The best albums of 2025 so far
Bon Iver straddles stark indie-folk and poppy R&B while PinkPantheress makes an unarguable case for going out out as we revisit six months of the music you mustn’t miss
From Van Gogh to Superman: Keep cool with our guide to the summer’s best arts and entertainment
From a very hungry crocodile to some equally famished zombies, a superstar Compton rapper to a Smallville superhero: our critics choose the eye-opening arts events that will dazzle you over the next few months
Mary Halvorson: About Ghosts review – restless beauty from jazz’s shape-shifting guitarist
The Brooklyn boundary-pusher’s expanded ensemble returns with a kaleidoscopic blend of angular rhythms, intricate melodies and thrilling improvisations
Fancy a masterpiece? Just pop one in your basket! V&A’s new open-access outpost will thrill art-lovers
The Victoria & Albert’s new warehouse boasts a mind-boggling 250,000 artefacts. Our art critic tries its ‘order an object’ service and gets intimate with some national treasures – including ‘the biggest Picasso in the world’
‘I wanted to make people dance, or cry, or puke’: Marc Ribot, the wildcard sideman for Tom Waits, Robert Plant and more
He started as a jazz guitarist making Barbie albums on the side, and has ended up on over 500 releases. From bebop with Elton John to Americana with Alison Krauss, Ribot recalls the richest of careers
Ronald Atkins obituary
Guardian jazz critic for over 30 years who also contributed widely to respected music books
The Marching Band review – tender French concert bromance gets out the trombones
Two strong leads in Pierre Lottin and Benjamin Lavernhe make this heart-on-sleeve but unsentimental class drama a triumph in a minor key
Barbara Underwood obituary
Other lives: Jazz vocalist and singing teacher who got the academic bug later in life
Sun-Mi Hong: Fourth Page: Meaning of a Nest review – storytelling and adventure from feted Korean jazz composer
Ideas of migration and self-discovery inspire the latest album from Hong and her imaginative band, entwined with harmonies and delicate effects
‘Jazz isn’t about perfection’: drummer Billy Cobham on Miles Davis, Massive Attack and still learning at 80
After a grounding with genre greats, he fused jazz with rock to outrageously funky effect. Ahead of UK dates, he explains why two prosthetic hips aren’t slowing him down
‘I felt caught between cultures’: Mongolian musician Enji on her beguiling, border-crossing music
She started singing in her family’s yurt before a Goethe-Institut residency led her to jazz and life in Munich. The distance from home is ‘bittersweet’ – but both styles, she says, are about trusting your instinct
‘Tragedy to transcendence’: Alice Coltrane exhibit honors jazz legend’s sonic and spiritual legacy
Monument Eternal at Los Angeles’s Hammer Museum showcases the life, music and writing of the groundbreaking artist also known as Turiya
UK jazz star Emma-Jean Thackray: ‘I had the word weirdo thrust upon me. So I’m reclaiming it’
Autistic and with ADHD, the chart-topping musician always felt out of step – and then she had to face terrible grief. She explains how her new album helped her survive
Idris Ackamoor Ankhestra, Rhodessa Jones, Danny Glover: Artistic Being review – powerful live set from the Afrofuturist and friends
This San Francisco session released for Record Store Day sets spoken word to Ackamoor’s uncompromising but joyous spiritual jazz
Trajal Harrell: The Köln Concert review – Keith Jarrett’s bestselling 70s jazz album made visible
Zürich Dance Ensemble’s extraordinary dancers, led by choreographer Harrell, all but embody the pianist’s free jazz musings, with a little help from Joni Mitchell