[Editor’s Note: We are excited to have Anthony Dean-Harris join us again for our year-end lists. Anthony is a longtime friend to the site, a Downbeat contributor, and the former Editor-in-Chief of Nextbop back when that site was both enjoyable and relevant. He’s also a great broadcaster. After many years at KTRU in San Antonio, this year he started hosting the excellent “Day Dreaming” on KMHD out of Portland, Oregon. More information on Anthony can be found at https://www.anthonydeanharris.com/.]

2024 found me personally in a period of transition– moving cross-country from San Antonio, Texas, as a volunteer radio DJ stitching together a life in the arts on the periphery to move to Portland, Oregon, as a full-time jazz radio host who is learning how to serve a listening public and speak to their specific needs. It’s been an interesting adaptation that is still taking hold in its ways. For example, much of this list wouldn’t be played on the radio there, but this adaptation of mine is also a lesson in compartmentalization. This adaptation is a continual study about the nature of jazz, who takes part in its scene, who it reaches, who it wants to reach and purports to reach, who was it for and who is it for now. It’s a genre with breadth and interest, things that I have relished in since I’ve loved it as a child and what I continue to find interesting about it as I continue to forge my career, now in earnest, in it. It’s what I hope this varied list of so many different folks who make this music reflects this breadth. I would hope it also shows the true definition of my “favorites” of this year, even when I know they may not be for everyone. I’m learning that more and more everyday

1. Jeremy Pelt, Tomorrow’s Another Day (HighNote)

Nearly every year for over twenty years, trumpeter Jeremy Pelt has released a new album, always with a different concept in mind. This year, with percussionist Deantoni Parks sitting in for three songs, Pelt halfway made a house record and found even more places to go for the rest of it. Through it all, he consistently innovates and grabs attention as he has his whole career, resulting in one of his most fascinating albums in nearly a decade.

2. Hiatus Kaiyote, Love Heart Cheat Code (Brainfeeder)

In their Brainfeeder label debut, the Australian quartet has released its tightest collection of songs since their debut. Less bogged down by exploration that could, at times, veer into downright wandering, the group has found their magnetic hooks, never loosens the reins, and steers properly into the right grooves. Hiatus Kaiyote has made the most infectious half-hour of 2024.

3. BADBADNOTGOOD, Mid Spiral (XL)

Released initially as three EPs through the spring of this year (almost at the rate they were wrapping up the finishing touches), the Canadian group continues its maturation of sounds, influences, and personnel to mold an album that stretches the imagination, continuing to prove the ever-extending lengths of their abilities and the always fascinating directions they’ll continue to go and enjoying every bit of hearing the byproduct of the journey.

4. Kiefer, Something For Real (Stones Throw)

Keyboardist Kiefer Shackleford is a good time. The level of chill so perfectly measured with his technical skill is a practical alchemy unmatched in this era. It’s the kind of skill that can make its vessel so fk’n tired (dude) consistently reaching that casual perfection. Recorded live in Los Angeles with drummer Luke Titus and bassist Pera Krstajic, Kiefer’s trio reveals that magical good time these bros are able to create with seeming ease.

5. Dave Holland & Lionel Loueke, United (Edition)

Lionel Loueke’s entire essence feels musical. The tones and shapes of his scatting alongside his riveting guitar playing fills spaces and leave the right amounts of silence. He has for decades been one of those artists whose presence improves anything he touches, like onion & garlic. Playing duo with bassist Dave Holland for a collection of tunes truly doesn’t need much else.

6. Adam O’Farrill, HUESO (FOOD)

It’s hard to say what Adam O’Farrill is better at– playing the trumpet or composition. He’s exceptional at both and has proved this for years; however, his latest release with his quartet Stranger Days alongside tenor saxophonist Xavier Del Castillo, bassist Walter Stinson, and Adam’s brother, drummer Zach O’Farrill has all the freedom of water flying out of a freshly-popped balloon– it bursts at the seams.

7. Joe Sanders, Parallels (Whirlwind Recordings)

It’s rather astounding how gripping bassist Joe Sanders’ latest album is. Built a half live album/half studio album, Sanders finds multiple angles and approaches to reach and hold the listener in a release that hits the marks of straight-ahead, covers the bases of contemporary, and finds so much more to discover from there.

8. Julieta Eugenio, Stay (Greenleaf)

Set aside how considered, clear, and confident in its space Julieta Eugenio’s work is in all its multiple media, it’s especially worth noting how elegant it is to do all this for the tenor saxophonist to lead such a fascinating trio of bassist Matt Dwonzik and drummer Jonathan Barber that has only found more ways to click together over the years. She knows herself and, from an already compelling place, composed and arranges for this group even better as the years go by.

9. Nala Sinephro, Endlessness (Warp)

Nala Sinephro sets moods. In her latest release, she has orchestrated a collective that can explode in emotion while still hypnotizing through an inherent sense of minimalism. Following the same flowing format as her previous release, Space 1.8, each piece of the “Continuum” flows seamlessly into the next, creating a work meant to be heard as a whole and embraced for the meditative state of mind this group induces.

10. The Bad Plus, Complex Emotions (Edition)

It’s astounding how, in all its various iterations over the last twenty years, The Bad Plus always sounds definitively them. The latest group with tenor saxophonist Chris Speed and guitarist Ben Monder, alongside bassist Reid Anderson and drummer Dave King are truly gelling in their second album together, and now they’re really letting loose (well… even moreso than before).

11. Marquis Hill, Composers Collective: Beyond the Jukebox (self-release)

Trumpeter Marquis Hill has shown throughout his career his gifts on the horn but also as a collaborator. In that regard, it feels as though his latest album is the natural next work– the byproduct of these built relationships. In all the directions and creations he’s made or taken part in, everything felt of a certain indelible signature where, on his latest release, he enthusiastically scribbled.

12. Jeff Parker ETA IVtet, The Way Out of Easy (International Anthem)

There’s something beautiful about the regular weekly gig– what one can create over time, how time recontextualizes itself over stretches, learning languages and rhythms through experience. Guitarist Jeff Parker, saxophonist Josh Johnson, bassist Anna Butterss, and drummer Jay Bellerose had all that and more at their regular Monday gig at Los Angeles’ dearly departed ETA. This was the stretched-out, relaxed, daze-inducing magic that engineer Bryce Gonzalez captured on the first Monday of January 2023.

13. Ben Wendel, Understory: Live at the Village Vanguard (Edition)

Ben Wendel is fun. His music is buoyant, prickly, sparkly, complex, and fun. He makes Capital-C Contemporary Capital-J Jazz music, and nothing in his composition or his lively playing of it is afraid to show it, and in his live quartet album at the Village Vanguard with pianist Gerald Clayton, bassist Linda May Han Oh, and drummer Obed Calvaire, Wendel didn’t need to make a statement, nor was he trying to, but he certainly left a mark.

14. divr, Is This Water? (We Jazz)

This densely sparse but sparsely sense, looping, winding, attention-grabbing acoustic trio was one of the biggest surprises of 2024. Pianist Philipp Eden, bassist Raphael Walser, and drummer Jonas Ruther get at something so simple in the beat and take it everywhere it needs to go, even while feeling they’re going nowhere at all, plumbing every corner of the moment and leaving you wanting more.

15. Kurt Elling & Sullivan Fortner, Wildflowers, Vol. 1 EP (Edition)

Kurt Elling’s voice is smooth as butter, and pianist Sullivan Fortner plays so gorgeously he can do no wrong. The pair recorded a quickly-arranged five-song EP that gets to the root of beauty, does all of the usual Elling trickery, and manages to charm immediately, as expected. It’s simple and doesn’t need much, just gorgeousness and butter.

16. Happy Apple, New York CD (Sunnyside)

The Minnesota trio of bassist Erik Fratzke, drummer Dave King, and saxophonist/keyboardist Michael Lewis remain just as rambunctiously driving as always for nearly 30 years. The Sunnyside re-release of their 2020 New York CD is a neat jam full of that same constant energy they’ve always had that’s the same delight to relish in after all this time.

17. Jahari Massamba Unit (Karriem Riggins & Madlib), YHWH is LOVE (Law of Rhythm)

Percussionist Karriem Riggins has always forged his own path in his art, and the same could be said at least quadruply so for the legendary multi-instrumentalist/producer Madlib. Their second collaboration together delves deeper into the natural groove the two easily make and don’t let go.

18. Lawrence Fields, To The Surface (Rhythm ‘n’ Flow Records)

For years, I’ve heard pianist Lawrence Fields play in Chief Adjuah’s band, giving a crucial voice to an innovative group of artists, and thought to myself and in print that this guy has an album in him and I’ve been waiting patiently for it until he released this beautiful straight-ahead trio album alongside Adjuah band compatriot drummer Corey Fonville and bassist Yasushi Nakamura. Fields’ music is mood music that gets you in all of the moods, and it’s a delight for him to finally take us on the journey he’s been waiting to take us on all these years.