Here are the jazz albums that repeatedly ascended to the top of my pile this year (in alphabetical order, because I hate ranking music). Special honors to the Baylor Project’s latest — let’s call it Feelgood Album of the Year.
The Baylor Project, Generations (Be a Light)
Stephen Bernstein’s Millennial Territory Orchestra, Community Music, Vol. 1: Tinctures in Time (Royal Potato)
The Cookers, Look Out! (Gearbox)
Chick Corea Akoustic Band, Live (Concord Jazz)
Joey DeFrancesco, More Music (Mack Avenue)
Kurt Elling feat. Charlie Hunter, SuperBlue (Edition)
Orrin Evans, The Magic of Now (Smoke Sessions)
Joe Farnsworth, Time to Swing (Smoke Sessions)
Gerry Gibbs Thrasher Dream Trios, Songs From My Father (Whaling City Sound)
Carlos Henriquez, The South Bronx Story (Blue Engine)
Vincent Herring, Preaching to the Choir (Smoke Sessions)
Dave Holland, Another Land (Edition)
Samara Joy, Samara Joy (Whirlwind)
Remy Le Boeuf’s Assembly of Shadows, Architecture of Storms (Soundspore)
John McLaughlin, Liberation Time (Abstract Logix)
Pat Metheny, Side Eye NYC (V1.IV) (Modern)
Arturo O’Farrill & The Afro Latin Jazz Ensemble, …dreaming in lions… (Blue Note)
Chuck Owen and the Jazz Surge, Within Us (Summit)
Nicholas Payton, Smoke Sessions (Smoke Sessions)
Chris Potter, There is a Tide (Edition)
Nate Smith, Kinfolk 2: See the Birds (Edition)
Jazzlands 