It can be difficult, in this streaming age, to find the perfect gift for the music obsessive in your life. We’re here to help. All year long, we’ve kept track of the most exciting boxed sets, books and other special items for the jazz or classical music fan in your life. (If we’re describing you, consider this a handy way to drop a hint with family and friends.)
We’ve listened to hundreds of hours of music and read thousands of pages in order to responsibly endorse the wonders assembled below. WRTI receives no compensation from publishers or labels for this effort. But we do rely on your support — so before we dive in, allow us to suggest that a WRTI membership also makes an excellent holiday gift! It’s a way to give back to the music, which is always there for you.
Paul Alexander, Bitter Crop: The Heartache and Triumph of Billie Holiday’s Last Year | Knopf. Hardcover.
There’s a famous Milt Hinton photograph of Billie Holiday at her last recording session, in 1959. She’s gaunt and downcast, one hand clutching a rocks glass as she listens to a playback of her shadow self. On its face, Bitter Crop would seem to dwell in the same inconsolable place, chronicling a dissolution we recognize from actorly portrayals. But Paul Alexander has a fuller human picture in mind. A resourceful biographer whose previous subjects include J.D. Salinger and Sylvia Plath, he illuminates Holiday’s final year with abiding attention and a shrewdly discursive timeline.
Archival Apparel Classical Collection | Archival Apparel. T-shirt.
American-made with a premium on sustainable practices, an Archival Apparel T-shirt has the soft, supple feel of a well-loved vintage piece —with throwback graphic design to match. Their robust line of composer tees should delight any classical fan looking to balance comfort with style. Our classical program director, Zev Kane, has been known to sport his Bartók, Mozart and Shostakovich. With myriad options, repping everyone from Bach to von Bingen, the only problem will be paring your order down.
Blue Note Merch | Blue Note. Hoodies, Jackets, T-shirts.
Few commercial entities in jazz have the cachet of Blue Note Records, and its 85th anniversary brought plenty of fresh merch: a fall “collegiate” line of T-shirts, sweats and hoodies; a run of tees with the global fashion brand Highsnobiety; and a collaboration with the Australian streetwear and skatewear brand Butter Goods, whose oversize crewneck and varsity jacket are as covetable as they are comfy.
Blue Note Review Volume Three: Truly, Madly, Deeplee Morgan | Blue Note. 4 LPs, 45-rpm single and adaptor, two lithographs, magazine.
It’s been six years since we saw a new edition of the Blue Note Review, a vinyl-forward objet d’art and pet project of label president Don Was. This third volume, a love letter to trumpeter Lee Morgan, doesn’t skimp on goodies: along with a Tone Poet pressing of his 1967 album Sonic Boom, it includes a 10-inch bootleg of a Philly Joe Jones-led jam at The Gate of Horn; a collection of Morgan tributes from current artists like Joel Ross and Derrick Hodge; two Francis Wolff lithographs; and a zine with contributions from David Fricke, Natalie Weiner and the late Greg Tate. Everything about the package feels like a soulful splurge.
Classic Don Byas Sessions 1944-1946 | Mosaic Records. 10 CDs.
Because he came up in the imposing shadow of Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster and Lester Young — and left for Europe at peak stride — Don Byas doesn’t always receive his due as a tenor sax titan in the jazz discourse. This trove of New York recordings is a noble corrective and a sumptuous dive, harvesting from multiple label catalogs as well as 40 previously unreleased tracks — many of them taped at the apartment of Danish jazz aficionado Timme Rosenkrantz, a Byas admirer to the core. Loren Schoenberg’s insightful liner essay anchors a booklet also stocked with archival photographs. A must for students of the saxophone, and a revelation for any listener intrigued by the evolutionary roots of modern jazz.
Aaron Copland, Copland Conducts Copland – The Complete Columbia Album Collection | Sony Classical. 20 CDs.
Aaron Copland was already well into his career as a visionary American composer when he first seriously took up conducting, in 1950. Copland Conducts Copland doesn’t focus exclusively on that facet of his career — it forages as far back as some of his piano recordings from 1935 — but it makes the case for his crisp authority marshaling the forces in his own music. Most of this expressive music has been released before, but not in a sprawling single package. Along with the regal delight of hearing Copland lead the London Symphony Orchestra, you’ll encounter multiple recordings of his Clarinet Concert, commissioned by its increasingly surefooted soloist, Benny Goodman.
Harriet Constable, The Instrumentalist | Simon & Schuster. Hardcover.
This immersive work of historical fiction tells the story of Anna Maria della Pietà, who grew up in a Venetian orphanage and convent in the early 1700s, rising to unlikely prominence as a violinist and composer under the wing of its resident teacher, Antonio Vivaldi. First-time novelist Harriet Constable draws Anna Maria’s feverish musical inspiration and stark societal position with the same confident hand, creating a fully realized origin story for one of classical music’s mystery figures — and a richly imagined picture of a teeming Venice in her time.
Miles ‘54: The Prestige Recordings | Craft Recordings. 4 LPs, 2 CDs, or High-Res Digital.
Before his legendary run at Columbia Records, Miles Davis put in a lot of studio time with the independent label Prestige. His five sessions there in 1954 — which featured peers like Milt Jackson and Thelonious Monk, and yielded four 10-inch LPs, including Miles Davis All Star Sextet and Miles Davis with Sonny Rollins — have been remastered for this stylish box, with a nod to Prestige’s 75th anniversary. What we hear in this music is Davis decisively finding his footing: “a heightened level of confidence in his bandleading and in his playing, with a more expansive feel for color, timbre and even atmosphere in his palette,” as Ashley Kahn observes in a new essay. (The booklet also includes session notes by the late Dan Morgenstern, from a previous set.)
Miles in France – Miles Davis Quintet 1963/64: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 8 | Columbia/Legacy. 6 CDs / 8 LPs.
When people refer to the second great Miles Davis Quintet, they’re referring to a band whose rhythm section changed jazz’s quantum mechanics in the mid-1960s, with Herbie Hancock on piano, Ron Carter on bass and Tony Williams on drums. This set, comprising more than four hours of previously unissued music from festivals in Antibes and Paris, captures the group’s trailblazing development, and a fateful handoff in the tenor saxophone chair from the mellifluous bluesman George Coleman to the cosmic constructivist Wayne Shorter. The performances are stunning, the sound is clear, and a deluxe booklet includes gallery-worthy photographs as well as an essay by Marcus J. Moore.
Nicholas Day & Chris Raschka, Nothing: John Cage and 4’33” | Neal Porter Brooks. Hardcover.
How do you turn a high-concept modernist landmark into a warmly affirming children’s board book? In the case of Nothing, which tells the story of John Cage’s silent performance piece 4’33”, we begin with David Tudor seated at a piano in Woodstock’s Maverick Concert Hall in 1952. As conceived by Nicholas Day and whimsically illustrated by Caldecott-winning artist Chris Raschka, this story neatly captures both the fidgety discomfort of an unsuspecting audience and the serene stillness of Tudor as he executes Cage’s score. It also flashes back to Cage’s own childhood, and the spirit of play in his designs. “There is always a whole world out there to hear,” nudges Day. “There is always something to hear inside the silence.”
Phil Freeman, In the Brewing Luminous: The Life and Music of Cecil Taylor | Wolke Verlag. Paperback.
Given the singularity and sheer significance of the avant-garde pianist Cecil Taylor, it’s remarkable that no full-length biography of the man was published prior to this year. One challenge is the adamantine thrust of his music, which brooks no compromise; another is the complexity of a life that Taylor was content to shroud in myth and conflict. Into this fray charges Phil Freeman, who has achieved an impressive feat of biographical clarity and critical appraisal here, moving through the timeline with methodical precision, writerly restraint, and a deep affinity for the renegade aesthetic conviction that anchors his subject’s life and work.
Classic Bobby Hutcherson Blue Note Sessions 1963-1970 | Mosaic Records. 7 CDs.
It’s hard to imagine a sweeter sweet spot for Mosaic Records than the 1960s Blue Note output of vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, which captures the crest of a progressive post-bop wave. Here are nearly a dozen albums under Hutch’s name — from The Kicker, featuring an MVP sideman turn by tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson, to San Francisco, propelled by drummer Mickey Roker. The state-of-the-art sound mastering is tops, and a booklet features striking Francis Wolff session photos beside an astute Bob Blumenthal essay. If this one feels personal, there’s a good reason: Mosaic co-founder Michael Cuscuna was close friends with Hutcherson, and this was the last set he produced before his passing in the spring.
Charles Ives, The Anniversary Edition | Sony Classical. 5 CDs.
Charles Ives: The RCA & Columbia Album Anthology | Sony Classical. 22 CDs.
The 150th birth anniversary of Charles Ives brought a few new recordings and some scattered concert programming — but nothing as solid or definitive as these two archival sets, which reckon with both the iconoclasm and the bristling curiosity in Ives’ resolute American music. The Anniversary Edition is a remastered reissue of a collection originally released on LP for his centenary in 1974. (Its final disc is an oral history of reminiscences from family, friends and peers.) For a more comprehensive sweep, look to the Anthology, which begins with an important John Kirkpatrick performance of the Piano Sonata No. 2 in 1945, and later includes Kirkpatrick’s revisitation of the piece in ‘68, this time in stereo. You’ll also find consequential recordings by Eugene Ormandy with The Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowsi with the American Symphony Orchestra, and Leonard Bernstein with the New York Philharmonic.
The Jazz Omnibus: 21st-Century Photos and Writings | Cymbal Press. Paperback.
As a craft, and most certainly as a vocation, jazz journalism inhabits a state of spiraling crisis. Yet the practice itself still throws off glimmers of light, and even hope. This compendium of essays and images from the ranks of the Jazz Journalists Association makes the case with a proud kaleidoscope of voices, subjects, and styles. In these pages you’ll find award-winning reporting by Ashley Kahn, a sweeping obituary by John Murph, and a probing reflection by the Spanish critic Mirian Arbalejo. (Yours truly is also in the mix, with an essay about the enduring influence of Sun Ra.)
James Kaplan, 3 Shades of Blue | Penguin Press. Hardcover.
Subtitled Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans and the Lost Empire of Cool, this book goes all in on the mystique of its three main subjects, marveling at the period when their disparate personalities converged. James Kaplan, a noted Frank Sinatra biographer, has a fluid prose style and a storyteller’s gift, though there’s not much in his telling that a seasoned jazz fan won’t already know, and a few moments — like an unfounded suggestion of homoerotic intrigue between Davis and Evans — that feel Kind of Eww. A gossipy take on a golden age.
Benjamin M. Korstvedt, Bruckner’s Fourth: The Biography of a Symphony | Oxford University Press. Hardcover.
Among the momentous tributes to Anton Bruckner during his bicentennial year, one stands apart for the clarity of its focus and the rigor of its argument. Benjamin Korstvedt, an internationally recognized Bruckner authority, delves into the history and historiography of the composer’s Symphony No. 4, which notoriously exists in multiple versions. The culmination of three decades of research and scholarship, it’s a refreshingly readable academic text, one that addresses the so-called “Bruckner problem” with a clear-eyed corrective. (To learn more about the nature of Prof. Korstvedt’s work, read our in-depth interview.)
Charles Mingus, Mingus Takes Manhattan | New Land. 4 LPs.
The early 1960s were a feverishly prolific time for bassist and composer Charles Mingus, whose studio output alone is a feast. So what makes this deluxe vinyl boxed set — the first official release of radio broadcasts from Birdland in ‘61 and ‘62, previously only out in bootleg form — such an exciting prospect? For one, it captures the live spark of Mingus’ Jazz Workshop, with a rotating cast that includes everyone from Roland Kirk to Yusef Lateef. For another, it’s a glimpse into his process of R&D on the bandstand, with a massive essay by Brian Priestley and surprisingly decent sound. The longitudinal study isn’t for casual fans, who may not need seven different versions of “Eat That Chicken.” Some others are hungry for just such a thing.
Joni Mitchell, The Asylum Albums (1976-1980) | Rhino. 5 CDs / 6 LPs.
Joni Mitchell Archives Vol. 4: The Asylum Years (1976-1980) | Rhino. 6 CDs / 4 LPs.
Ann Powers, Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell | Dey Street. Hardcover.
Admirers of the brilliant, bardic Joni Mitchell, now 81, have had cause for celebration this year, including her jubilant return to the Hollywood Bowl. Two lavish new boxed sets focus on a mid-to-late ‘70s stretch when she leaned intently into jazz — yielding the albums Hejira, Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter, Mingus, and Shadows and Light. All four were beautifully remastered for The Asylum Years, a sumptuous set. For a more obsessive plunge, Vol. 4 of the Archives series contains a trove of previously unissued material, much of it made with jazz legends like bassist Jaco Pastorius, pianist Herbie Hancock and saxophonist Wayne Shorter. (Even the failed experiments are fascinating.)
Ann Powers, the chief pop critic at NPR Music, writes perceptively about this period of jazz alignment (among other things) in a fine new critical biography, Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell. Recently named one of the 10 Best Books of 2024 by Publishers Weekly, it’s a work of razor-sharp musical and cultural analysis, sidestepping cult-like Joni worship in order to see and hear her clearly. “The key collaborations Mitchell cultivated in her fusion years fed her fascination with irresolution and unraveling narratives,” Powers observes. “I hear challenges to straight time in all of them.”
King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, Centennial | Archeophone. 4 CDs and 2 LPs.
The recordings made by King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band in 1923, for the Gennett and OKeh labels, can rightly be hailed as jazz’s Book of Genesis, and an incubator for the genius of Louis Armstrong. But as Ricky Riccardi argues in his exemplary liner notes for Centennial, these sides are also a culmination: the apex achievement of a band we should apprehend not as a rickety precursor but with a fresh electric jolt. With extraordinary new sound restoration by Richard Martin, this music has never been more vividly presented on record, and it comes alongside 55 additional tracks that help set the table. (One CD gathers touchstones from Armstrong’s record collection, spotlighting the Haydn Quartet and the soprano Luisa Tetrazzini.) It’s hard to overstate the care exhibited in this revelatory package, which deservedly racked up two Grammy nods, for Best Album Notes and Best Historical Album.
Paul Robeson, Voice of Freedom The Complete Columbia, RCA, HMV, and Victor Recordings | Sony Classical. 14 CDs.
The booming yet mellow bass-baritone of Paul Robeson deserves prominent enshrinement in the Smithsonian’s American collection, alongside Alexander Graham Bell’s large box telephone and the original star-spangled banner. The reverence inherent to this collection — an ark of Robeson’s complete remastered Columbia, Victor and HMV recordings — will suffice. It’s a marvelous body of work that spans plantation songs and spirituals, Mussorgsky and Mendelssohn, labor anthems, even a stage production of Shakespeare’s Othello. Authoritative essays by scholar Shana L. Redmond and Robeson’s granddaughter, Susan Robeson, fill in the stories behind the sessions, and reveal how a dauntless career resonated in real time.
Sonny Rollins, A Night at the Village Vanguard: The Complete Masters | Blue Note. 3 LPs.
Recorded on Nov. 3, 1957, A Night at the Village Vanguard is a glowing touchstone of both the Sonny Rollins catalog and the greater jazz canon. Blue Note devoted extravagant resources to this definitive reissue of the album, an all-analog Tone Poet vinyl edition cut from Rudy Van Gelder’s pristine 7.5 ips master tapes. The sound quality is exceptional — you’ll feel as if you’re in the basement room with Rollins’ tenor, backed by bass and drums — and the package is graced with striking Francis Wolff photos and a spate of new essays. (Full disclosure: I contributed one of those.)
Yuval Sharon, A New Philosophy of Opera | Liveright / W.W. Norton. Hardcover.
“Let’s start thinking of opera as evolutionary rather than decaying,” writes Yuval Sharon in the introduction (he calls it an “overture”) to A New Philosophy of Opera. Part cultural history, part aesthetic manifesto, it’s a shrewdly provocative book that envisions a future for the art form profoundly rooted in a radical past. And it’s inextricable from Sharon’s own experience with opera, both as an audience member and as a creator. (To learn more, revisit this recent conversation, which preceded the Curtis Opera Theatre’s production of The Comet / Poppea.)
Robert Sholl, Olivier Messiaen: A Critical Biography | Reaktion. Book
This elegant meditation on the French composer Olivier Messiaen forgoes a day-by-day approach, or the obsessive diaristic analysis that has often attended its subject. Instead, scholar Robert Sholl, an organist deeply familiar with the repertoire, draws insightful connections between the music and its cultural context: theological, philosophical, even ornithological. (Sholl is sharp in teasing out Messiaen’s fascination with birdsong.) There are fresh discoveries here, rooted in the composer’s sketchbooks, but the book isn’t exclusively aimed at scholars or connoisseurs; it’s a smartly distilled work of critical engagement that draws the music closer.
Maria Schneider Orchestra, Decades | ArtistShare. 3 LPs.
To commemorate 30 years of her superlative large ensemble, composer-conductor Maria Schneider ventured deep into curation mode. Decades is a thoughtfully assembled sampling of tracks from across seven sterling albums, accompanied by an expansive, self-searching essay by Schneider (and a brief introduction by yours truly). There isn’t a big band in jazz more empathic or expressive than this one, and the only way to hear it on your system is by owning a physical product. Decades is designed to feel like its own work of art — and it’s the only vinyl pressing of Schneider’s music ever made, so far.
Michael Tilson Thomas, The Complete CBS, RCA and Sony Classical Recordings | Sony Classical. 80 CDs.
Now on the cusp of his 80th birthday, Michael Tilson Thomas could be forgiven for resting on his laurels. But this conductor has been fighting brain cancer, and he knows time is scarce. As this massive, multi-label retrospective underscores, he has an illustrious body of work to look back on, not only as founder of the New World Symphony but also as a principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra and longtime music director of the San Francisco Symphony. In a gracious introductory essay, he marvels at the scope of the music here. “It is remarkable to see in one collection our explorations of Beethoven, Mahler, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Ravel,” he writes, “and deep dives into Igor Stravinsky, George Gershwin, Charles Ives, Carl Ruggles, and others.” (One oversight in his composerly roll call is guitarist John McLaughlin, who turns up on two albums with the LSO, including Mahavishnu Orchestra’s Apocalypse, Disc 1 of the set.)
Elijah Wald, Jelly Roll Blues: Censored Songs & Hidden Histories | Hachette. Hardcover.
“If we want to understand the past,” writes Philadelphia-based ethnomusicologist Elijah Wald, “we must not only study what survives, but also think about what does not survive, and why, and make an effort to explore those silences.” That insistence guides his scholarly yet approachable reflection on the bawdy storytelling blues recorded by Jelly Roll Morton at the Library of Congress, and censored under decency claims for more than half a century. By exploring the social milieu, cultural processes and musical modes of early jazz and blues, Wald persuasively restores the wild and puckish eroticism lurking under the hood of America’s classical music.
