I love music, but with each passing year I grow less interested in ranking or rating it, for reasons I’ve explained here. Ambivalence aside, I still get year-end email and calls at the radio station asking for the list, and I’m always pleased that Francis Davis taps me for his jazz critics poll, now co-sponsored by NPR.
So that’s the context for this list of year-end favorites. It should go without saying that there was so much great music released in the past 12 months, I could have easily come up with a very different list based on impulse, urge or notion.
2013 NEW RELEASES
- John Clayton, Parlor Series (ArtistShare)
- Mario Adnet, Um Olhar Sobre Villa Lobos (Boranda)
- Steve Coleman, Functional Arrythmias (Pi)
- Wayne Shorter, Without a Net (Blue Note)
- Cécile McLorin Salvant, WomanChild (Mack Avenue)
- Etienne Charles, Creole Soul (Culture Shock)
- Michele Rosewoman’s New Yor-uba, 30 Years: A Musical Celebration of Cuba in America (Advance Dance Disques)
- Warren Wolf, Wolfgang (Mack Avenue)
- Nicole Mitchell, Aquarius (Delmark)
- Gerald Clayton, Life Forum (Concord)
REISSUES
- Various, French New Wave (Jazz on Film)
- Paul Motian, Paul Motian (ECM)
- Roscoe Mitchell, Live at “A Space” 1975 (Delmark)
VOCAL
- Cécile McLorin Salvant, WomanChild (Mack Avenue)
DEBUT
- Matt Mitchell, Fiction (Pi)
LATIN
- Michele Rosewoman’s New Yor-uba, 30 Years: A Musical Celebration of Cuba in America (Advance Dance Disques)
Let's Cool One 