top 05 jazz albums?

if you're fred kaplan,
hello and welcome, hang out
and talk jazz with us

on the other hand,
this list is kind of boring,
in my opinion

but big points to you
for not pimping monk/coltrane
like ALL OTHER LISTS

Jeffrey Parker - The Relatives
Tord Gustavsen Trio - The Ground
Nicole Mitchell - Hope, Future and Destiny
Fred Anderson / Hamid Drake / William Parker - Blue Winter
Dianne Reeves - Good Night, And Good Luck
Albert Ayler - Live on the Riviera**

** this is the super-duper "lost" record that nobody is talking about! yeah sure, Coltrane, Monk, Bird/Diz ... but some *more* fuckin PRIMO Ayler got released! that Riviera set smokes the Foundation Maight dates, to these ears...

Julio's correct, the America reissues are fantastic (what I've heard - Shorter, Shepp, Rudd, Wright).

Lately, the Cline/Corsano/Shoup record on Strange Attractors has been searing holes in my clothes. One listen to "Minus Mint" will have you for life. Sure there's some straight-up stomping and barn burning, but also some nice quiet moments, communication of the highest caliber. I have a tendency to write off Nels "Wilco" Cline, but it's not fair. Corsano just brings so much energy to the older dudes, the guy plays like an octopus. He pilots the Cold Bleak Heat disc on Family Vineyard in a similar manner, where Flaherty takes Shoup's place, and Greg Kelley (underrated!) and No Neck/TEST's Matt Heyner bubble along convincingly. A lot of these guys have been playing for years and years, but I get the sense that something's happening.

Two AUM Fidelity releases: Triptych Myth The Beautiful (Cooper-Moore, Tom Abbs, Chad Taylor) is probably my favorite jazz record of the year. Cooper-Moore just has this old-soul thing like 100 years of jazz is contained in his little finger. The other one is William Parker Quartet, can do no wrong.

I didn't hear the Jenny Scheinman, though I'm definitely interested. Most of the 2005 stuff I heard this year are reissues - love love love the Ted Curson album Urge on Fontana with Booker Ervin. There was a Don Cherry reissue of Organic Music that was pretty good. The Ike Quebec Blue Note reissue was worth a listen, as I'm sure there are others. Hooray 2005.

*with all those lazy ass columns that say "oh the three best jazz records of the year are all 40 years old, wow, isn't it great that these people from the past are still better than anyone else playing now, everything was better in the past, blah blah blah, I've read about six of these things, I swear, critics who all write the same thing all the time are even worse for jazz than "smooth jazz" radio stations

I mean, what a TV drama, lost tapes believed to have not existed found in dusty attic/on side of road/in a cave contain Coltrane's best work ever. How do you resist.

Absolute agreement on this. I like the music Ayler made in the last year of his life, the most overtly gospelized stuff, better than anything else he did. ESP-Disk just put out a great 2CD set of the Slugs' Saloon recordings, too, with one track I'd never heard before.

As far as new stuff I've really liked this year, Steve Lehman's Demian As Posthuman, on Pi, is really good, as is the Jason Moran disc cited in the thread-opening post.

The Thing-"Live At Bla"...the Gustafsson's "garage rock/free jazz" group, scorching, incredible live, more great playing from Paal Nilssen-Love on drums

anyway these two I listened to a lot this yr

but it was better
than the limpid s.f. jazz
collective's dull throb

anyway, like i say, it would be so awesome to get a sampler.

http://www.jazzhouse.org/top/

I was especially intrigued by the lists of Stuart Broomer and David R. Adler.

http://www.dustygroove.com/images/products/f/fagerq_don~_portraito_101b.jpg

sorry to sound like a fanboy but both are on Tzadik :)

great brazilian jazz
old and new and in between
don't sleep on this dudes

Frisell's East/West live set is really good, and the download-only Further East/Further West is definitely worth getting (available from his website, www.billfrisell.com, and also at iTunes, Rhapsody et al.). My only complaint about East is that the "acoustic" set is stuck on at the end (instead of integrated into the middle, like in their real sets), and it doesn't sound very serious - and I can't tell if that last track, with the heavy electric guitar coming in, is just some after-the-fact studio joke.

Jazz albums that I still really want to hear from this year:

Jeff Parker
the Marsalis live dingus
the Mehldau thing
Jamie Saft Trio
Monk w/Coltrane

Jazz albums I liked:

Shannon Powell, Powell's Place (w/Jason Marsalis on vibes, it's a great mix of straight-ahead, r&b, and New Orleans shit)

Uh, that's all I can think of, most of the stuff I listened to this year was older (but not that old).

Triptych Myth
E.S.T.
Robert Glasper (saw him in Seattle and he was incredible, a couple of songs were A+ perfect)
David S. Ware live
William Parker Quartet
Gold Sounds (I've always liked James Carter, though the undisputed highlight was the solo-piano "Trigger Cut")
David Murray 4tet & Strings (outlandish and totally amazing strings on this one, luvvit)
The Bad Plus
Dave Douglas, Keystone
Vijay Iyer

I seem to prefer small groups and piano trios/quartets. And I'm already hearing really good records that are coming out in 2006--Matthew Shipp's solo-piano One on Thirsty Ear and Petrella Gianluca's Indigo 4 on Blue Note.

acoustic ladyland are the sham 69 of nu jazz.

i like the sound of the oleary recs, have loved the last two stanko albs on ecm. i heard, in a similar vein, enrico rava's latest on ecm w/ paul motian - typical ecm, but absolutely lush nonetheless.

aside from the alan shorter (others in that series also look mouth-watering but so fucken expensive, and with no bonus shit bah), i enjoyed some (midprice!) blue note reissues: Andrew!!! by Andrew Hill, Symphony for Improvisers and Where is Brooklyn by Don Cherry

no fucken way is the Monk/Coltrane live rec the best EVER Coltrane

don't ever pass up the opportunity to see David Murray live

i like some of mehldau's trio recs, they're pretty and clever, but: he has dubious taste in cover versions - the beatles, nick drake, radiohead, paul simon HOW FUCKEN BRAVE - his expressed disdain for sampling/electronics is feebleheaded wyntonism (see also: Jarrett on fusion) - and his solo piano stuff is REALLY boring - he's just really tame when lined up alongside shipp, taborn, moran, uri caine etc

I saw World Saxophone Quartet Experience during Earshot Jazz Fest in Seattle--basically WSQ w/a rhythm section (a showy one, not always to my taste) and Craig Harris on trombone, doing Hendrix material. Pretty fun, and Murray was the definite standout among the soloists to my ear.

Another disc I've been playing a lot this year has been Pat Metheny Group's The Way Up. It's really clean and glossy and fusoid and all about heroic solos but I think it's great in its way. Reich-ish backdrops lead into sprawling epic tracks, densely layered with electronics and instrumental sounds moving through different moods.

In a more straight vein, I love the Dave Brubeck album. Everyone just seems to play so well on such solid tunes.

I haven't heard nearly enough this year though and I'd like to catch up, esp with Shipp and Tim Berne's projects. What's Vijay Iyer all about?

that and the cuong vu
are quite similar in their
post-post-rock-ed-ness

cuong vu: frisell SHREDS
and vu's trumpet also SHREDS
(sometimes, both are hushed)

Jeff Parker
Bill Frisell, Unspeakable
Claudia Quintet, Semi-Formal
Jamie Saft Trio
maybe David Murray 4tet w/stringz
maybe Gold Soundz

You mean since the old guy died? That's too bad. I always got the sense that even though he was a classical-not-jazz guy, they kept the jazz basement well-stocked out of respect for his territory.

He has a great story about telling Jim Morrison to fuck off in the 60s.

I was kind of underwhelmed by this. It sounds like too much of this is spent playing along to canned loops. It seems to have wrung all the rhythmic juice out of the playing. Kenny Wollesen should not ever be in the same sentence with the word "stiff" but at times this record tempts me to use that term. I think his hands were tied. Also Jenny Scheinman is on this, but you'd have a hard time guessing that, if you didn't know it. Seems like the individual voices of the musicians were not allowed to come through. Even Frisell himself seems to be shown in better light on something like Dave Douglas's Strange Liberation.

I think Sundar is a big fan of this one...?

FWIW Strange Liberation is the one I never come back to. It's not bad (there is a lot there, and I played it at the time) but that strikes me as kind of blah and unfun, esp compared to Freak In or Keystone.

Intercontinentals is really good, yet I don't come back to that one often either. My favorite track is "Yala," where it sounds like Christos Govetas on oud is teaching Frisell the track on the spot, and Frisell's going, "Yeah, I get this! This stuff is a blast!"

Overall, I enjoy practically all of Frisell's '00s records but - and this is a tired assessment by now - I miss the spontaneity of his ECM bands, or the two albums Wayne Horvitz produced, Nashville and Have a Little Faith. Those two sound and feel so great that the Lee Townsend productions really suffer, to my ears, by comparison.

See, someone else liked Unspeakable. "Who Was That Girl?" is the one with the classic horn line and "Old Sugar Bear" is the one with the great guitar noise IIRC.

xpost Right, see, I only really got into BF with The Intercontinentals, which I fell in love with right away. This sound sounds gorgeous to my ears. The older stuff actually sounds slightly dated to me (in terms of production) in comparison. Still good though - have always loved "Live to Tell"!

I'm surprised, I thought that was your shit! I feel similarly, though.

As far as Dave Douglas, I liked the Infinite but haven't listened to it in years. I loved Leap of Faith and Soul on Soul, and while I haven't listened to those in as long, now I want to. Didn't hear Freak In, but I'm interested in Keystone.

1. Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane, At Carnegie Hall (Blue Note)
2. Dizzy Gillespie/Charlie Parker, Town Hall, New York City, June 22, 1945 (Uptown)
3. John Coltrane, One Down, One Up: Live at the Half Note (Impulse!)
4. Sonny Rollins, Without a Song (The 9/11 Concert) (Milestone)
5. Wayne Shorter Quartet, Beyond the Sound Barrier (Verve)
6. Terence Blanchard, Flow (Blue Note)
6. Vijay Iyer, Reimagining (Savoy)
8. Paul Motian/Bill Frisell/Joe Lovano, I Have the Room Above Her (ECM)
9. Tord Gustavsen, The Ground (ECM)
10. Brad Mehldau Trio, Day Is Done (Nonesuch)
11. Bill Frisell, East/West (Nonesuch)
12. Charles Lloyd, Jumping the Creek (ECM)
12. Tierney Sutton, I'm with the Band (Telarc)
14. Greg Osby, Channel Three (Blue Note)
14. Bebo Valdes, Bebo de Cuba (Calle 54)
14. Cuong Vu, It's Mostly Residual (ArtistShare)
17. Charlie Haden/Liberation Music Orchestra, Not in Our Name (Verve)
18. Bobo Stenson, Goodbye (ECM)
18. Marcin Wasilewski/Slawomir Kurkiewicz/Michal Miskiewicz, Trio (ECM)
20. Billy Bang, Vietnam: Reflections (Justin Time)
20. Bill Charlap Plays George Gershwin: The American Soul (Blue Note)
20. Dave Douglas, Keystone (Greenleaf)
20. The Bill Holman Band, Live (Jazzed Media)
20. In the Country, This Was the Pace of My Heartbeat (Rune Grammofon
20. Joe Lovano, Joyous Encounter (Blue Note)
20. Eddie Palmieri, Listen Here! (Concord Picante)
20. Marc Ribot, Spiritual Unity (Pi)
28. Dave Holland Big Band, Overtime (Dare2)
28. Pat Metheny Group, The Way Up (Nonesuch)
28. Solveig Slettahjell Slow Motion Quintet, Pixiedust (Curling Legs)
31. The Bad Plus, Suspicious Activity? (Columbia)
31. Bill Charlap/Sandy Stewart, Love Is Here to Stay (Blue Note)
33. Keith Jarrett, Radiance (ECM)
33. Mandarin Movie (Aesthetics)
33. Wynton Marsalis, Live at the House of Tribes (Blue Note)
36. Lorraine Feather, Dooji Wooji (Sanctuary)
36. Kurt Rosenwinkel, Deep Song (Verve)
36. Luciana Souza, Duos II (Sunnyside)
39. Cold Black Heat, It's Magnificent, But It Isn't War (Family Vineyard)
39. Brian Culbertson, It's on Tonight (GRP)
39. Marty Ehrlich, News on the Rail (Palmetto)
39. Either/Orchestra, Live in Addis: Ethiopiques Vol. 20 (Buda Musique)
39. Manu Katche, Neighbourhood (ECM)
39. The Don Menza Big Band, Menza Lines (Jazzed Media)
39. Mark Murphy, Once to Every Heart (Verve)
39. Jim Self, InnerPlay (Basset Hound)
39. Dylan van der Schyff, The Definition of a Toy (Songlines)
48. Jamie Cullum, Catching Tales (Verve Forecast)
48. Mat Maneri, Pentagon (Thirsty Ear)
48. Shining, In the Kingdom of Kitsch You Will Be a Monster (Rune Grammofon)

AllAboutJazz.com's list is more esoteric at least:

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=20317

Re: 28 - "Curling Legs" is a kinda sexy name for a label.

And while they're ranking oldies, why no Miles Davis Cellar Door? Were they not sure it would come out by the end of the year?

It placed third in the Reissues list, which I'll type up in a sec. They did actually talk about how they weren't sure what the hell was going on with it in terms of release, in the comments before the lists proper.

1. Pat Metheny/Ornette Coleman, Song X (Nonesuch)
2. Jelly Roll Morton, The Complete Library of Congress Recordings by Alan Lomax (Rounder)
3. Miles Davis, The Complete Cellar Door Sessions 1970 (Columbia/Legacy)
4. Bill Evans, The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings, 1961 (Riverside)
5. Andrew Hill, Andrew!!! (Blue Note)
6. Sonny Sharrock, Black Woman (Water)
7. Woody Shaw, Stepping Stones: Live at the Village Vanguard (Columbia)
7. Julian Priester, Love, Love (ECM)
9. Progressions: 100 Years of Jazz Guitar (Columbia/Legacy)
10. Don Cherry, Symphony for Improvisers (Blue Note)
10. Complete Clef/Verve Count Basie Fifties Studio Recordings (Mosaic)
10. Bobby Hutcherson, Oblique (Blue Note)

whoops! yeah I meant this page of lists:

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=20301

our overall top ten compilation isn't out yet, soon though

Thelionus Monk w/John Coltrane, At Carnegie Hall
Uri Caine, Toys - apparently a Herbie Hancock tribute from this year that I never even heard about. It's got Dave Douglas, Dave Holland, Joshua Roseman, Don Byron, and Ralph Peterson. Hope it's hot.

From down the street at my beloved B-Sides:

Claudia Quintet, Semi-Formal
Electric Masada

I'm very excited about all my new jazz.

Dude put his marriage proposal underneath the cd tray!

yes, good record, in the spirit of chris speed solo stuff, pachora, alasnoaxis, et al.

Monk/Coltrane is really living up to the hype as well.

nothing too wild here, nothing too too boring either

Just picked up Monk/Coltrane, which sounds really nice too.