By Tom Hull

We are all part of a community with a deep commitment to this extraordinary but way-too-often unappreciated musical art, and the late critic Francis Davis believed we should work together and share what we know. His poll was one important way to do just that.

In these times, it’s hard not to feel like your mind is being thrashed by the cascade of politically engineered disasters all around us. As someone who thinks a lot about history, it’s probably harder than any time since the 1930s, especially when you compare the outcomes of choices made by cynicism (in Germany) and naiveté (in the US). Note that last November it was cynicism that prevailed. Lord knows I’ve tried to tone it down and stay calm. All during the long presidential campaign I wrote deeply researched and, I thought, cogently argued weekly reports. After the election — the one moment when people could actually act meaningfully on my research and argument — I turned away and buried myself in work on the 19th Annual Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll. I took it as a personal challenge to expand the poll beyond 2023‘s record 159 voters. We wound up with 177 voters, for our largest (and most international) poll ever.

Recently, I’ve again buried myself in organizing this Mid-Year Poll, our second. While the work involved in each poll is comparable — about a month where most of my time goes to developing the website, vetting and inviting (and nagging) critics, counting their ballots, and finally writing up and publishing the results — its effect on my life is somewhat different this year.

Last year’s poll filled up dead time between election and inauguration, so it mostly served to stave off fears that have since proven prescient. But as it was our 19th annual poll, I felt like my ability to keep the poll going was useful work, especially as Francis Davis was ailing. He died in April, leaving a void that I certainly cannot come close to filling. But, as I have for several years, I can at least help out with the mechanics of this one particular aspect of his vision, and in doing so perhaps extend his legacy. One thing I gleaned from his letters and essays regarding the poll was his sense that we are all part of a community with a deep commitment to this extraordinary but way-too-often unappreciated musical art, and that we should work together and share what we know. His poll was one important way to do just that.

Last year’s Mid-Year Poll filled up a similar, if less frightful, lull in my time. With months still to go before anyone could vote, I noted that nearly every music publication was running some kind of mid-year (“so far”) list, and that none of them were providing any useful review of new jazz releases. I figured I could fix that easily enough: I had the mailing list and the website, a publisher lined up, and the prestige of Francis Davis behind me. It turned out to be as much work as the year-end polls, even as the number of voters fell from 159 to 90 — in retrospect it felt like an off-year election — but the turnout was sufficient to generate a lot of information and insight. Just one example, but it provided a big boost to my own longest-ever Best Jazz of 2024 list.

Today’s mid-year jazz poll covers the same ground in the same way, but feels different. Last year we were building something new. This year we’re keeping something old going, struggling to hold back the rot, the stench, the assaults of a new barbarism. I’m sorry for bringing politics into this. I don’t believe that there is anything inherently political in art, except when politics turns fascist and attempts to exterminate critical thought: that’s when creativity itself turns into a struggle to survive. And that’s where we’re heading, and to a large extent already are. Listening to jazz may not give you quite the sense of solidarity as going to a demonstration does, but it sets you apart, gets you thinking, gives you something to care about — things fascism cannot abide. (And while I was pretty critical of the utility of “fascist” as a label last year, no other word adequately conveys the dead weight and despair of our increasingly oppressive political system.)

I’m not going to attempt any big picture explanation of what we’ve learned through this poll. (I’ve asked Jon Garelick to help out there.) Rather, I just want to offer it as data: a playground for exploration and discovery. To a data nerd like me, what matters most can be summed up in a few numbers: 113 critics, who voted for 441 new jazz albums, and 134 rara avis (Francis’s term for albums of older music, even if previously unreleased). More than half of those albums I hadn’t even heard of before I started the poll. To get an idea of how much I learned already from the poll, you can look at my recent Music Week posts (or the June archive, or my own perpetually-in-progress best of list). And that still leaves more than I can possibly get around to hearing.

New Jazz Albums

We asked our critics to list up to 10 new jazz releases from 2025, with allowances for late-breaking new discoveries from 2024. Many of the lists came in as unranked — jazz critics are an egalitarian sort, so I’ve tried to soft-pedal the ranking and just ask for a few albums they’d like to recommend to friends. But most did provide ranked lists, even while aware that many albums are unique and not easily comparable, so any list is bound to be arbitrary and tentative. (Last year Larry Blumenfeld wrote an essay on this, but also voted.)

I did make one tweak to the rules this year, deciding to sort the totals by votes instead of points, so points are only used to break ties among records with the same number of votes. This seemed fairer, given the number of unranked lists, and easier to explain. But the lists below are still in the old format, presenting points first, then votes in parentheses. If that confuses you, just note that more points at a given vote level show that those voters who expressed a preference favored the album with the more points, but we’ve given up on trying to find some magic formula where more points should rank ahead of more votes. (This is all explained at length in the notes on the website.)

The following is just the top 50 of the totals table, with every album receiving 5 or more votes, plus the 5 highest-rated 4-vote albums. The number of votes is in parentheses, preceded by the number of points (the extra reflecting higher position in ranked lists). For the entire 441-album list, go to the archive website. From there you can also see who voted for each album, and what else they voted for.

1. Steve Lehman Trio + Mark Turner, The Music of Anthony Braxton (Pi) 61.8 (35)
2. Mary Halvorson, About Ghosts (Nonesuch) 52.4 (28)
3. Nels Cline, Consentrik Quartet (Blue Note) 38.1 (25)
4. Ambrose Akinmusire, Honey From a Winter Stone (Nonesuch) 46.1 (24)
5. James Brandon Lewis Quartet, Abstraction Is Deliverance (Intakt) 45.9 (24)
6. Sylvie Courvoisier & Mary Halvorson, Bone Bells (Pyroclastic) 37 (24)
7. Branford Marsalis Quartet, Belonging (Blue Note) 42.4 (21)
8. Vijay Iyer & Wadada Leo Smith, Defiant Life (ECM) 34.2 (20)
9. Amina Claudine Myers, Solace of the Mind (Red Hook) 30.7 (18)
10. Ivo Perelman & Matthew Shipp String Trio, Armageddon Flower (TAO Forms) 29.7 (18)

11. Dan Weiss Quartet, Unclassified Affections (Pi) 26.8 (17)
12. James Brandon Lewis Trio, Apple Cores (Anti-) 25.3 (16)
13. Adam O’Farrill, For These Streets (Out of Your Head) 22.3 (15)
14. Isaiah Collier – William Hooker – William Parker, The Ancients (Eremite) 26.6 (14)
15. David Murray Quartet, Birdly Serenade (Impulse!) 19.4 (13)
16. The Hemphill Stringtet, Plays the Music of Julius Hemphill(Out of Your Head) 23.3 (12)
17. Myra Melford, Splash (Intakt) 21.4 (12)
18. Cosmic Ear, Traces (We Jazz) 16.3 (11)
19. Sullivan Fortner, Southern Nights (Artwork) 15.2 (9)
20. Marshall Allen, New Dawn (Mexican Summer) 15.1 (9)

21. John Patitucci, Spirit Fall (Edition) 14.2 (9)
22. Yazz Ahmed, A Paradise in the Hold (Night Time Stories) 11.7 (9)
23. Artemis, Arboresque (Blue Note) 11.3 (9)
24. Carl Allen, Tippin’ (Cellar) 10.6 (9)
25. Marshall Allen’s Ghost Horizons, Live in Philadelphia, Volume 1 (Otherly Love/Ars Nova Workshop) 15.3 (8)
26. Tim Berne – Tom Rainey – Gregg Belisle-Chi, Yikes Too (Screwgun/Out of Your Head) 13.4 (8)
       Billy Hart Quartet, Just (ECM) 13.4 (8)
28. Brandon Woody, For the Love of It All (Blue Note) 11 (8)
29. Joe Lovano, Homage (ECM) 10.6 (8)
30. Terri Lyne Carrington & Christie Dashiell, We Insist 2025! (Candid) 9.2 (7)

31. Keith Jarrett, New Vienna (2016, ECM) 7.2 (7) – Includes 5 (5) from Rara Avis
32. Sophie Agnel & John Butcher, Rare (Les Disques Victo) 9.6 (6)
33. Marty Ehrlich Trio Exaltation, This Time (Sunnyside) 7.8 (6)
34. Noah Preminger, Ballads (Chill Tone) 7.2 (6)
35. Satoko Fujii Tokyo Trio, Dream a Dream (Libra) 6.8 (6)
36. Arturo O’Farrill & the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, Mundoagua: Celebrating Carla Bley (Zoho) 11.4 (5)
37. Linda May Han Oh, Strange Heavens (Biophilia) 9.4 (5)
38. Anouar Brahem, After the Last Sky (ECM) 8.2 (5)
39. Ches Smith, Clone Row (Otherly Love) 7.5 (5)
40. Fred Hersch, The Surrounding Green (ECM) 7.2 (5)

41. Rez Abbasi Acoustic Quintet, Sound Remains (Whirlwind) 6.7 (5)
42. Wolf Eyes X Anthony Braxton, Live at Pioneer Works, 26 October 2023 (ESP-Disk) 6.4 (5)
43. Peter Brötzmann – Jason Adasiewicz – Steve Noble – John Edwards, The Quartet: Cafe Oto, London, Feb, 10 & 11, 2023 (Otoroku) 6.2 (5)
      Brandee Younger, Gadabout Season (Impulse!) 6.2 (5)
45. Tyreek McDole, Open Up Your Senses (Artworks) 5.8 (5)
46. Damon Locks, List of Demands (International Anthem) 8 (4)
47. Alexander Hawkins, Song Unconditional (Intakt) 7 (4)
48. Sasha Berliner, Fantôme (Outside In Music) 6.9 (4)
       Gerald Clayton, Ones & Twos (Blue Note) 6.9 (4)
50. Jeremy Pelt, Woven (HighNote) 6.5 (4)

The list above includes 5 of 12 albums receiving 4 votes. Beyond this, 29 albums received 3 votes (starting at 58), 62 albums received 2 votes (starting at 87), and 289 albums received 1 vote (starting at 149, including 19 albums uniquely ranked first).

A couple of brief notes here. Lehman’s winning album appeared on 30.9% of the ballots. While this seems low, it’s nowhere near the low record, which was Wayne Shorter on 24.2% in 2018, followed by Kris Davis with 26.4% in 2019. Lehman previously won in 2014 with votes on 28.5% of ballots. No one has appeared on more than half the ballots since 2006-07, when we only had 30 voters, and first Ornette Coleman and then Maria Schneider topped 80%.

Nels Cline, Consentrik Quartet. Photo: Nathan West

Four musicians in the top 10 have won previously: Lehman, Mary Halvorson, James Brandon Lewis, and Vijay Iyer. This is the fifth time Ambrose Akinmusire has finished in the top 5. This is the eighth time Wadada Leo Smith has finished in the top 10.

James Brandon Lewis placed albums at 5 and 12, totaling 40 votes from 38 voters. Combining Mary Halvorson’s 2 and 6 albums adds up to even more: 52 votes from 48 voters.

This is the first top-50 showing for the very prolific Ivo Perelman, probably because this was the first time voters focused on a single album of his. In 2024, he received 12 votes, but for 8 different albums.

I’m sure much more will occur to me later. I started looking at point/vote ratios, which should identify intensely liked albums (as opposed to widely popular ones), but I’m finding it very hard to draw any conclusions from the data. Branford Marsalis seems to have the highest ratio (2.019), with Nels Cline (1.524) the lowest in the top 10, but both on the same label, with presumably the same PR. (Ratios tend to drop as you descend the list.)

Rara Avis

We have a second, separate category for reissues and older music, much of it previously unreleased. While comparing new jazz albums is hard enough, factoring in a newly discovered Coltrane or Monk raised more questions than it answered. Francis Davis tried to referee by creating his Rara Avis category, and drawing a sharp line a nice round 10 years ago: anything recorded earlier belongs to Rara Avis, and anything later is considered New.

Of course, reality is somewhat messier. Since his debilitating stroke, ECM has released a steady stream of Keith Jarrett archival tapes, some from way back, like last year’s The Old Country (from 1992), and some falling in our New period, like this year’s New Vienna (from 2016). Despite explicit instructions, the latter got more Rara Avis votes than New, although we wound up counting it both ways — adding votes to New, while keeping the votes it received under Rara Avis.

We asked voters to list up to five albums under Rara Avis, but 25 (22.1%) skipped the category completely, and another 35 listed less than the maximum number of albums.

The following is just the top 32 of the totals table, with every album receiving 4 or more votes, plus the 5 highest-rated 3-vote albums. The number of votes is in parentheses, preceded by the number of points (the extra reflecting high position in ranked lists). For the entire 134-album list, go to the archive website. From there you can also see who voted for each album, and what else they voted for.

1. Charles Mingus, Mingus in Argentina: The Buenos Aires Concerts (1977, Resonance) 42.4 (28)
2. Freddie Hubbard, On Fire: Live From the Blue Morocco (1967, Resonance) 33.2 (25)
3. Kenny Dorham, Blue Bossa in the Bronx: Live From the Blue Morocco (1957, Resonance) 24 (18)
4. Irène Schweizer – Rüdiger Carl – Johnny Dyani – Han Bennink, Irène’s Hot Four (1981, Intakt) 17.8 (11)
5. Music Inc. [Charles Tolliver-Stanley Cowell-Cecil McBee-Jimmy Hopps], Live at Slugs’ Volume I & II (1970, Strata-East/Mack Avenue) 14 (10)
6. Anthony Braxton, Quartet (England) 1985 (Burning Ambulance) 13 (8)
7. Jimmy Lyons, Live From Studio Rivbea: 1974 & 1976 (NoBusiness) 11 (8)
8. Sun Ra, Nuits de la Fondation Maeght (1970, Strut) 10.8 (8)
9. Ella Fitzgerald, The Moment of Truth: Ella at the Coliseum (1967, Verve) 9.8 (7)
10. Stanley Cowell, Musa: Ancestral Streams (1974, Strata-East/Mack Avenue) 9 (6)

11. Ryan Truesdell, Gil Evans Project Live at Jazz Standard, Vol. 2 (2014, Outside In Music) 8.8 (6) – Includes 1 (1) from New Jazz Albums
12. Kenny Burrell With Art Blakey, On View at the Five Spot Café: The Complete Masters (1959, Blue Note) 8.6 (6)
13. John Surman, Flashpoints and Undercurrents (1969, Cuneiform) 6.6 (6)
14. Keith Jarrett, New Vienna (2016, ECM) 8.6 (5)
15. McCoy Tyner & Joe Henderson, Forces of Nature: Live at Slugs’ (1966, Blue Note ’24) 8 (5)
16. James Moody, 80 Years Young: Live at the Blue Note March 26, 2005 (Origin) 7.6 (5)
17. Tim Berne’s Snakeoil, Snakeoil OK (2013, Screwgun) 7.4 (5)
      Dave Burrell & Sam Woodyard, The Lost Session: Paris 1979 (NoBusiness) 7.4 (5)
19. Frank Kimbrough, The Call (2010, Sunnyside) 6.6 (5)
      William Hooker, A Time Within: Live at the New York Jazz Museum, January 14, 1977 (Valley of Search) 6 (5)

21. Bill Evans, Further Ahead: Live in Finland 1964-1969 (Elemental Music) 5.8 (5)
22. Ray Russell Quartet, The Complete Spontaneous Event: Live 1967-1969 (Jazz in Britain) 6 (4)
23. Cecil Taylor & Tony Oxley, Flashing Spirits (1988, Burning Ambulance) 5.6 (4)
24. Pharaoh Sanders, Izipho Zam (My Gifts) (1973, Strata East/Mack Avenue) 5.4 (4)
25. Joe Pass, Virtuoso (1973, Craft) 5.2 (4)
26. Thelonious Monk, Thelonious Himself (1957, Craft) 4.8 (4)
27. Chick Corea, Piano Improvisations Vol. 1 (1971, ECM) 4.6 (4)
28. Michael Gregory Jackson, Frequency Equilibrium Koan (1977, Moved-by-Sound) 5.4 (3)
29. Sun Ra, Uncharted Passages: New York Piano Soliloquies 1977-79 (Modern Marmonic) 4.8 (3)
30. Thelonious Monk, With Sonny Rollins 1953 to 1957 Revisited (Ezz-Thetics) 4.4 (3)
       Wes Montgomery, The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery (1960, Craft) 4.4 (3)
       Art Pepper, An Afternoon in Norway: The Kongsberg Concert (1980, Elemental Music) 4.4 (3)

The list above includes 5 of 11 albums receiving 3 votes. Beyond this, 40 albums received 2 votes (starting at 39), and 55 albums received 1 vote (starting at 79), including 12 albums uniquely ranked first).

As someone who used to write a regular column on Recycled Goods, I have many rather technical thoughts on how this category works (or doesn’t), but I don’t have time or space for that here. One thing I will mention is that there are a small number of critics (close to 10%) who focus their attention on straight vinyl reissues of classic jazz albums — e.g., The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery, which got 3 votes to tie for 30th place — a product category that most other critics (including myself) simply ignore, not for lack of appreciation of the music but because we crave discovery even in the old music section of the poll.

In the year-end polls, Francis asked for votes in three extra categories that he felt were being neglected in most critics’ top-ten lists: Latin jazz — which the downtown Voice never seemed as sufficiently into as he thought a New York paper should be — vocals, and debuts (sort of a “rookie of the year” award). I’ve always found them to be more trouble than they were worth, so to simplify things I skipped them in last year’s mid-year poll, and again this year. (At his request, we did include them in the 2024 poll, and we may do so again in 2025.)

For what it may be worth, it should be possible to figure the probable category winners from the overall standings. I think that would give us:

Latin Jazz:

36. Arturo O’Farrill & the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, Mundoagua: Celebrating Carla Bley (Zoho)

Vocal Jazz:

30. Terri Lyne Carrington & Christie Dashiell, We Insist 2025! (Candid)
45. Tyreek McDole, Open Up Your Senses (Artworks)
51. Tessa Souter, Shadows and Silence: The Erik Satie Project (Noanara Music)

Debut:

27. Brandon Woody, For the Love of It All (Blue Note)
45. Tyreek McDole, Open Up Your Senses (Artworks)

I’m guessing here that Adam O’Farrill (13: For These Streets) wouldn’t have gotten enough votes as Latin Jazz to beat out his father, although he would have gotten some (as Patricia Brennan did last year, with a record O’Farrill played on; both also appear this year on Mary Halvorson’s 2nd place About Ghosts). I’m not seeing any other obvious candidates until Rachel Therrien at 105, although it’s hard to figure.

I mentioned McDole on the off chance that some voters might overlook Dashiel because she’s not the lead artist. Also because he’s the clear runner up for Debut. I skipped over Damon Locks (46: List of Demands) in Vocal because very few voters go for spoken word in this category, but included Souter as within the margin of error. I also skipped Marshall Allen (20: New Dawn), whose album has been hyped as his debut, because, well, it isn’t, and anyone competent to vote in this poll should know better.

Of course, had we asked the question, more voters would have looked deeper down to find more obscure records, which may have been Francis’s point, precisely. But past polls have been so overwhelmingly dominated by Miguel Zenón, Cécile McLorin Salvant, and whoever managed to save his virginity for Blue Note (Woody, this year) that the results were only rarely surprising.

The Voters

Over the years, Francis Davis carefully built up his critical community from an initial 30 New York-centric group to one that spanned the whole nation and ventured somewhat tentatively beyond, regularly polling close to 150 experts with a broad range of interests and tastes, but a deep concern for serious jazz. My greatest fear was that without his leadership the voters would give up and scatter. Indeed, some have given up, or worse, but most have stuck with the project, and I have been gratified with their commitment and generosity. Indeed, even more than discovering so much remarkable music, my greatest pleasure in running this poll has been getting to know our critics better. But I also worked hard last year to stem the attrition by finding and inviting new critics, especially from beyond the US, which helped us reach a new record of 177 voters in 2024.

I shouldn’t be surprised that turnout for a mid-year poll falls off. Critics have less time to prepare, and more distractions, or just better things to do — I’ve heard of some traveling, or just overbooked with concert coverage — and the half-year seems like a less important unit of time to reckon with. I’ve tried to compensate by asking for less: just send me whatever you have. I especially appreciate the voter who took me at my word and sent in just the one album he’s sure of, but many more declined. Last year’s mid-year dropped off from 159 to 90 ballots, so we got a 56.6% turnout. This year we’ve done a bit better: 113 ballots, 63.8% of peak 177.

So hearty thanks to the fine citizens who did step up and participate in this exercise: Paul Acquaro, Scott Albin, Ali Alizadeh [Sir Ali], Glenn Astarita, Hrayr Attarian, Angela Ballhorn, Chris Barton, Joe Bebco, Bill Beuttler, Philip Booth, Mike Borella, Marcela Breton, Stuart Broomer, Bill Brownlee, Dan Buskirk, Nuno Catarino, Jeff Cebulski, John Chacona, Gary Chapin, Troy Collins, J.D. Considine, Mark Corroto, Michael Coyle, David Cristol, Raul da Gama, Jos Demol, Laurence Donohue-Greene, Ken Dryden, Chuck Eddy, John Ephland, Lee Rice Epstein, Steve Feeney, Gary Finney, Phil Freeman, Filipe Freitas, Pat Frisco, Jon Garelick, Ana Gavrilovska, Richard Gehr, Brooks Geiken, Kurt Gottschalk, David A. Graham, Mike Greenblatt, George Grella, Jason Gross, James Hale, Eyal Hareuveni, Andrey Henkin, Geoffrey Himes, Rob Hoff, Larry Hollis, C. Andrew Hovan, Tom Hull, Jim Hynes, Martin Johnson, Matthieu Jouan, Richard B. Kamins, George Kanzler, Yoshi Kato, Glenn Kenny, James Koblin, Elzy Kolb, David Kunian, Martin Laurentius, Will Layman, Devin Leonard, Lance Liddle, Mark Lomanno, Suzanne Lorge, Brad Luen, Phillip Lutz, Paul Medrano, Allen Michie, Bill Milkowski, Ralph A. Miriello, Rick Mitchell, Chris Monsen, John Frederick Moore, Greg Morton, Tim Niland, Piotr Orlov, Phil Overeem, Ted Panken, Terry Perkins, Lawrence Peryer, Sergio Piccirilli, Steve Pick, Derk Richardson, Britt Robson, Fiona Ross, Akira Saito, Bret Saunders, Martin Schray, Gene Seymour, John Sharpe, Adam Shatz, Rob Shepherd, Stewart Smith, Jeffrey St. Clair, Sammy Stein, Mark Sullivan, Dave Sumner, Derek Taylor, Michael Ullman, Ludwig vanTrikt, Fabricio Vieira, Philip Watson, Ken Waxman, Jason Weiss, Michael J. West, Jerome Wilson, Ron Wynn, Kazue Yokoi.

Tom Hull studied sociology and worked in engineering, but also wrote rock criticism in the 1970s, and the Village Voice’s Jazz Consumer Guide from 2005 to 2011. He continues to blog, and has over 20,000 short reviews on his website