Three New and Notable Jazz Releases to Usher in the New Year 

Even with the strength of legacy, surviving pedigree artists, academic pedagogy and diligent publicity, jazz remains in a kind of gilded niche. The genre of jazz can appear anchored through an uneasy truce between traditionalists, electric-leaning contemporary, “soft” jazz, hip-hop savvy collaborations and the nebulous wild frontier of sheer improvisation.

But there are nuances in the style and motivations of the artists working within the jazz music paradigm. And the new year of 2025 brings even more new jazz albums, with the collector and consumerist enticement of jazz specialty labels continuing issue many new and archival releases on high-quality LP and CD pressings. Jacksonville Music Experience offers a sampling of three new, varied jazz releases that kick off the new year.

On Gravity (releases January 31, We Jazz Records) by the Joona Toivanen Trio, the session featuring pianist Joona Toivanen, bassist Tapani Toivanen and drummer Olavi Louhivuori offers the equivalent of an audio screengrab of the contemporary Scandinavian jazz scene.

Formed in 1997, the Finnish-based ensemble boasts an impressive catalog of unique, cerebral music. The title track sets the scene, opening with a glacial arco bass drone, Toivanen plays a prodding them that alternates between ascension and descending, as Olavi Louhivuori’s toms thunder through the ambient reverb mix; all then dissolves as Toivanen plays a Satie-like passage. “Intersect” and “Density” are studies in texture and diminished chording. The heavily-processed instrumentation of “Rotating Dust” and “(Maybe in the) Future” owe more to minimalism and drone than any bop tradition. There’s a sameness to the 12 tracks of Gravity: a decision that could arguably be based more on consistency of mood than redundancy. But for any open-eared jazz-curious types, the telepathic playing and icy-hued intimacy of Gravity will lift them out of any false expectations of jazz music caricatures. 

More than a decade since his passing at the age of 84, and the influence and legacy of Kenny Wheeler lives on. The Canadian composer-trumpeter-flugelhornist was conservatory trained and arrived in London while still in his teens, shifting casually from the straight-ahead swing of drummer Ronnie Scott to helping co-create the thorny European improv scene with (amongst others) guitarist Derek Bailey and saxophonist Evan Parker. Adept at chamber jazz as much as free-jazz bellows, his 1980 release Around 6 (ECM Records) is a good indicator of the emotional and tonal gradients and nuance of Wheeler’s music.

Some Days Are Better: The Lost Scores (releases January 31, Greenleaf Music) is a collection of large-scale, big band compositions by Wheeler. Over the course of the collection’s 11 performances, the Royal Academy of Music Jazz Orchestra and Frost Jazz Orchestra are joined by a group of players and (in the appearance of Evan Parker) peers of Wheeler. Opener “Smatta” highlights pianist Scottie Thompson and trumpeter Ingrid Jensen shifting through the tune’s unexpected chord changes. The shifting, joyful chromaticism of “Everybody Knows It” is propelled by jabbing, unison horn lines and the pointed swing of the rhythm section, Eric Law peeling out a swirling alto saxophone solo, counterpointed by a measured, pointillistic solo by trumpeter John Daversa, while MVP goes to the octave-leaping vocals of Maria Quintanilla. 

Recorded during a weeklong residency at NYC’s famed jazz club the Village Vanguard, Southern Nights (releases February 14, Artwork Records) features pianist Sullivan Fortner and his band (Peter Washington on bass and Marcus Gilmore on drums) in fine form. While the New Orleans-born Fortner and band offer an impressive rendering of the title track, written by fellow Crescent City native Allen Toussaint, the performance of Osvaldo Farres’s “Tres Palabras” combines both the sensitivity and confidence that makes the piano trio such an appealing format; in this case filtered through a Caribbean-tinged vibe, tethered together with lyrical solos by Washington and Fortner. The deep blue balladry of “Again, Never” (originally penned by Bill Lee, director Spike Lee’s father) swings gently with brushwork by Gilmore, and invokes Bill Evans at his most melancholy. Over the course of the nine tracks of Southern Nights, the band also covers tunes by Cole Porter, Clifford Brown and Woody Shaw.