Summer 2025 is now behind us. Our Jazz Summer 2025 roundup revisits the most exciting new jazz albums released in July, August, and September 2025. From bold big band to intimate solo, here are the eleven highlights worth remembering, and returning to.

If you would like to write a jazz album review or put together your own selection of new releases, I wouldd love to feature it. This space is meant for more than just one perspective, so if you feel like stepping up and adding yours, get in touch.

---

Jaleel Shaw’s Painter of the Invisible is an album of memory and tribute. With a luminous alto sound and a band full of empathy, Shaw balances grief, joy, and resilience. Each piece feels like a portrait, making the invisible visible through music that refuses to forget.

Jaleel Shaw: alto & soprano saxophones; Lawrence Fields: piano; Ben Street: bass; Joe Dyson: drums

Released July 11, 2025

---

We were already hooked by Olie Brice’s previous album, Immense Blue, released in January 2024. This new record only reinforces how deeply his music resonates with us. The arrival of Alexander Hawkins into the trio, with Rachel Musson on tenor sax and this time Will Glaser on drums (replacing Mark Sanders), brings a fresh dynamic. The quartet delivers a solid, dense, and consistently surprising album. It stays free, but never freewheeling: a well-channeled freshness that holds your attention from start to finish.

Olie Brice: double bass; Rachel Musson: tenor sax; Alexander Hawkins: piano; Will Glaser: drums

Released July 18, 2025

---

Angles 11 is the current incarnation of Martin Küchen’s long-running ensemble project Angles (discover for example Angles 9 or Angles 3) exploring avant-garde jazz with a distinctly European, and particularly Scandinavian we would say, sense of expression. This new formation brings together core members from earlier lineups with fresh voices, and for the first time appears on the Fundacja Słuchaj label.

It is moving, pulsing, built on contrasts and surges of energy. The three drums provide a grounding life force, draped beautifully by the Fender Rhodes and carried impeccably by the bass lines, giving the ensemble the space to explore freedom as they will.

Martin Küchen: tenor, soprano saxophones; Johan Berthling: double bass; Alex Zethson: Fender Rhodes, Juno 106; Mattias Ståhl: vibraphone, soprano saxophone; Konrad Agnas: drums; Michaela Antalova: drums; Kjell Nordeson: drums; Susana Santos Silva: trumpet; Magnus Broo: trumpet; Josefin Runsteen: amplified violin; Eirik Hegdal: baritone, alto saxophones

Released July 18, 2025

---

Lori Goldston’s Open Space is a remarkable solo release. Recorded in a single take with only a cello, an amplifier, and a distortion pedal, it grows as an extraordinary sonic experience. The cohesion and focus are striking, but what truly lingers is the texture of the sound itself: unique, restorative, and so deeply nourishing, making this album feel not just compelling but essential.

“I hope it offers the listener room to breathe and dream,” Goldston says. And it does, so perfectly.

Lori Goldston: cello

Released July 18, 2025

Ever wondered, Does the world really need this album? We did too, and we wrote about it here

---

After more than a decade, the Chicago Underground Duo return with Hyperglyph. Rob Mazurek and Chad Taylor weave trumpet, percussion, and electronics into a sound far bigger than two musicians, blurring improvisation with studio construction. It is dense, adventurous, and frankly entertaining.

Chad Taylor: drum kit, percussion, mbira, kalimba; Rob Mazurek: trumpet, piccolo trumpet, RMI Electric piano, modular synths, samplers, voice, flutes, bells

Released August 15, 2025

---

This album was surely our soundtrack of the summer. The trio is impeccable, the chemistry perfect. Right from the opening, the bass and drums once again merge seamlessly into one. Then come those first trumpet notes, making you melt and waver under the precision of their intent. The entire album holds these alluring, entertaining, and surprising qualities that make it, without a doubt, one of the essential releases of the year.

Linda May Han Oh: bass; Ambrose Akinmusire: trumpet; Tyshawn Sorey: drums

Released August 22, 2025

---

This album stands out for its calm, its gentleness, and its spirit of positivity and inclusion, a rare and remarkable combination. In many ways, it feels to jazz what Starring Rosi by Ash Ra Tempel is to Krautrock: a moment of joyful, accessible plenitude.

The music is warm, rooted in Latin and Caribbean folk traditions while opening into jazz-inflected improvisation. But it is never folk for folk’s sake, nor jazz for jazz’s sake. Instead, the Orkester lays rhythm as a language and lets improvisation breathe over that foundation.

Juan Manuel Romero Silvera: percussion; Julia Strzalek: saxophone, alto; Pelle Vallgren: drums; Vilhelm Bromander: bass, acoustic; Alexander Zethson: keyboards

Released September 5, 2025

---

“How and why do we continue to make art in this bizarre time? Let me try here to offer a small break from insanity. I do believe that for listeners in our small pond, focused attention on sonic expression might help the individual keep a connection with their humanity and reinforce positive human endeavors—love, empathy, and truth-seeking”.
–Ned Rothenberg

With this release, Ned Rothenberg offers us more than just a connection to our humanity: his music is so deeply beautiful that it can only make us believe in humanity itself. We can only feel grateful that he recorded such an album, allowing us to lose ourselves in its beauty, depth, and ethereal precision where repetition becomes revelation and restraint becomes power.

Ned Rothenberg: alto saxophone, Bb and A clarinets, shakuhachi

Released September 5, 2025

---

Fieldwork’s Thereupon marks a striking return for Steve Lehman, Vijay Iyer, and Tyshawn Sorey. Sharp compositions, intricate rhythms, and amazing interplay make this trio sound as urgent and innovative as ever.

Steve Lehman: alto saxophone; Vijay Iyer: piano and Rhodes; Tyshawn Sorey: drums

Released September 5, 2025

---

This album turned out to be an unexpected favorite. What began with a curious first listen soon became something one could not turn away from, nor even pause. And that feeling continues with every return. It is quietly satisfying, delicate without ever being merely catchy. It is the deep, beautiful voice of a double bass with so much to share, and so much to feel.

Vytis Nivinskas: bass

Released September 9, 2025

---

What makes Unseparate so striking is how unified the whole feels, despite the two distinct compositional voices. Webber and Morris each expand the language of big band music in their own way, and yet the dialogue between them creates a singular work. This is a record of precision, imagination, and collective energy, where the written music and the improvisations push each other higher.

Anna Webber, Angela Morris: tenor saxophone, flute, conductor; Jay Rattman: alto saxophone, soprano saxophone, clarinet, flute; Charlotte Greve: alto saxophone, flute, clarinet; Adam Schneit: tenor saxophone, clarinet; Lisa Parrott: baritone saxophone, bass clarinet; Nolan Tsang, Ryan Easter, Jake Henry, Kenny Warren: trumpets; Tim Vaughn, Zekkereya El-magharbel, Jen Baker, Reginald Chapman: trombones; Yuhan Su: vibraphone; Dustin Carlson: guitar; Marta Sánchez: piano; Adam Hopkins: bass; Jeff Davis: drums

Released September 26, 2025

---

July, August, September 2025 – New Releases Selection

• Jaleel Shaw – Painter Of The Invisible (Changu Records)
• Olie Brice Quartet – All It Was (West Hill Records)
• Angles 11 – Tell Them It’s The Sound Of Freedom (Fundacja Słuchaj)
• Lori Goldston – Open Space (Relative Pitch Records)
• Chicago Underground Duo – Hyperglyph (International Anthem Recording)
• Linda May Han Oh, Ambrose Akinmusire, Tyshawn Sorey – Strange Heavens (Biophilia Records)
• Juan Romeros Manuella Orkester – Lua armonia (Supertraditional)
• Ned Rothenberg – Looms & Legends (Pyroclastic)
• Fieldwork – Thereupon (Pi Recordings)
• Vytis Nivinskas – Rituals And Transformations (NoBusiness Records)
• Webber/Morris Big Band – Unseparate (Out Of Your Head Records)

Playlist

Listen to these tracks on our Spotify playlist.

…and discover our selection Best Jazz Albums of 2025 (so far)

---

That wraps up our Summer 2025 jazz selection (July, August, and September). What do you think of these albums? Feel free to leave a comment and let us know your favorites or any releases you think we should check out. We love hearing from you and discovering new music together!