Well, my best of list for 2024 grew to the biggest number since I’ve been doing this – 92 albums! I listened to a whole lot of music this year and there was SO much great stuff! During the second half of December, when all the “best of” lists start coming out, I usually compare my list with all the others to see how “out of sync” or “in sync” my music taste is with the critics. This year, I thought I would highlight a few of my favorite albums that were underrated in my opinion and didn’t show up on any of the other year end lists that I checked out.
BrhyM – Deep Sea Vents – Bruce Hornsby rose to fame in the mid 80s with big hits such as “The Way it Is” and “Mandolin Rain”. In my opinion, his most interesting work has been done in the past decade. His past four consecutive albums have been so consistently creative and original! His newest project BrhyM is a collaboration with the art chamber ensemble yMusic. Their album Deep Sea Vents is a deep dive into avant-pop music – at times abstract, at times jubilant – all against a backdrop of Oceanic themes.
Christopher Hoffman – Vision Is the Identity – Cellist Christopher Hoffman has been playing with saxophonist/composer Henry Threadgill for over a decade as a member of his band Zoid. His album new album, Vision is the Identity, is a strange mix of apparent influences. I can hear little bits of free jazz, funk, 8-bit video game music, death metal, The Residents, and modern classical composition. It somehow all works, and is simultaneously soulful and whimsical.
AJ Lee & Blue Summit – City of Glass – During the past three decades living in Grass Valley, I have enjoyed attending the annual Father’s Day Bluegrass Festival at the Nevada County Fairgrounds. I’ve seen AJ Lee perform through the years since she was just a little kid, and it has been such an inspiration to witness her growth through the years as a musician, performer and songwriter. City of Glass is her band Blue Summit’s finest album to date in my opinion, and also is their first record featuring the amazing singing and playing of Scott Gates.
Víkingur Ólafsson – Continuum – Back in 2018, Iclandic pianist Vikingur Olafsson released an epic recording of Bach’s keyboard works which included 35 tracks. It was my introduction to Olafsson and is still one of my very favorite albums of Bach’s music. His new EP Continuum is made of of piano transcriptions of some of Bach’s orchestral and organ works, and as such is a very unique Bach piano record. The entire album has a contemplative vibe and is quite beautiful!
Wayne Shorter – Celebration Vol 1 (Live) – The artistry of Wayne Shorter is vast! He was one of the greatest improvisers, composers, and bandleaders of our time, and has been an enormous influence on my artistic life. My band Tumble has recorded three of his compositions, and we curated and performed in a special Wayne Shorter Tribute concert in November of 2023. You can check out my blog post all about Wayne and his impact on my life here. I have been blessed to have seen him perform live eight times through the years. Celebration is the first posthumous album of his to be released since his death in March of 2023. Put simply, his final quartet featuring Brian Blade (drums), John Patitucci (bass), and Danilo Perez (piano), were one of the greatest improvising bands of all time. Celebrations Volume 1 is a recording of a full concert from this band at the Stockholm Jazz Festival in 2014. It is stellar!
The Smile – Cutouts – In 2019, Radiohead members Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood started experimenting as a trio with Sons of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner. This would eventually become their new band The Smile. Since Radiohead have not put out any new music since 2016, The Smile appear to be be Thom and Jonny’s current primary musical outlet. In 2024, they released two albums: Wall of Eyes and Cutouts. Wall of Eyes has shown up on MANY year end lists but not so with Cutouts. Both albums are really great, but if I had to choose between the two of them, I would go with Cutouts. It’s the looser and weirder album of the two, sounds less like Radiohead than WoE, and has a good bit of African polyrhythmic influence.
Here’s my complete List. In alphabetical order:
Favorite albums of 2024
Ryan Adams – Sword & Stone
Arooj Aftab – Night Reign
Melissa Aldana – Echoes of the Inner Prophet
Michael Attius – Quartet Music Vol. 1: LuMiSong
Beyonce – Cowboy Carter
Andrew Bird – Sunday Morning Put-On
Andrew Bird & Madison Cunningham – Cunningham Bird
Blue Highway – Lonesome State of Mind
Johnny Blue Skies – Passage du Desir
Bon Iver – Sable
Matthieu Bordenave – The Blue Land
Geof Bradfield – Colossal Abundance
Leon Bridges – Leon
Broken Compass Bluegrass – Through These Trees
BrhyM – Deep Sea Vents
Tim Bulkley, David Dvorin & Randy McKean – Stinson
Becky Buller – Jubilee
T Bone Burnett – The Other Side
Compton & Newberry – Home In My Heart
Alessandro Cortini – Emosfere
The Coward Brothers – The Coward Brothers
Miles Davis – Miles in France 1963 & 1964
Dawes – O Brother
Bryce Dessner – Manhunt
Dirtwire – La Selva
Father John Misty – Mahashmashana
Fennesz – Mosaic
Finom – Not God
Fire! – Testament
Nils Frahm – Day
Amaro Freitas – Y’Y
Beth Gibbons – Lives Outgrown
Brandon Godman – I Heard the Morgan Bell
Ben Goldberg, Todd Sickafoose & Scott Amendola – Here to There
The Grascals – 20
Devin Gray – Melt All the Guns II
Half Waif – See You at the Maypole
Mary Halvorson – Cloudward
Arve Henriksen & Harmen Fraanje – Touch of Time
Hermanos Gutierrez – Sonido Cósmico
Christopher Hoffman – Vision Is the Identity
Brittany Howard – What Now
Iron & Wine – Light Verse
Eiko Ishibashi – Evil Does Not Exist
Vijay Iver – Compassion
Keith Jarrett – The Old Country
Sarah Jarosz – Polaroid Lovers
Jonsi – First Light
Ariel Kalma, Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sophia Honer – The Closest Thing to Silence
Paul Kamm & Eleanore MacDonald – Djuna’s Lullaby
Bronwyn Keith-Hynes – I Built a World
Tim Koh & SUN AN – Salt & Sugar Look the Same
Simone Lamsma, Candida Thompson & The Amsterdam Sinfonietta – Part Uber Bach
Anja Lechner – Bach – Abel – Hume
AJ Lee & Blue Summit – City of Glass
Bruce Liu – WAVES (Music by Satie)
Charles Lloyd – The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow
Lux Quartet – Tomorrow Land
Andrew Marlin – Phthalo Blue
Ron Miles – Old Main Chapel
Kacey Musgraves – Deeper Well
The Necks – Bleed
Aoife O’Donovan – All My Friends
Víkingur Ólafsson – Continuum
Fabiano Palladino – Fabiano Palladino
Phosphorescent – Revelator
Pixies – The Night the Zombies Came
Po Ramblin’ Boys – Wanderers Like Me
Prefuse 73 – New Strategies for Modern Crime – Volume 1
Dawn Richard & Spencer Zahn – Quiet in a World Full of Noise
Ric Robertson – Choices and Chains
Laetitia Sadier – Rooting for Love
Marta Sanchez Trio – Perpetual Void
Caution Shonhai & Vitalis Botsa – 2022 Volume 2
Wayne Shorter – Celebration Vol 1 (Live)
Bryan Simpson – The Oldest
Sister Sadie – No Fear
Tom Skinner – Voices of Bishara
The Smile – Wall of Eyes
The Smile – Cutouts
Wadada Leo Smith & Amina Claudine Myers – Central Park’s Mosaics of Reservoir, Lake, Paths & Gardens
Tyshawn Sorey – The Susceptible Now
Billy Strings – Highway Prayers
SUSS – Birds & Beasts
Taylor Swift – The Tortured Poets Department
Alexandre Tharaud – Bach
Total Blue – Total Blue
Colin Vallon – Samares
Anna Webber – simpletrio2000
Gillian Welch & Dave Rawlings – Woodland
Wilco – Hot Sun Cool Shroud
Nilufer Yanya – My Method Actor