Over the past decade, there many incredible jazz releases from a number of new rising exploratory artists looking to explore new ground and continue to push the music forward. With jazz having an overall strong resurgence in places like London, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Melbourne and numerous of other cities and regions globally, it’s great to look back at some of the most essential albums from the past ten years.

To help celebrate what was, in my opinion, a strong and revitalized period for jazz, I’ve compiled a top ten list of favorite and most essential recordings of the 2010s. I choose records that I both really enjoyed, and the ones that I felt helped push the music forward.

As with all lists, they are purely subjective, and compiling this list was definitely challenging. Hopefully you’ll find the list interesting and it might even encourage you took look back at some of your favorite recordings from the past decade.

With that being said, here is BeatCaffeine’s favorite jazz albums of the decade.

10. The Last Electro-Acoustic Space Jazz & Percussion Ensemble (Madlib) — ‘Miles Away’
(2010 / Stones Throw Records)

Madlib aka Otis Jackson Jr. is one of the most innovative producers and beat-makers of our time who has been the mastermind behind critically acclaimed projects such as Lootpack, Quasimoto, Jaylib, Madvillain and many others. Known early on for his hip-hop productions and mixes, the Los Angeles-based artist has also made his mark producing groove-heavy jazz music under aliases like Yesterday’s Universe All Stars, Yesterdays New Quintet, and Young Jazz Rebels featuring a cast of basically made-up musicians like Ahmad Miller, Monk Hughes, and Morgan Adams III to just name a few. Back in 2010 under the alias The Last Electro-Acoustic Space Jazz & Percussion Ensemble, Madlib released the incredible Miles Away album, which payed tribute to jazz greats Horace Tapscott, Roy Ayers, John Coltrane, Phil Ranelin, Woody Shaw and others. Similar to some of his jazz-focused records that preceded Miles Away, the ten-track recording was a brilliant crossover of looping head-nodding instrumental beats, spiritual tones, and spacey hypnotic melodies. The album is one of the greatest jazz records to use a blended mix of samples and over-dubbed instrumentation, blurring the lines between jazz, hip-hop, and beat music. 

 
 

9. Matthew Halsall — ‘Fletcher Moss Park’
(2012 / Gondwana Records)

Manchester based trumpeter, composer, arranger and Gondwana Records label boss Matthew Halsall has been one of the most notable jazz artists and musical minds of the past decade, recording numerous solo albums and pushing forward other incredible acts like GoGo Penguin, Nat Birchall, Portico Quartet, Mammal Hands, Allysha Joy and others. For his fourth full length album, Halsall pays a heartfelt tribute to Manchester’s Fletcher Moss Park, an important personal retreat from his more hectic inner-city environment. The seven-track album beautifully blends together moody modal jazz melodies, atmospheric tones, and spiritual grooves featuring an incredibly strong cast of musicians that have played a foundational part in many of Halsall’s other recordings. Fletcher Moss Park captures a strong essence of the Gondwana label, and the jazz sounds coming out of Manchester.

 
 

8. Emanative — ‘The Light Years Of The Darkness’
(2015 / Steve Reid Foundation / Brownswood Recordings)

Originally released to help raise awareness and funds for the Steve Reid Foundation, which is a non-profit organization that aims to help people working in music who are in crisis, the highly collaborative 2015 album led by drummer and producer Emanative (aka Nick Woodmansey), titled The Light Years Of The Darkness, featured incredible new renditions of music by Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Don Cherry, Sun Ra, Joe Henderson, Arthur Blythe, and Mary Parks. This brilliant album blends together spiritual jazz grooves and funky cosmic rhythms features a superb cast of multi-generational guests, that include Yussef Dayes, Jessica Lauren, Tamar “Collocutor” Osborn, Liz Elensky, Ahmed Abdullah, Kieran “Fourtet” Hebden, The Pyramid’s Idris Ackamoor, Kenneth Nash, Rob Gallagher of The Diabolical Liberties and Earl Zinger, Kevin G Davy, Valerie Etienne and so many others.

 
 

7. GoGo Penguin — ‘2.0’
(2014 / Gondwana Records)

The second album from electro-acoustic Manchester trio GoGo Penguin saw the group take their music to new heights, blending jazz, electronic influenced tones, and looping rhythms together to produce an undeniable masterpiece that led to global praise, including Gilles Peterson who called the band “one of the most formidable three piece groups in the world right now”. The overwhelmingly critical-acclaim for the album led to a Mercury Prize ‘Album of the Year’ nomination, and eventually helped the band sign to Blue Note Records. Even though the group has gone on to release a number of other great recordings, 2.0 was the recording that truly put this forward-thinking trio on the map, featuring many of the group’s most notable tracks like “Hopopono”, “Murmuration”, and “Garden Dog Barbecue”. 

 
 

6. Robert Glasper Experiment — ‘Black Radio’
(2012 / Blue Note Records)

Over the past decade, pianist and composer Robert Glasper has been one of the most breakthrough artists blurring the lines between jazz, hip-hop, and R&B. His most acclaimed release to successful incorporate all three genres came out in 2012, titled Black Radio, with his Experiment group featuring multi-instrumentalist (saxophone, synths, and vocoder) Casey Benjamin, bassist Derrick Hodge, and drummer Chris “Daddy” Dave. This highly acclaimed recording also featured some of the most innovative vocalists and rappers in both R&B and hip-hop, including Shafiq Husayn, Erykah Badu, Lalah Hathaway, Bilal, Lupe Fiasco, Ledisi, Yasiin Bey, MeShell Ndegeocello, and many others. Musically the album brilliantly blended together J Dilla-like piano melodies and grooves, spacey synths, funky rhythms, with a mixture of both soulful vocals and rhymes. Definitely one of the most crossover jazz recordings of our time.

 
 

5. Yazz Ahmed — ‘La Saboteuse’
(2017 / Naim Jazz)

British-Bahraini trumpet player and composer Yazz Ahmed received worldwide attention in 2017 for her highly-acclaimed full-length album La Saboteuse. Named ‘Jazz Album of the Year’ by The Wire, and included on just about everyone’s “best of” lists, this incredible recording was a deep exploration of both her British and Bahraini roots, blending together post-bop lyricism, jazz-oriented grooves, Arabic melodies, and cinematic soundscapes, giving the album a strong desert-like feel. This record helped push Ahmed right to the forefront of the UK jazz scene, not only for her unique sound, but her outspokenness about facing down sexism in genre.

 
 

4. Yussef Kamaal — ‘Black Focus’
(2016 / Brownswood Recordings)

Yussef Kamaal was unfortunately a short-lived London-based jazz-funk duo of drummer Yussef Dayes and keyboardist Kamaal Williams (aka Henry Wu). Their only recording, which was released on Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood label, received international praise and was one of the the early albums to help bring global attention to London’s rising underground jazz scene. Beautifully engineered by Malcolm Catto of The Heliocentrics, Black Focus is solid mix of swelling synths and spacey melodies, with driving hypnotic grooves, and hard-hitting percussion rhythms, blending together jazz, house, and UK club culture sounds.

 
 

3. Makaya McCraven — ‘In The Moment’
(2015 / International Anthem)

Chicago-based drummer, composer, and producer Makaya McCraven’s brilliant first recording for International Anthem features some of the best moments taken from 48 hours worth of live improvised performances recorded during his year-long 28 show residency that he held at The Bedford (a small club in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village). Throughout the residency, McCraven invited some of the best upcoming Chicago musicians to join him, which included trumpeter Marquis Hill, guitarist Jeff Parker, tenor saxophonist De’Sean Jones, bassists Joshua Abrams and Junius Paul and many others. From those raw hours of performance, Makaya cut, rendered, and remixed the music into 19 tracks that perfectly blend together elements of electronic beat music, jazz improvisation, and hypnotic funk grooves. Even though this wasn’t the first album released on International Anthem, this is probably the record that helped put it on a global map, with the drummer receiving wide praise for his innovative approaches to jazz and recording. Both Makaya McCraven and the Chicago label have since become two of the most forward-thinking entities in jazz.

 
 

2. Austin Peralta — ‘Endless Planets’
(2011 / Brainfeeder)

This record was Flying Lotus’ Brainfeeder label’s first dive into jazz, helping set the stage for artists like Kamasi Washington, Thundercat, Kneedelus, and others. Unfortunately by the time that many people had realized the genius of the Los Angeles based pianist and composer, he had already sadly passed at the young age of 22 (just nine months after Endless Planets) was released. Peralta, who started out as a young phenom who had been releasing records as a leader since his early teens, was well ahead of his time. As you could imagine, this record dips it’s toes in using electronics, however it mostly captures acoustic jazz improvisation at the highest level, bringing forth the same intensity that we can hear on those classic Strata-East and Muse Records’ recordings. This is one of those albums that will forever stand the test of time, sounding as fresh and current as anything you’ll listening to for years to come.

 
 

1. Kamasi Washington — ‘The Epic’
(2015 / Brainfeeder)

One can make the argument that there probably isn’t a recording that brought more attention to jazz in the past decade than Kamasi Washington’s triple-vinyl album appropriately titled, The Epic. This 173-minute opus captures the fiery and beauty of those classic John Coltrane Quartet recordings on Impulse!, while also capturing the spiritualism of Pharaoh Sanders, the electric fusion explorations of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew, and intensity of Max Roach’s We Insist! Freedom Now Suite, while still sounding new and forward-thinking in it’s overall approach. Featuring a large ensemble that includes two drummers, both acoustic and electric instruments, strings, vocals, and numerous horn players (including Kamasi’s father), the recording is overwhelmingly powerful, yet accessible to fans of jazz, rock, funk, and even electronic music. When the album was released it turned the establishment upside down, and was kind of making a statement (even if it wasn’t the intention) that jazz is a form of music that needs to continuously be evolving and moving forward. The Epic received such wide praise globally, even from some of the more mainstream media outlets, that it helped bring in whole new generations of diverse listeners. This is this generation’s modern day masterpiece that, like so many classic records before it, broke all the rules, and took the music to new heights with it’s approach and overall sound.  

 
 

OTHER ESSENTIAL ALBUMS OF THE DECADE
Ambrose Akinmusire — ‘When The Heart Emerges Glistening’ (2010 / Blue Note Records)
Lloyd Miller & The Heliocentrics — ‘Lloyd Miller & The Heliocentrics (OST)’ (2010 / Strut)
Terri Lyne Carrington — ‘The Mosaic Project’ (2010 / Videoarts Music)
Vijay Iyer Trio — ‘Accelerando’ (2012 / ACT Music)
Indigo Jam Unit — ‘Rebel’ (2012 / Basis Records)
Wayne Shorter Quartet — ‘Without a Net’ (2013 / Blue Note Records)
Brian Blade Fellowship — ‘Landmarks’ (2014 / Blue Note Records)
Joshua Redman — ‘Trios Live’ (2014 / Nonesuch)
The Dining Rooms — ‘Do Hipsters Love Sun (Ra)?’ (2015 / Schema)
James Holden & The Animal Spirits — ‘The Animal Spirits’ (2017 / Border Community)
Joshua Abrams Natural Information Society — ‘Simultonality’ (2017 / Eremite Records)
Kyoto Jazz Sextet – ‘Unity’ (2017 / Extra Freedom)
Sons of Kemet — ‘Your Queen is a Reptile’ (2018 / Impulse!)
Yelfris Valdés — ‘For The Ones …’ (2019 / Musica Macondo)

• Best of
• Jazz