In search of the perfect gift for the music obsessive in your life — or looking to drop a few hints for family and friends? WRTI has got you covered. All year long, we’ve kept track of the most covetable boxed sets, books and other special items for the jazz or classical music fan in your life. Below, you’ll find some of our absolute favorites.
Before we dive in, a quick note: WRTI receives no compensation from publishers or labels for this gargantuan effort. But we do rely on your support — so please allow us to suggest that a WRTI membership also makes an excellent holiday gift! It’s one way to give back to the music, which is always there for you.
Blue Note Apparel | Blue Note. Blue Note Records. Various items.
Blue Note Records has always been an industry leader for branded merch, and this season brings another batch of covetable soft goods. Along with T-shirts emblazoned with classic Reid Miles album cover illustrations, you’ll find hoodies, sweatshirts, totes, a duffel — and a few sharp items from a new baseball collection, including a felt snapback cap and a mesh practice batting jersey stitched with tackle twill numbers: 39, for the year of the label’s founding. (Nate Chinen)
Chet Baker, Five from ‘65: the Quintet Summer Sessions | New Land. 5 LPs.
Here’s a set of surprising and enjoyable music with a complicated back story. Chet Baker had just returned home to the States, after a scandal-plagued stretch in Europe, when he entered a studio for a marathon week of sessions that yielded five albums — Boppin’, Smokin’, Groovin’, Comin’ On, Cool Burnin’ — for the Prestige label. He’d been set up with a band full of aces: George Coleman on tenor saxophone, Kirk Lightsey on piano, Herman Wright on bass, Roy Brooks on drums. As Baker’s biographer James Gavin details in his exemplary liner notes, the trumpeter was being exploited by a villainous manager who took advantage of his narcotics addiction. Baker plays flugelhorn throughout the sessions (he’d pawned his trumpet), with shadowy beauty and often a welcome rhythmic edge; his rapport with the band is genuine. He never saw a dime from the albums, which largely moldered in obscurity. They deserve another chance, and this lovingly made set is probably the best we’re going to get. (Chinen)
Cleveland Orchestra, Lorin Maazel conducts the Cleveland Orchestra – The Complete CBS Masterworks Recordings | Sony Classical. 15 CDs.
Lorin Maazel first conducted the Cleveland Orchestra in 1943, at age 13. That striking fact — one of many stops along his path as a musical prodigy — lends a touch of destiny to his storied tenure at the helm of the institution. Still, it took almost 30 years: Maazel had to wait for the unexpected death of George Szell, and for years he endured comparisons to his beloved predecessor. This is the first release of Maazel’s commercial output with Cleveland in a single edition, and it underscores his balance of emotional sweep and technical detail. Highlights include a complete Beethoven symphonic cycle; a ravishing take on Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique; and a powerful 1973 performance of Brahms’s First Symphony at the newly opened Sydney Opera House, remastered from broadcast tapes and reissued for the first time. There’s also one oddity: a misbegotten album of symphonically inflated chansons featuring French pop star Serge Lama, appearing here in its first international release. (Chinen)
John Coltrane, A Love Supreme, Mono Edition | Impulse. 1 LP.
John Coltrane, Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings | Impulse. 7 LPs.
There’s no reason to wait for the 2026 Coltrane centennial to start collecting Trane records. Earlier this year, Impulse! Records released the 1965 devotional classic, A Love Supreme, in mono. Unless you own a prized original copy in great condition, the reissue is your best chance to hear this masterpiece — exacting in its dedication to Rudy Van Gelder’s mono fold of the stereo master.
If you want to go deeply into Coltrane creation mythology, then you must make The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings part of your vision quest. This 7-LP set was not made for collectors who value the durability of Stoughton tip-on sleeves and nicely constructed art boxes, yet it is expensive. You’re buying this no-frills box because you’ve lost your mind it contains all 22 of the recorded performances from a singular artist in the greatest listening room in America. Nearly all of this has been released on vinyl (emphasis on nearly), but you can save yourself the insanity of trying to stitch them together from random releases over the decades. (Josh Jackson)
Michael Downes, Wagner and the Creation of the Ring | Pegasus. Hardcover.
British conductor and writer Michael Downes offers the perfect gift for the Wagnerian in your life: an unusual study of Richard Wagner’s famous Ring cycle, structured around the political, personal, and artistic experiences that would ultimately equip this still-controversial character to decisively upend operatic convention. Though billed as an introduction to Wagner’s compelling musical and dramatic edifice, it will probably be less valuable to newcomers than to confirmed converts, for whom it’s an essential read. (Melinda Whiting)
Bill Evans Trio, Haunted Heart: The Legendary Riverside Studio Recordings | Craft Recordings. 3CDs / 5LPs.
Bill Evans, Portraits at the Penthouse: Live in Seattle | Resonance. CD / LP.
The magically cohesive piano trio formed by Bill Evans in 1959, with bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian, is most often remembered for a pair of albums recorded live at The Village Vanguard in 1961. Before that, the group made two studio albums, Portrait in Jazz and Explorations, which provide the material for this worshipfully extravagant boxed set. More than two dozen alternate takes and outtakes, 17 of which have never previously been released, impart a spirit of real discovery — but you could say the same for the audio restoration by Plangent Processes, which puts the trio in your living room. As Eugene Holley, Jr. emphasizes in a new liner essay, each member of the trio was crucial to defining its sound (a point also underscored by the equilateral triangles that pervade Lisa Glines’ package design). The beauty was not to last; LaFaro died in a car crash in the summer of ‘61. But the intense attunement of these three artists changed the piano trio syntax, and this is a worthy testament to it.
Among subsequent editions of the Bill Evans Trio, some of the most thrilling featured bassist Eddie Gómez, an inheritor of LaFaro’s discursively nimble style. Portraits at the Penthouse chronicles a 1966 engagement with Gómez and drummer Joe Hunt, who had been with Evans for about a month. This pristine recording, mastered from broadcast tapes and never previously issued, comprises the earliest documentation of Evans with Gómez, who was just 21 at the time. As Marc Myers observes in his liner essay, it’s also a welcome document of Hunt, who plays with Motianesque subtlety, and never appeared on a studio release. This will be a limited-edition vinyl drop for Record Store Day, followed by CD and digital releases. (Chinen)
John Gennari, The Jazz Barn: Music Inn, the Berkshires, and the Place of Jazz in American Life | University of Chicago Press. Hardcover
The story of jazz at midcentury is often told in the form of a discography. But behind the classic albums was a hum of ideas and aspirations, occasionally coalescing at a momentous time and place. The Jazz Barn, a scholarly but approachable book by cultural historian John Gennari, illuminates what happened in the Berkshires at Music Inn, home to a series of influential roundtables, workshops, concerts and pedagogy that would alter the trajectory of jazz (and the careers of Randy Weston and Ornette Coleman, among others). Gennari draws a rich context in the service of making a persuasive argument: “No other bricks-and-mortar institution, no other physical space, no other place better registered the pulsing changes in jazz music and jazz musicking over the course of the 1950s and into the New Frontier than Music Inn.” (Chinen)
Keith Jarrett at the Deer Head Inn: The Complete Recordings | ECM Records. 4 LPs.
For more than 30 years, fans of pianist Keith Jarrett have valorized his crisp, expressive album At the Deer Head Inn, which was recorded at the Poconos haunt one night in 1992, with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Paul Motian. Last year, as we reported, ECM released a more overtly swinging full-length follow-up, The Old Country, from the same source recording. There’s no dropoff in quality on the sequel, and having the two albums reunited and remastered for a vinyl box feels like the next best thing to slipping through a time warp and jostling into position near the bar. (Chinen)
Jack McCarthy, A Century of Music Under the Stars. | Temple University Press. Hardcover.
The Highmark Mann Center for the Performing Arts, as it was recently rebranded, will celebrate its 50th anniversary in the new year. So this insightful study of The Mann and its predecessor, the Robin Hood Dell, arrives right on time, with stories to spare. Jack McCarthy’s copious research takes us through The Philadelphia Orchestra’s glorious history of summer concerts at the Dell, starting with the inaugural season in 1930. More than 200 archival images underscore just how many legends of the 20th century made history on these outdoor stages: from Beverly Sills to Barry Manilow, Duke Ellington to Bob Dylan. The narrative brings us up to the present day, spanning changes and challenges. “Through it all,” writes McCarthy, “the fundamental mission has been the same: to provide high-quality music and an enriching experience to the people of the Philadelphia area in a beautiful natural setting.” (Chinen)
Joni Mitchell, Joni’s Jazz | Rhino. 4 CDs / 8 LPs.
Joni Mitchell’s bond with jazz is typically framed as a story of human relationships. She embraces the notion herself: the cover image of Joni’s Jazz, which she curated and produced, features a 2022 photograph showing her seated between Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter. Over more than 60 tracks, including alternate takes and two previously unreleased demos, this collection tells a story across the enlightened sprawl of Mitchell’s career: not just obvious fare like her version of Charles Mingus’ “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat,” but also songs from her catalog that come to life through the sensitive ministrations of jazz musicians. None looms larger than Shorter, to whom the set is dedicated. “Listen to ‘A Bird That Whistles,’” Mitchell instructs in a liner note. “I mixed him in with real bird songs. Hear him laugh at the end.” (Chinen)
Thelonious Monk, Thelonious Himself (Original Jazz Classics Series) | Craft Recordings. LP.
Thelonious Monk, Bremen 1965 | Sunnyside. 2 CDs / 2 LPs.
Charlotte Zwerin, Thelonious Monk Straight, No Chaser | Criterion. Blu-Ray.
There’s never a bad season to behold the mystery and majesty of Thelonious Monk, and this year brought some fine new excuses to dig in. Thelonious Himself is his unsurpassable solo piano recording from 1957, perhaps the clearest window onto his compositional mind. It has been meticulously remastered as part of Craft Recordings’ Original Jazz Classics series, and there are deep nuances of shading and overtone that the new 180-gram LP pressing reveals.
Eight years later, in 1965, Monk embarked on a world tour with his working quartet, featuring tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse, bassist Larry Gales and drummer Ben Riley. Their second stop was Bremen, Germany, where they stretched out on tunes like “Criss Cross” and “Epistrophy,” sounding fired up and locked in. The concert was recorded by Radio Bremen, and has now been mastered from the original tapes. There’s no shortage of good material from this era of Monk’s career, but Bremen 1965 is a rewarding and vital addition.
And if you seek a window onto Monk’s moods and mannerisms, there’s also a freshly restored Criterion Collection edition of the 1988 documentary Thelonious Monk Straight No Chaser, which was largely assembled from black-and-white footage shot in the ‘60s for a German television special — “some of the most valuable jazz sequences ever shot,” as Stephen Holden wrote in his New York Times review. Director Charlotte Zwerin, a pioneer of the Direct Cinema school, brings us within Monk’s inner circle, with no attempt to diagnose or dismiss his eccentricities — but ample opportunity to witness his serious devotion to the music. (Chinen)
Muse Master Edition Series | Time Traveler Recordings. LP.
Muse Records, a source of hidden gems from the 1970s, finally lifts the veil on three records collectors have coveted for decades. Kenny Barron’s kinetic debut as a leader, Sunset to Dawn, highlights equal time on piano and Fender Rhodes. Carlos Garnett’s Cosmo Nucleus predates the large-ensemble cast of Kamasi Washington’s recent epics — with a pop of earth-toned spiritualism and fiery Panamanian sax. And The Free Slave is a raw 1970 recording of the Roy Brooks Quintet at Baltimore’s Left Bank Jazz Society. The drummer’s full-body enthusiasm, pounding cymbal crashes and pitch-bending thwacks (on his original Breath-A-Tone creation) inspired everyone that night (and many more since). (Jackson)
Ike Quebec, The Complete Blue Note 45 Sessions | Blue Note. 2 CDs / 3 LPs.
This call-back of an original 1987 Mosaic Records collection is primed for a whole new generation of appreciation. Ike Quebec’s mature tenor saxophone is unhurried, and makes an easy soundtrack to a boozy night. This was music meant for the jukebox, after all, so when it foregrounds on your turntable, you’re almost confronted by Quebec’s naked self-assurance. Here’s a player representing golden-era jazz saxophone (Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Don Byas, etc.) who heard and understood bebop’s lingua franca. Keep the second record in heavy rotation. It’s a stunner of a session with Milt Hinton on bass, J.C. Heard on drums and Sir Charles Thompson on organ. (Jackson)
Steve Reich: Collected Works | Nonesuch. 27 CDs.
One of the most profoundly influential composers of his generation, Steve Reich, 89, introduced not only a style or a signature but an entire ethic of listening. Never as ascetic or rigid as the minimalist label for which he’s known, he creates an experiential sonic landscape out of shifting coordinates; his pieces can ripple or refract like a mirage. Collected Works amasses six decades of Reich’s works: early landmarks like Drumming and late masterpieces like WTC 9/11. Produced with the care and solemnity of a museum retrospective, this set includes a booklet full of illuminating essays — including one by percussionist Russell Hartenberger, who sheds light on both the rhythmic matrices in Reich’s designs and the “perceptual ambiguity” that nudges the music toward a spiritual realm. (Chinen)
Ricky Riccardi, Stomp Off, Let’s Go: The Early Years of Louis Armstrong | Oxford University Press. Hardcover.
The third and final volume of Ricky Riccardi’s biographical portait of Louis Armstrong, Stomp Off, Let’s Go goes all the way back to the beginning: from Louis’ harrowing childhood in the Third Ward of New Orleans to his early triumphs in Chicago and New York, concluding just as his star is rising toward the end of 1929. As we established during an in-depth interview on The Late Set, Riccardi is an indefatigable researcher with the unchecked passion of an advocate and the authoritative flair of a raconteur. He’s the perfect soul to bring a young Armstrong to life, and in this majestic volume, he makes the case for Pops as an ever-humble, all-American miracle who beat the longest odds, always with a song at his lips. (Chinen)
Terry Riley, The Columbia Recordings | Sony Classical. 4 CDs.
Comprised of some of Terry Riley’s best-known and most influential recordings, this new boxed set includes the 1968 release of the groundbreaking work In C, 1969’s New-Age prophecy A Rainbow in Curved Air, and the 1971 John Cale collaboration Church of Anthrax — a decidedly accessible effort steeped in not only Riley’s trademark drones and minimalism, but also experimental sounds that were coming of age in both rock and jazz at the time. Listening to these recordings today not only brings to mind well-worn touchstones like Brian Eno and Laraaji, but also the work of more recent efforts by Mary Lattimore and the more abstract sides of William Tyler and Sufjan Stevens. All of which is to say that if you haven’t listened to these Terry Riley albums in a while, when you do, you will hear shades of sounds from across the musical spectrum that has been recorded since. (Julian Booker)
Pharaoh Sanders, The Complete Pharaoh Sanders Theresa Recordings | Mosaic. 7 CDs
The late Pharoah Sanders is remembered as an acolyte of John Coltrane (and member of his final band) who channeled the mystical and spiritual overtones of his former employer’s vision into masterpieces of his own: from his signature 1969 recording “The Creator Has a Master Plan” to his much-celebrated 2021 album Promises, a collaboration with the artist Floating Points and the London Symphony Orchestra. In between, Sanders recorded for the California-based label Theresa Records. In his excellent, extensive liner notes, author Mark Stryker describes this period as a time when the saxophonist “[had] a greater range of stories to tell and greater means with which to tell them.” For Sanders fans as well as those who may be new to his artistry, this set offers a beautifully packaged summation of his work between 1979 and 1986. Pay special attention to the crystal-clear Pharoah Sanders Live... from 1981, featuring Sanders with John Hicks, Walter Booker and Idris Muhammad for revelatory readings of originals “You’ve Got to Have Freedom” and “Doktor Pitt.” (Booker)
Nancy Shear, I Knew a Man Who Knew Brahms | Regalo Press. Hardcover.
Those who treasure Philadelphia Orchestra lore will enjoy this behind-the-scenes view from the 1960s. An intriguing backstage memoir by the Orchestra’s then-teenage assistant music librarian, it relates how Shear came into the regular employ of Leopold Stokowski. Her memories of that legendary conductor and other leading artists of the second half of the 20th century add up to an entertaining read for anyone interested in Philadelphia’s musical history. (Whiting)
Strata-East Reissues | Mack Avenue. CDs, LPs and T-Shirts.
One of the great developments on the jazz reissue front this year was a catalog relaunch of Strata-East Records, the independent label co-founded in the 1970s by trumpeter Charles Tolliver and pianist Stanley Cowell. Through a partnership with Mack Avenue, the series has so far yielded beautifully remastered, all-analog versions of classic albums like Pharoah Sanders’ Iphizo Zam and the self-titled debut by Tolliver and Cowell’s band Music Inc. (Full disclosure: I wrote liner notes for two of these, Cowell’s Musa: Ancestral Streams and The Heath Brothers’ Marchin’ On — so call me biased, but I recommend them both.) (Chinen)
John Williams, The Anthology – Vol. 1 1969-1990 | Sony Classical. 22 CDs.
Tim Grieving, John Williams: A Composer’s Life | Oxford University Press. Hardcover.
About 200 pages into John Williams: A Composer’s Life, Tim Greiving quotes Steven Spielberg, his subject’s most famous collaborator: “John Williams doesn’t find his music mathematically, scientifically, or intellectually. He just opens up his mojo and it rains down on him.” You’ve almost certainly experienced that musical mojo, immersing you in the hot sands of Tatooine, or the treacherous waters of Amity Island, or the heights of the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch. Greiving’s magisterial biography of our greatest living film composer — somehow the first ever published — offers exceptional insights into the man and his methods, spinning more than 20 hours of interviews with Williams into a narrative of cinematic sweep, clarity, and color.
It pairs perfectly with John Williams: The Anthology, Vol. 1, the first installment of a comprehensive Williams project from Sony Classical. Over 22 CDs, this box set covers 25 Williams scores composed between 1969 and 1990, including some of his greatest hits: Jaws, E.T., and the Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogies. Deeper cuts like Images, The Towering Inferno, and Born on the Fourth of July paint an equally astounding demonstration of his talent. (Zev Kane)