Album of the Year 2024

We are happy to announce the Free Jazz Collective's top album of 2024. Last week, we presented the top 10 recordings of the year, culled from the top 10 lists of all the Free Jazz Collective reviewers and then held an internal vote for the top album of the year.

And the results are ... 

ØKSE - self-titled (backwoodz records)

Congrats to the forward thinking, international quartet of ØKSE whose debut album handily won the hearts and ears of the Free Jazz Collective. Martin Schray offers that not only have they captured the spirit of what Free Jazz was, but they may just be leading its way forward: 

Free Jazz, which in the 1960s and 70s was a music of rebellion and driven by the desire to reflect social conditions, has almost completely lost this ambition today. In the USA in particular, this task has been taken over by hip-hop and R’n’B. As a result, it’s necessary not to romanticize Free Jazz, but to view it as a contemporary music, which must ultimately offer room for cross-over experiments. ØKSE is such an experiment. The band seems to have recognized where the revolutionary momentum of the music has drifted and improvises on beats that are relevant to a younger generation. The consequence is a new music that demands new standards. The band itself cab almost be called a Free Jazzsuper group: New York based drummer Savannah Harris, Danish saxophonist Mette Rasmussen (who has played with actually everyone who has a name in today’s Free Jazz), Haitian electronic musician Val Jeanty, and Swedish bassist Petter Eldh (Koma Saxo), who is also on synths and sampler. Deciding to break relatively new ground, they have chosen four rappers for this collaboration, including the two Brooklyn superstars of conscious Rap - ELUCID and billy woods (a.k.a. Armand Hammer), plus Maassai and Cavalier, both also from the same New York borough. 

If Free Jazz wants to attract a younger and more diverse audience, if it wants to regain relevance, projects like ØKSE are certainly a way forward. It’s definitely an interesting album for fans of Irreversible Entanglements or Sons of Kemet. I'm really looking forward to where they go from here.

Read the review here.

Darius Jones - Legend of e'Boi (The Hypervigilant Eye) (AUM Fidelity)

Coming in second place in our vote is Darius Jone's with his latest on AUM Fidelity. Lee Rice Epstein gave this one high praise by placing Jones' playing with some giants of the genre:

Arguably, Legend of e’Boi reaches a mighty high peak; throughout the album, Jones plays with the lushness of Arthur Blythe, the lyricism of Julius Hemphill, and the compositional range of Oliver Lake—oh, how he swings, how he skronks, and all with one of the most beautiful alto tones.

Read the review here.

أحمد [Ahmed] - Giant Beauty (Fonstret)

Pianist Pat Thomas took the Top spot in 2022 with his recording Pat Thomas and XT, and in 2021 with the group أحمد [Ahmed], featuring Joel Grip on bass, Seymore Wright on sax and Antonin Gerbalon drums. This year أحمد [Ahmed] comes in third place with their 5 CD box-set Giant Beauty.  Fotis Nikolakopoulos boils down the music in this expansive set to the essentials:

Giant Beauty is massive in its ideas and willingness to step on two boats, the past and the present. I really like the fact that it doesn’t offer an easy way out. You have to listen and think, probably (re) imagine how to get out of your comfort zone.

Read the review here.

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And so, we begin 2025, already half-way through the 2020s - a decade that began shakily and does not seem to be getting much stabler - the only thing we can say is that, judging from the music that we've been previewing and will be coming out in the coming weeks, we still have a vital musical community to comfort and challenge us. Of course, once again, we thank all of you, our readers, writers and musicians for your visits, comments, focused criticism and trust, allowing us to share our enthusiasm for the musical experiences that we all thrive on.

Happy New Ears!

Sincerely,

The Free Jazz Collective