The 10 best jazz albums of 2024
A Mercury prize winner, a host of fresh collaborations and a posthumous release of a much-lauded live performance are all among the year’s standouts
‘They felt they couldn’t market us to white people’: 90s hip-hop iconoclasts Digable Planets return
As they mark the 30th anniversary of album Blowout Comb, the Grammy-winning trio revisit their egalitarian ethos, anti-fascist lyrics and Pink Floyd influences
Papa Noël obituary
Congolese guitarist and songwriter who toured Europe with TPOK Jazz and gave a celebrated ‘unplugged’ performance at Womad in 2000
Laurie Anderson: Ark: United States V review – a long and winding bid to make sense of America
Contemplating a world of catastrophe and collapse, the veteran artist’s new three-hour show, though much too long and diffuse, has moments of poignancy – and joy
Lars Danielsson/ Verneri Pohjola/ John Parricelli: Trio review – wine chateau sessions mingle mature sensibilities
Bassist Danielsson, guitarist Parricelli and trumpeter Pohjola combine folksy melodies, Latin grooves and free-roaming improv on this lustrous album
Jungle, funk and 14th-century Arabic astronomers: piano virtuoso Pat Thomas on his journey through jazz
He started out playing a cardboard piano, but became a key figure in the improv scene. Now at 64, the musician is having a moment with his danceable quartet [Ahmed]
Jeff Parker & ETA IVtet The Way Out of Easy review – a captivating, unhurried ebb and flow
Recorded in a single evening, the American guitarist and his LA bandmates revel in trading ideas and moods over four extended pieces
Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat review – superb study of how jazz got caught between the cold war and the CIA
Johan Grimonprez’s fascinating documentary uses the assassination of DRC prime minister Patrice Lumumba to launch a dizzying look into the politics of jazz in the 1950s and 60s
Roy Haynes obituary
Jazz drummer who played with Charlie Parker and John Coltrane and earned the nickname Snap Crackle for his crisp style
Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat review – finger-popping theory of the conspiracy to kill Congo’s leader
Johan Grimonprez’s fascinating documentary suggests that the US used jazz legend Louis Armstrong in a ‘cool war’ offensive to assassinate Patrice Lumumba
Roy Haynes, jazz drummer whose career spanned nine decades, dies aged 99
American drummer who began in 1940s swing and bebop scenes played with Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and dozens more
‘Leave your ego at the door’: from Thriller to Sinatra, Quincy Jones collaborators tell the stories behind his songs
Whether hashing out Beat It over the phone or jamming with Snoop Dogg, artists who worked alongside Jones recall his skill, kindness and lust for life
Jazz guitarist Pat Metheny on crafting hits with Joni Mitchell and David Bowie: ‘I had to keep telling myself it was real’
The virtuoso jazz guitarist has worked with a string of legends, winning 20 Grammys in the process. He speaks on his beginnings as a jazz trumpeter, and still striving to improve at 70
Quincy Jones and Frank Sinatra: the audacious partnership that rocketed them to another planet
Jones was behind many inflection points in American music, but it all began with a brotherhood with Ol’ Blue Eyes
‘I named my son after him’: readers on the greatness of Quincy Jones
Whether advising him on restaurant menus or meeting him at Prince’s house, Guardian readers recall their encounters with the entertainment icon