Top 10 Jazz Listicle 2023

Larry Appelbaum (DownBeat, WPFW-FM)

NEW RELEASES

  1. Red Hot Org, Red Hot & Ra: Solar: Sun Ra in Brasil (Red Hot Org)
  2. John Scofield, Uncle John’s Band (ECM)
  3. Jason Moran, From the Dancehall to the Battlefield (Yes)
  4. Ron Blake, Mistaken Identity (7ten33 Productions)
  5. Kris Davis Diatom Ribbons, Live at the Village Vanguard (Pyroclastic)
  6. David Virelles, Carta (Intakt)
  7. Guillermo Klein Quinteto, Telmo’s Tune (Sunnyside)
  8. James Brandon Lewis Red Lily Quintet, For Mahalia, With Love (Tao Forms)
  9. Lakecia Benjamin, Phoenix (Whirlwind)
  10. Laufey, Bewitched (AWAL)

RARA AVIS (REISSUES/ARCHIVAL)

  1. John Coltrane With Eric Dolphy, Evenings at the Village Gate (1961, Impulse!)
  2. Wes Montgomery & Wynton Kelly Trio, Maximum Swing: The Unissued 1965 Half Note Recordings (Resonance)
  3. Abdul Wadud, By Myself: Solo Cello (1977, Gotta Groove)

VOCAL

  • Gregory Porter, Christmas Wish (Blue Note)

DEBUT

  • Val Jeanty, Nite Bjuti (Whirlwind)

LATIN

  • Sammy Figueroa, Something for a Memory (Busco Tu Recuerdo) (Ashe)
Thoughts on Top 10’sMy friend and fellow jazz journalist James Hale recently wrote a piece for the CBC Music Blog titled “The top 10 music list: good or evil?” For reasons of space, my responses were edite…larryappelbaum.wordpress.com

How about that?

Larry Appelbaum at home with an Ornette Coleman box set, Beauty is a Rare Thing. It was a great pleasure to visit Larry in DC last week. I first met him in 1996 as a baby archivist in the Music Division of the Library of Congress. We became fast friends, and he took me under his jazz-encyclopedic wing as I worked on the William P. Gottlieb Collection of photographs from the Golden Age of Jazz. I am forever grateful to Larry for turning me on to so much new music. Among the recordings he left on my cubicle desk one day was an early Keiji Haino cassette (Lost Aaraaff) from his travels to Japan. Mind blowing stuff. Larry was supportive of my itch to head to NYC, and he checked in on me after I took a new position at Juilliard. Larry is legendary!

#LarryAppelbaum

Top 10 Jazz Listicle 2022

Larry Appelbaum (JazzTimes, WPFW-FM)

NEW RELEASES

  1. Dafnis Prieto Featuring Luciana Souza, Cantar (Dafnison)
  2. David Virelles, Nuna (Pi)
  3. Wayne Shorter-Terri Lyne Carrington-Leo Genovese-Esperanza Spalding, Live at the Detroit Jazz Festival (Candid)
  4. Vadim Neselovskyi, Odesa: A Musical Walk Through a Legendary City (Sunnyside)
  5. Terri Lynne Carrington, New Standards Vol. 1 (Candid)
  6. Todd Marcus Jazz Orchestra, In the Valley (Stricker Street)
  7. John Scofield, John Scofield (ECM)
  8. Here It Is: A Tribute to Leonard Cohen (Blue Note)
  9. Charles Lloyd, Trios: Chapel (Blue Note)
  10. Tyshawn Sorey Trio, Mesmerism (Pi)

RARA AVIS (REISSUES/ARCHIVAL)

  1. Miles Davis, That’s What Happened [The Bootleg Series, Vol. 7: 1982-1985] (Columbia/Legacy)
  2. Elvin Jones, Revival: Live at Pookie’s Pub (1967, Blue Note)
  3. Masahiko Togashi w/Don Cherry and Charlie Haden Song of Soil (WEWANTSOUNDS)

VOCAL

  • Samara Joy, Linger Awhile (Verve)

DEBUT

  • Laufey, Everything I Know About Love (AWAL)

LATIN

  • Chucho Valdes & Paquito D’Rivera Reunion Sextet, I Missed You Too! (Sunnyside)