Music Monday: Some New Music in the New Year (and one old album)

I’ve been surfing the various year end lists to find albums that I missed when they came out this year. This year, I did a pretty good job keeping abreast of new releases, but there are always a few that catch me.

First, I think the Guardian list named Michael Wollny’s album Living Ghosts their album of the year in 2025. It is a great album and whether it was the best album to drop this year is less relevant to me than the sheer pleasure I have had listening to it. 

Check it out here. 

I’m also enjoying Jaleel Shaw’s 2025 release, Painter of the Invisible. I think I discovered this on DownBeat‘s year end review.  I’ve known Shaw in some ensembles (including Nduduzo Makhathini, In the Spirit of Nu (2022) which I very much enjoyed), but I haven’t known him as a solo artist (and from what I can gather he’s released relatively few albums as leader). Anyway, the album is very enjoyable and lyrical without necessarily pushing any limits. His alto saxophone feels very much, of the moment where technical flamboyance has given way to lyrical command and tone.   

Along similar alto saxophone lines, but from a very different time and place, check out Hank Crawford’s Help Me Make it Through the Night (1972) on Creed Taylor’s Kudu imprint of his CTI label. “Ham” is a bit of an Allstar outing with Grover Washington Jr. on tenor, Pepper Adams on baritone, Eric Gale in guitar,  Airto Moreira on drums, Idris Muhammad on piano and Ron Carter on bass. The rest of the album featured more common Kudu arrangements and musicians and that means STRINGS.

I’ve been thinking about doing a deep dive into the Kudu label sometime this year, and if you enjoy this album, you’ll know why.