The 10 best contemporary albums of 2024
Astrid Sonne’s sonic odyssey led her to Auto-Tune experiments, Caroline Shaw took Emily Dickinson into junkyard hip-hop and Nala Sinephro went space-age
Zakir Hussain obituary
Virtuoso tabla player whose work with a variety of musicians included composing for films
Martial Solal obituary
French jazz pianist who loved to improvise and wrote the score for Jean-Luc Godard’s film A Bout de Souffle
Sun Ra Arkestra: Lights on a Satellite review – fitting tribute to a century of jazz
As saxophonist and band leader Marshall Allen turns 100, his evergreen outfit effortlessly draw on their rich history, as classics meet the cosmic
The 10 best global albums of 2024
DJ Love celebrated car horns, Kenyan metalhead Lord Spikeheart traversed trap and doom, while 82-year-old Milton Nascimento joined forces with Esperanza Spalding
The 10 best jazz albums of 2024
A Mercury prize winner, a host of fresh collaborations and a posthumous release of a much-lauded live performance are all among the year’s standouts
‘They felt they couldn’t market us to white people’: 90s hip-hop iconoclasts Digable Planets return
As they mark the 30th anniversary of album Blowout Comb, the Grammy-winning trio revisit their egalitarian ethos, anti-fascist lyrics and Pink Floyd influences
Papa Noël obituary
Congolese guitarist and songwriter who toured Europe with TPOK Jazz and gave a celebrated ‘unplugged’ performance at Womad in 2000
Laurie Anderson: Ark: United States V review – a long and winding bid to make sense of America
Contemplating a world of catastrophe and collapse, the veteran artist’s new three-hour show, though much too long and diffuse, has moments of poignancy – and joy
Lars Danielsson/ Verneri Pohjola/ John Parricelli: Trio review – wine chateau sessions mingle mature sensibilities
Bassist Danielsson, guitarist Parricelli and trumpeter Pohjola combine folksy melodies, Latin grooves and free-roaming improv on this lustrous album
Jungle, funk and 14th-century Arabic astronomers: piano virtuoso Pat Thomas on his journey through jazz
He started out playing a cardboard piano, but became a key figure in the improv scene. Now at 64, the musician is having a moment with his danceable quartet [Ahmed]
Jeff Parker & ETA IVtet The Way Out of Easy review – a captivating, unhurried ebb and flow
Recorded in a single evening, the American guitarist and his LA bandmates revel in trading ideas and moods over four extended pieces
Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat review – superb study of how jazz got caught between the cold war and the CIA
Johan Grimonprez’s fascinating documentary uses the assassination of DRC prime minister Patrice Lumumba to launch a dizzying look into the politics of jazz in the 1950s and 60s
Roy Haynes obituary
Jazz drummer who played with Charlie Parker and John Coltrane and earned the nickname Snap Crackle for his crisp style
Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat review – finger-popping theory of the conspiracy to kill Congo’s leader
Johan Grimonprez’s fascinating documentary suggests that the US used jazz legend Louis Armstrong in a ‘cool war’ offensive to assassinate Patrice Lumumba