Jakob Bro’s Bill Frisell collaboration finally saw the light, Cécile McLorin Salvant drew on her teenage pop memories and Anthony Braxton looked back to 1985
The 50 best albums of 2025
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UK saxophonist, composer and bandleader Tom Smith was dropping clues to his distinctively contemporary take on jazz traditions as a BBC Young Jazz Musician of the Year finalist in 2014 and 2016, and later as a leader of groups including the sax trio Gecko and the LGBTQI+ ensemble Queertet. But his powerful big band’s 2025 release, A Year in the Life, unveiled how exultantly Smith’s writing mingles orchestral influences from Maria Schneider and Carla Bley with slamming groovers from the big-band swing era, and a deep grasp of bebop chordal acrobatics, with raw and metallic guitar interventions thrown in.
Arboresque is the Artemis collective’s third and best release for the Blue Note label, evolved from an ensemble formed for International Women’s Day in 2016 by the acclaimed Canadian pianist and composer Renee Rosnes. All five members compose; standouts include saxist Nicole Glover’s ethereal Petrichor for its theme and her tenor improv, and trumpeter Ingrid Jensen’s snappy Sights Unseen with its vivacious post-bop dialogue with Rosnes. There are typically evocative Rosnes arrangements of her former employer Wayne Shorter’s Footprints, and the standard What the World Needs Now is Love. Cliche-free individuality and congenial collective spirit radiantly combined.
