still refer to our index, which includes their affiliations and links to their ballots. Admittedly, few of them would agree with my assessment. Virtually everyone who writes about jazz does so first and foremost because they love the music, and they wish to share their enthusiasm and expertise. So they focus almost exclusively on the musicians and their work. A fair number (we won’t name them) don’t even dare participate in polls like this one, where they are required to select and sort, to render judgments — especially the kind that might hurt feelings.

So, hearty thanks to the fine citizens who did step up and participate in this exercise: Karl Ackermann, Paul Acquaro, Scott Albin, Shannon Ali, Ali Alizadeh, Clifford Allen, Mischa Andriessen, Larry Appelbaum, Hrayr Attarian, Angela Ballhorn, Dave Barber, Franpi Barriaux, Chris Barton, Joe Bebco, Enrico Bettinello, Bill Beuttler, Dan Bilawsky, Larry Birnbaum, Larry Blumenfeld, Philip Booth, Mike Borella, Stuart Broomer, Bill Brownlee, Dan Buskirk, Esteban Arizpe Castañeda, Nuno Catarino, Jeff Cebulski, John Chacona, Gary Chapin, Nate Chinen, Robert Christgau, Brad Cohan, Troy Collins, Thomas Conrad, J.D. Considine, Mark Corroto, Michael Coyle, David Cristol, Raul da Gama, Francis Davis, Anthony Dean-Harris, Jos Demol, Steve Dollar, Laurence Donohue-Greene, Troy Dostert, Alain Drouot, Ken Dryden, Chuck Eddy, John Ephland, Lee Rice Epstein, Steve Feeney, Gary Finney, Phil Freeman, Filipe Freitas, Will Friedwald, Pat Frisco, Jon Garelick, Ana Gavrilovska, Richard Gehr, Brooks Geiken, Stef Gijssels, Kurt Gottschalk, David A. Graham, Ludovico Granvassu, Mike Greenblatt, George Grella, Jason Gross, Scott Gutterman, James Hale, Eyal Hareuveni, Chris Heim, Tad Hendrickson, Andrey Henkin, Will Hermes, Geoffrey Himes, Rob Hoff, Larry Hollis, C. Andrew Hovan, Arlette Hovinga, Tom Hull, Peter Hum, Jim Hynes, Robert Iannapollo, Willard Jenkins, Martin Johnson, T.R. Johnson, Sanford Josephson, Ammar Kalia, Richard B. Kamins, George Kanzler, Fred Kaplan, Yoshi Kato, Glenn Kenny, Matthias Kirsch, Brian Kiwanuka, James Koblin, Elzy Kolb, Stuart Kremsky, David Kunian, Art Lange, Josh Langhoff, Martin Laurentius, Will Layman, Devin Leonard, Lance Liddle, Mark Lomanno, Suzanne Lorge, Brad Luen, Phillip Lutz, Kevin Lynch, Jim Macnie, Peter Margasak, Paul Medrano, Allen Michie, Milo Miles, Bill Milkowski, Roz Milner, Ralph A. Miriello, Rick Mitchell, Chris Monsen, John Frederick Moore, Greg Morton, Ivana Ng, Stuart Nicholson, Fotis Nikolakopoulos, Tim Niland, Dan Ouellette, Phil Overeem, Annie Parnell, Tomás Peña, Terry Perkins, Lawrence Peryer, Sergio Piccirilli, Steve Pick, Dan Polletta, Peter Quinn, Derk Richardson, Britt Robson, Marek Romański, Akira Saito, Bret Saunders, Sarah Schmidt, Gene Seymour, Mike Shanley, John Sharpe, Adam Shatz, Rob Shepherd, Hank Shteamer, Slim, Stewart Smith, Jeffrey St. Clair, Thomas Staudter, Sammy Stein, Mark Stryker, Mark Sullivan, Dave Sumner, John Szwed, Jeff Tamarkin, Derek Taylor, Sidney Terano, Neil Tesser, Michael Toland, Michael Ullman, Ludwig vanTrikt, George Varga, Fabricio Vieira, Philip Watson, Ken Waxman, Bob Weinberg, Jason Weiss, Ken Weiss, Michael J. West, Richard Williams, Jerome Wilson, Josef Woodard, Ron Wynn, Kazue Yokoi.