Down Beat’s official critics poll, which isn’t hinged to the calendar year, won’t arrive until August.
But the January issue of the magazine (to which I’m a longtime contributor) offers a list of the jazz CDs that notched the best reviews – highest star ratings – in 2008.
The five-star releases, although all deserving of high praise, may or may not deserve to be called “New Masterpieces”; a decade from now, will these recordings still resonate? Still, I was particularly impressed by the Caine, Haden, and McLaughlin discs. Here’s the list:
- Gunther Schuller, Journey Into Jazz (BMOP Sound)
- Uri Caine Ensemble, The Othello Syndrome (Winter & Winter)
- Otis Taylor, Recapturing the Banjo (Telarc)
- John McLaughlin, Floating Point (Abstract Logix)
- Charlie Haden Family and Friends, Rambling Boy (Decca)
A step down are the 4.5-star releases, including several of my ’08 favorites – Clark, Corea/Burton, Herwig, and Frisell.
Here’s that list:
- Anthony Braxton, Trio (Victoriaville)
- Mike Clark, Blueprints of Jazz Volume 1 (Talking House)
- Chick Corea and Gary Burton, The New Crystal Silence (Concord)
- Marilyn Crispell, Vignettes (ECM)
- Prieto Dafnis Sextet, Taking the Soul for a Walk (Dafnison Music)
- Die Enttauschung, Die Enttauschung (Intakt)
- Bill Frisell, History, Mystery (Nonesuch)
- Mike Garson, Conversations With My Family (Resonance)
- Jon Gordon, Within Words (ArtistShare)
- Conrad Herwig, The Latin Side of Wayne Shorter (Half Note)
- Grace Kelly and Lee Konitz, GRACEfulLee (Pazz)
- Moss, Moss (Sunnyside)
- Rosa Passos, Romance (Telarc)
- Mario Pavone, Trio Arc (Playscape)
- Herb Robertson and the NY Downtown Allstars, Real Aberration (Clean Feed)
- Wadada Leo Smith and the Golden Quartet, Tabligh (Cueniform)
- Gebhard Ullmann, New Basement Research (Soul Note)
- Norma Winstone, Distances (ECM)
It’s interesting to note that the music deemed among the best jazz of the year is spread out on nearly as many labels as there are releases. The exceptions – two are on ECM, and two are on Telarc.
The next level down, the four-star CDs, features 124 releases, including several, below, that struck me as particularly outstanding (and in some cases, deserving of higher star ratings):
- Brian Blade, Season of Changes (Verve)
- The Blind Boys of Alabama, Down in New Orleans (TimeLife)
- Anat Cohen, Notes From the Village (Anzic)
- John Ellis and Double-Wide, Dance Like There’s No Tomorrow (Hyena)
- Drew Gress, The Irrational Numbers (Premonition)
- Lionel Loueke, Karibu (Blue Note)
- Pat Metheny, Day Trip (Nonesuch)
- Radiohead, In Rainbows (ATO) – not jazz, I know, but how could this CD NOT be on anyone’s best-of list?
- Josh Roseman, New Constellations (Accurate)
- Kurt Rosenwinkel Group, The Remedy: Live at the Village Vanguard (ArtistShare)
- Esperanza Spalding, Esperanza (Heads Up)
- Susan Tedeschi, Back to the River (Verve Forecast)
Yes, I’ll be getting around to submitting my Top 10 CD list(s) to one or more publications. But not quite yet.
