A Carton of LPs: The O’Zone Dozen 2025
You know how this goes: every year ends or starts with a fond recollection of what the top albums of the previous calendar year brought us. I remember listening to radio countdowns and sitting through hours of songs waiting for the vaunted “Number One,” then disagreeing with the choice or celebrating my favorites.
In the radio universe, new music stops arriving in time for holiday music to start getting delivered. So, in a way, this is 11 months worth of great LPs. This collection is strictly my favorite recordings of 2025 (individual favorites may vary).
WE INSIST 2025!: Terri Lyne Carrington & Christie Dashiell
An intrepid reimagining of the classic 1961 protest album We Insist! Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite, led by four-time GRAMMY award-winning NEA Jazz Master Terri Lyne Carrington and GRAMMY-nominated vocalist Christie Dashiell. The new iteration honors the original legacy but addresses contemporary struggles
for equity, identity, and freedom. Terri Lyne and Christie insist the original’s message remains critically relevant today. The album captures the spirit of resistance while also merging themes of joy, dance, and collective improvisation as forms of protest and resilience. The musical palette expands the post bop jazz of the original with gospel, neo-soul, funk, Afro-Latin, West African, and blues traditions.
This album is a clarion call urging listeners to engage with art and stand up and fight for freedom and justice in a world fast returning to values of selfishness, dogmatism, and bigotry. What is very apparent about this record is the continuing growth of Carrington as a leader and producer.
Terri Lyne burst on the scene as a prodigy and sideman. At age 10, Lyne played with jazz legend Clark Terry and by 11 received a full scholarship to Berklee College of Music. She received four Grammy Awards from 2011 to 2023, and this (her latest) is nominated for an award.
It turns out, We Insist 2025 is my favorite album by Carrington as well.
Lullaby for the Lost: Donny McCaslin
This is Donny McCaslin’s 14th studio album as a leader. Expanding on his involvement as David Bowie’s music director, McCaslin continued to embrace Bowie’s spirit of “fearless exploration” and a willingness to push into new ideas and shift towards visceral primal energy from influences like Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against the Machine, among others. His long-time collaborators, bassist/producer Tim Lefebvre and guitarist Ben Monder, were essential in this ongoing examination of aggressive post fusion jazz.
About Ghosts: Mary Halvorson
The fourteenth studio album by the acclaimed Brooklyn-based guitarist, composer, and MacArthur fellow
Mary Halvorson and her sextet Amaryllis, with guest saxophonists on certain tracks. This is a breathtaking observation of imagination, experimentation, and ghostly beauty, joined with complex compositions and thrilling improvisations. To me, I hear a 21st-century Thelonious Monk in her writing. An individualistic sound of its own in that you can’t separate the sound from the compositions. Although she ingeniously uses Line 6 pedals to build the sound, it is not reliant on them, not unlike many other modern electric guitarists who are still easily identified despite their devices.
Belonging: Branford Marsalis Quartet
A brilliant reinterpretation of Keith Jarrett's 1974 album of the same name. While the songs are the same compositions each of the two different quartets have a different approach to the material. Keith’s piano dominates the earlier album as Branford dominates the new iteration but maybe that’s my own observation. While I’m at it, this version is decidedly more American in feel to Keith’s Scandinavian quartet. Great songs and great playing.
Joey Calderazo, to his credit, steers clear of imitating Keith Jarrett as Branford plays his own thing compared to Jan Garbarek’s nordic ice fire. Both rhythm sections are fierce and strong. I’ve noticed a lot of best of lists have this album in their numbers. Both albums are 5-star albums and completely unique.
Sounding Line: Carmen Staaf
Can she play? Hell yeah she can! She’s one of the finest players walking the earth, she can write, arrange, and teach. She holds degrees in Anthropology from Tufts University and Jazz Performance from the New England Conservatory as well as being an alumna of the prestigious Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance. She was one of the youngest faculty members ever hired by Berklee College of Music and is currently on the faculty at The New School and was music director for Dee Dee Bridgewater.
This album looks into the music of Thelonious Monk as well as his mentor Mary Lou Williams and two compositions by Staaf. Jazz is in good hands with women like this involved in its future. Like Williams and Monk, she will bring jazz to a new level.
Ones & Twos: Gerald Clayton
Ones & Twos is a conceptual work inspired by turntablists as they spin to mix compositions to work within each song's spheres. The tunes are presented in two distinct yet complimentary forms; they are designed to be listened to separately or simultaneously.
In addition to the virtuosity of Gerald Clayton, he has an all-star band of young players worth mentioning: Joel Ross on vibes, Elena Pinderhughes on flute, Marquis Hill on trumpet, Kendrick Scott on drums, and Kassa Overall on post-production work. A who’s-who of young firebrands.
This album is pure genius and genius some more.
2025 was a fantastic year of music.
Figure in Blue: Charles Lloyd
This record is tangled in wisdom and a level of spirituality that only appears rarely, A Love Supreme Comes to mind. While this is not that, the performances here are in that rarified air. Charles Lloyd, Jason Moran and Marvin Sewell pull off that miraculous thing in jazz where they are of one mind and lift one another without showboating. The album glows with lyricism and it burns in the blues as well. This is quite possibly one of Charles’ best albums and in his storied career that is saying something. Five stars!
Delight: Dawn Clement
The first time I saw Dawn Clement play was at our performance studios on Welton, and her face shone in joy and fun and something indescribable. You had to be there.
Her skills are both powerful and delicate all at once. Some pianists seem so serious and concerned like an epic novel, yet Dawn is aglow, and her playing is as epic as anything.
Her soul shines and fills the room or the speakers…joyous and joyous some more! A trio for the ages: Buster Williams, Matt Wilson & Dawn Clement. You probably already know about Matt and Buster…what an engine room!
About Dawn: she is a revelation! She always gets into the heart of the song, be it whimsy in a Monk song or heartbreak or elegance or ferocity in the bat of an eye or a smirk. She is her own best accompanist, as the combination of her singing and playing is something deeply special. Don’t let this album slip away.
PAINTING THE DREAM: John Gunther
This is a tight knit trio with a mission in mind for the recording…a tribute to a friend, the great Ron Miles. A Denver guy, trumpet player, composer, educator, mentor, and missed after joining the ancestors. This is a painterly session not unlike Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.
Also, a tribute to Gunther’s mother, Judy Gunther, who painted the cover art and inspired the artistic concept.
The Trio: John Gunther: Saxophones, flute, bass clarinet, and electronics. Dawn Clement: Piano, Fender Rhodes, electronics, and wordless vocals. Dru Heller: Drums and cymbals. A beautiful, atmospheric collection of tone poems and brilliant interplay.
STRANGE HEAVENS: Linda May Han Oh
This is a cordless album with Linda May Han Oh answering the question, “Who needs a piano when you have a bassist like Linda?” Ambrose Akinmusire plays trumpet, reprising his role on Linda’s debut album. Tyshawn Sorey is the dummer perfect for the date.
This is a raw, unfiltered, less is more session.
Equal parts tough and tender, lyrical and resilient. Without guitar or keyboards, the melodic lines assume the textural inferences of harmonic sections. I never thought, where are the chords?
RIDE INTO THE SUN: Brad Mehldau
Brad Mehldau created this album as a tribute dedicated to the late singer-songwriter Elliott Smith, a dialogue between two artists who share a passion for bittersweet harmonic sensibilities and “beauty in the shadows.” Both artists had a shared admiration for Nick Drake.
It’s surprisingly not a melancholy listen given the dark legacy of their musical inclinations.This has replaced Brad’s 2019 Grammy winning Finding Gabriel as my favorite album by Meldau. I used to understand comparisons with Bill Evans with a bit of a side eye, but now I see a distinct movement beyond influence into influencer.
DREAM MANIFEST: Theo Croker
Dream Manifest is the seventh studio album by GRAMMY-nominated trumpeter, composer, and producer Theo Croker. A genre defying sonic expedition blending modern jazz, R&B, cosmic soul, and avant hip hop rendering an album of deeply satisfying musical experiences with a spiritual ceremony.
The cuts are filled with fantastic guests like Gary Bartz, Kassa Overall, MAAD, Estelle, D’LEAU, and Natureboy Flako. In years to come this recording will be seen as an all-time classic.
Honorable Mentions:
Jazz Grunge: Chris Smith
New Dawn: Marshall Allen
Tuff Times Never Last: Kokoroko
“Oh Snap”: Cecile McLorin Salvant
Saul Williams & Carlos Nino & Friends at Tree People
“Bone Bells”: Sylvie Courvoisier & Mary Halvorson
Journey to the New: Live at the Village Vanguard: Marcus Gilmore
Trio of Bloom: Trio of Bloom
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