What should you expect from jazz this month? Welcome to our January 2024 selection of albums that have already been released or will soon be released this month (“What to Wait For”). These albums got our full attention and are worth your time. They are listed in order of release date.
Note: you are very welcome to add/submit any new release to this Google Sheet. Read more about the project here.
January 2024 Selection
Matthew Shipp, Steve Swell
Space Cube Jazz
(RogueArt)
Matthew Shipp and Steve Swell develop through small pieces, a strange space made of more silences than notes–it seems–and where the talent allows an apparent minimalism to impeccably enhances each breath, sound, and vibration of the instruments.
Discover next: Best Jazz Albums of 2024 (So Far)
Steve Swell: trombone; Matthew Shipp: piano
Release date January 12, 2024
Anni Kiviniemi Trio
Eir
(We Jazz)
Stunning first album for this trio led by Finnish pianist Anni Kiviniemi. It’s clean, balanced, entertaining, but above all it exudes the honesty of its own identity, which finds wonderful ways to express itself.
“Modeled for a classic jazz piano trio, Kiviniemi’s music reaches far beyond, bringing together influences from classical music, Norwegian musical tradition and North African music.”
–Anni Kiviniemi’s Bandcamp
Anni Kiviniemi: piano; Eero Tikkanen: double bass; Hans Hulbaekmo: drums
Released January 12, 2024
Olie Brice, Rachel Musson, Mark Sanders
Immense Blue
(West Hill Records)
Recorded live at the Vortex, London, on the 6th of October 2022, Immense Blue offers an exceptional free jazz experience. The album may start as one expects, but through the three long tracks, the artists magnificently insert personality to their music, building the trio an identity in the freeness of the exercise, making it unique, personal, and nearly intimate.
Olie Brice: double bass; Rachel Musson: tenor sax; Mark Sanders: drums
Released January 14, 2024
Sunny Five
Candid
(Intakt Records)
Tim Berne, David Torn, Marc Ducret, Devin Hoff, and Ches Smith perfectly find each other in this impressive performance. It is complex, striking, and baffling but oddly clear, thanks to what seems a common but mysterious purpose in their electronic explorations.
Tim Berne: alto saxophone; Marc Ducret: Vendramini guitars and table guitar; Devin Hoff: electric bass; Ches Smith: drums, electronics; David Torn: electric guitar, live multi-looping
Release date January 19, 2024
Ulysses Owens Jr. and Generation Y
A New Beat
(Cellar Music Group)
“I feel that since Hargrove left us, there was a void on the scene. My hope is for Generation Y to fill that musical void of being a quintet that’s swinging, playing in the Blues, and Soul tradition of the music and honoring our elders.”
–Ulysses Owens Jr.
Mission accomplished! A New Beat is a remarkable album, so pleasant to listen to. Ulysses Owens is playing amazingly well, it is mesmerizing.
Ulysses Owens: drums; Sarah Hanahan, Erena Terakubo: alto saxophone; Benny Benack III, Anthony Hervey: trumpet; Luther Allison, Tyler Bullock: piano; Philip Norris, Ryoma Takenaga: bass; Milton Suggs: voice
Release date January 19, 2024
Keiji Haino, Jim O’Rourke, Oren Ambarchi
With Pats On The Head, Just One Too Few Is Evil One Too Many Is Good That’s All It Is
(Black Truffle)
This release (a triple LP) is more on the rock side than the jazz side, but the experimentations and improvisations unfoaling here will definitely delight of the fans of this genre.
The music, despite its abrupt reality, is strangely calm, relaxing even compared to the genre. Even in moments when the intensity rises, a constant harmony seems to hold everything together, effortlessly. The effect is captivating, like a trance, as if our inner turmoil was forcing us to rest, perhaps to give it time to accomplish this therapy, making all desire for movement disappear, and encouraging us to immerse ourselves entirely in the music.
TL;DR: two hours of music to peacefully balance your inner turmoil.
Oren Ambarchi: drums, percussion; Jim O’Rourke: 6-string bass, electric guitar, synth, electronics; Keiji Haino: guitar, electronics, vocals, flute, snare, oboe
Released January 19, 2024
Amanda Gardier
Auteur: Music Inspired by the Films of Wes Anderson
(Self-Released)
A cold hyperactivity, a bubbling emotion, a theatrical detail, a note like an incomprehension, and many more aspects that capture perfectly Wes Andersons’s films, in a very accurate evocation. But above all, a very good album, in itself.
Amanda Gardier: alto saxophone; Dave King: drums; Charlie Ballantine: guitar; Jesse Wittman: bass
Release date January 26, 2024
Federico Calcagno Octet
Mundus Inversus
(Habitable Records)
On Federico Calcagno’s website, you can read that “his compositional style is a mixed between creative-expressive jazz and post modern classical music, with particular attention to the rhythmic aspect, influenced by classical Indian music from south of India (Carnatic Music) and African music.”
Indeed, Mundus Inversus is impressive. It is advanced, balanced, complex music, yet always rounded by the cohesion of the octet.
Federico Calcagno: bass clarinet, clarinet; Nabou Claerhout: trombone; José Soares: alto saxophone; Pau Sola: cello; Aleksander Sever: vibraphone; Adrián Moncada: piano; Pedro Ivo Ferreira: double bass; Nikos Thessalonikefs: drums
Released January 26, 2024
Antistatic
Relics
(Cuneiform Records)
Relics is the first full-length release by Danish band Antistatic. Their music immediately captures the attention, a kind of hypnosis that plunges you far away, into the darkness, into some universe strangely comfortable, making it impossible to stop or pause it. The experience could be compared to what you would get with a Natural Information Society without the reeds nor the curls, or with a square Horse Lords, somewhere unobvious in between jazz and experimental rock.
“It’s as if Antistatic is a rock band that’s been repurposed as a percussion ensemble, an observation the musicians happily accept. This is rock / ‘zen funk’ with a very distinctive, dry performance edge!”
–Antistatic’s Bandcamp
Søren Høi: drums; Laust Moltesen Andreasen: guitar; Mads Ulrich: guitar; Janus Bagh: bass
Releases January 26, 2024
Discover the
Jazz January 2024 – New Records Selection
- Matthew Shipp, Steve Swell – Space Cube Jazz (RogueArt)
- Anni Kiviniemi Trio – Eir (We Jazz)
- Olie Brice, Rachel Musson, Mark Sanders – Immense Blue (West Hill Records)
- Sunny Five – Candid (Intakt Records)
- Ulysses Owens Jr. and Generation Y – A New Beat (Cellar Music Group)
- Keiji Haino, Jim O’Rourke, Oren Ambarchi – With Pats On The Head, Just One Too Few Is Evil One Too Many Is Good That’s All It Is (Black Truffle)
- Amanda Gardier – Auteur: Music Inspired by the Films of Wes Anderson (Self-Released)
- Federico Calcagno Octet – Mundus Inversus (Habitable Records)
- Antistatic – Relics (Cuneiform Records)
Playlist
Listen to these tracks on our Spotify playlist.