And the results are ...
#1, Anna Högberg Attack - Ensammseglaren (Fonstret)
After a brief public hiatus from music, in which our 2025 top album winner Anna Högberg worked as a nurse and on her music, the Swedish saxophonist is back with her group, albeit with a refreshed line-up and a bunch of new ideas. Ensammseglaren is a moody masterpiece, steeped in the mourning of her father's passing, Högberg digs deep. Here is what Ferruccio Martinotti writes:
Heavy clouds are incumbent, waters are grey, rotten seaweed all over, the air smells of storm: haunted atmosphere, shows the picture; amazing, jaw dropping sounds, shows the Attack. The distorted, infectious drone guitars, the atonal piano interventions don’t leave any doubt, the boat is at the mercy of the streams, peace turning into chaos and the other way around, a very few and foggy landmarks. But when the band unfolds all the sails and set a large ensemble route, even delivering almost fanfare-esque texture, here it really seems that such a collective dimension could be powerfully helpful to ease the mourning: not yet a flat sea, still some malevolent, sinister waves but the navigation became more secure and some rays of sun is now able to pierce the leaden sky.
Read the full review here.
#2, Wadada Leo Smith & Sylvie Courvoisier - Angel Falls (Intakt Records)
Coming in second place in our vote is the excellent duo recording from trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and pianist Sylvie Courvoisier. It is such a stuning album that we had not one but three reviews of it! Writer Don Phipps describes it well:
Dissonance. Abstraction. Tonal clusters. Flurries. Rolling ostinatos. Ornate and defiant piercings. These are some of the various musical elements of Angel Falls, a striking masterpiece of space and sound generated by two of the best – the legendary Mississippi-born Wadada Leo Smith on trumpet (now 83) and the always fascinating Swiss pianist Sylvie Courvoisier. The duo draws on a range of influences and idioms to construct their tone poems. From the formal classical side, one can hear degrees of impressionism, Messiaen abstractions, and Charles Ives. Then there are bouncy, jagged blues passages (the ending of “Naomi’s Peak”) and of course plenty of improvisatory and experimental jazz.Check out what Don, Stef and Ferruccio said about the album.
#3, Rodrigo Amado The Bridge - Further Beyond (Trost)
In 2023 the top spot went to saxophonist Rodrigo Amado for his recording with his then new quartet "The Bridge." Beyond the Margins captured the collective's ears then and now, two years later, a second recording from the group has again hit the spot...
Eyal Hareuveni, in his review, writes:
The quartet itself is a collective platform for creating free music that has a rare, ever-expanding, and uplifting spiritual power, with a rich perspective of the past and the present, bound in tradition while breaking free of it.
Read the rest here.
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And so now entering 2026 ... it’s clear that the 2020s remain as unsettled as when they began, but the music we’ve been hearing—and the releases coming soon—prove that the creative music community is still strong, inventive, and ready to find new sounds. As always, "a big hand" to you to our readers, writers, and musicians for your engagement, your critiques, and your trust. You all are the reason we can keep talking about the music that matter to us all.
Thank you from us at the Free Jazz Collective
