The 20th Annual
Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll:
2025 Mid-Year

Ballot 2025 Mid-Year

James Hale (DownBeat, SoundStageXperience.com)

NEW JAZZ ALBUMS

  1. James Brandon Lewis Quartet, Abstraction Is Deliverance (Intakt)
  2. Branford Marsalis Quartet, Belonging (Blue Note)
  3. Nels Cline, Consentrik Quartet (Blue Note)
  4. Myra Melford, Splash (Intakt)
  5. Kneebody, Reach (GroundUP Music)
  6. Mary Halvorson, About Ghosts (Nonesuch)
  7. Gerald Clayton, Ones & Twos (Blue Note)
  8. Andrew Rathbun, Lost in the Shadows (SteepleChase)
  9. Jeremy Pelt, Woven (HighNote)
  10. Steve Lehman Trio + Mark Turner, The Music of Anthony Braxton (Pi)

RARA AVIS (REISSUES/ARCHIVAL)

  1. Freddie Hubbard, On Fire: Live From the Blue Morocco (1967, Resonance)
  2. Joe Henderson, Multiple (1973, Craft)
  3. Michel Petrucciani Trio, Jazz Club Montmartre (1988, Storyville '24)
  4. Jaki Byard, Blues for Smoke (1960, Candid)
  5. Joe Pass, Virtuoso (1973, Craft)