The year in piano trios

Noteworthy jazz albums featuring the format are plentiful in 2024

Surveying the year in jazz so far, one theme stands out: Piano trios are everywhere. I’ve heard more than a dozen noteworthy new records featuring the piano-bass-drums format in 2024, and I ran down some of my favorites in a new Critic’s Notebook piece for the Times — gift link here.

Albums under discussion, with Bandcamp links where applicable, include:

-Tyshawn Sorey Trio, The Susceptible Now (w/ Aaron Diehl, Harish Raghavan)
-Kim Cass, Levs (w/ Matt Mitchell, Sorey)
-Kris Davis Trio, Run the Gauntlet (w/ Robert Hurst, Johnathan Blake)
-Tarbaby, You Think This America (Orrin Evans, Eric Revis, Nasheet Waits)
-Bill Charlap Trio, And Then Again (Peter Washington, Kenny Washington)
-Matthew Shipp Trio, New Concepts in Piano Trio Jazz (Michael Bisio, Newman Taylor Baker)
-Vijay Iyer, Compassion (w/ Linda May Han Oh, Sorey)
-Marta Sanchez Trio, Perpetual Void (w/ Chris Tordini, Savannah Harris)
-Matt Mitchell, Zealous Angles (w/ Tordini, Dan Weiss)

Space constraints prevented me from going deeper on the following, but I’ve been digging all these as well:

-Ethan Iverson, Technically Acceptable (w/ Thomas Morgan, Kush Abadey, plus Simón Willson and Vinnie Sperrazza). No one writes like Iverson, and the droll charm of his compositional style is on full display here. (Rounding out the trio material on this disc is Iverson’s first piano sonata, which my friend Seth Colter Walls highlighted back in January.)

-Luther Allison, I Owe It All to You (w/ Boris Kozlov, Zach Adleman). An irresistably warm and swinging debut from the Charlotte-born pianist, who has worked with Samara Joy.

-John Zorn, Ballades (w/ Brian Marsella, Jorge Roeder and Ches Smith). The third in a series of Tzadik albums featuring this lineup playing pieces by Zorn. To my ear, a seamless hybrid of jazz and classical approaches. No other album cited here sounds anything like this one — a must-hear.

-Nduduzo Makhathini, uNomkhubulwane (w/ Zwelakhe-Duma Bell le Pere, Francisco Mela). Three expansive suites, offering a satisfying balance of churning intensity and uplifting melody.

The line had to be drawn somewhere, but let it be known that there’s also a new George Cables trio disc out next month! (I Hear Echoes, with Essiet Essiet and Jerome Jennings.)

As I mention in the piece, beyond the enjoyment to be found in each of these, what’s exciting to me is the sheer variety. There’s really no baseline sound for the modern piano trio — I hear value and potential in all these paths. Hope you find something to dig here, and if I’ve missed any 2024 piano-trio efforts, please let me know!