2021 Best of Lists

Doofy

It's December 1, so I'm going in! Paste Magazine I've heard of only a few of these, but their number 1 (Pharoah Sanders/Floating Points) is def among my most-listened this year

rostasi

Quietus Albums Of The Year 2021

yarjazz

Jazzwise has its list of the twenty best jazz albums of 2021 here:

https://www.jazzwise.com/features/article/the-20-best-jazz-albums-of-2021

Germanprof

Firenote prog year in review.

https://thefirenote.com/features/staff-lists/prog-2021-the-year-in-review/?fbclid=IwAR3RMJDeGIq9YStXoEGwwm5PZgXPq2--j6ZoidaiAtz3jRcidK6ZEvQ5Eew

Doofy

Some good names on this Popmatters jazz list. Seems like jazz probably has the highest number of best-of lists per unit sold than any other genre 🎷

ETA the full Popmatters list: https://www.popmatters.com/75-best-albums-of-2021/8 Looks like it's going to be a good list season for Floating Points/Pharoah Sanders

yarjazz

Presto Jazz has released its 5 winners of the best of jazz 2021 here:

https://www.prestomusic.com/jazz/articles/4421--albums-of-the-year-jazz-recordings-of-the-year-winners-2021

The five were selected from its list of 25 top jazz finalists for 2021

https://www.prestomusic.com/jazz/articles/4365--albums-of-the-year-jazz-recordings-of-the-year-finalists-2021

yarjazz

Here are Presto Classical's top 10 albums of 2021

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/articles/4397--awards-recordings-of-the-year-2021-our-top-10

yarjazz

The French Classical magazine Diapason issues its Palmarès each year. The list for 2021 (provided in English by Presto) is here:

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/articles/4413--awards-le-palmares-des-diapason-dor-de-lannee-2021

yarjazz

Stereogum's best jazz list for 2021 - this is likely be a quite different list than those from more mainstream sources

https://www.stereogum.com/2169386/the-10-best-jazz-albums-of-2021/lists/year-in-review/2021-in-review/?fbclid=IwAR2QGgg1Vs21qmPHvgwlLj-Yu1iCo_9rlAqUmYxSRAsmlXziuwJ6H672oAs

yarjazz

Gene Seymour may be a movie/jazz/etc critic you are not familiar with although his work for The Nation and CNN among others has been on display for a number of years. Seymour has published a personal best 10 jazz for a number of years. It is usually unlike any other. Here is his 2021 list: https://geneseymour.com/?p=3318&fbclid=IwAR0RHCdQ35PXplxmGrUYvI-kR3Y88t06853JsZqGkJswru-wzF6YjjhJy6E

yarjazz

And Slate has provided its own list of 2021 jazz (actually Fred Kaplan's list)
https://slate.com/culture/2021/12/best-jazz-albums-2021-nina-simone-charles-mingus-frank-kimbrough.html?fbclid=IwAR3yex6eTJqvA0ViV5CiJPEeF4DeFd5ilFeZjCnFP3gM-blt5odRtoIZ_7M

Note: This may hit a paywall.

yarjazz

Jazz FM91 - Toronto's jazz station - has its 2021 list. It's not exclusively Canadian, but certainly has more Canadian content that any but Peter Hum's (assuming Peter releases one this year).

https://jazz.fm/best-jazz-albums-2021/

yarjazz

DownBeat doesn't present its own ranked list of albums (it does have lists that report critics and readers votes), but is does list all the albums that got four star and better ratings in its reviews: https://archive.maherpublications.com/view/288091829/

peterfrederics

All Music Guide has come out with its 2021 Year in Review and top albums in a number of categories including Alternative, Jazz, Rock, Latin, Electronic, Blues, Folk etc.

https://www.allmusic.com/year-in-review/2021/allmusic-best-of-2021

Germanprof

I feel like I know how to do this less with each passing year. But here, presented alphabetically, is my personal list of the albums I liked best this year. In the last month I spent time reviewing almost 100 albums from the year that came into my orbit (a cluster that naturally has little overlap with most other folks' musical acquaintances) and these were the ones for which I was left thinking "I really need to keep spending time with that" (as opposed to "this is nice," which was not enough to make the cut.)

A

Ai Yamamoto - Pan De Sonic- Iso (field recording, collage) Very much a pandemic album - a deft and quirky collage of domestic sounds during lockdown. Link.

Andrew Heath and Anne Chris Bakker - How to Breathe Like A Stone (ambient) I love complex sonic textures, and this had some of the best of the year. Link.

Archie Shepp and Jason Moran - Let My people Go (jazz) My favorite saxophonist still going strong in his 80s and making every nuance count. This would be in my top 5. Link. Video.

D

Daniel Herskedal - Harbour (jazz) Herskedal continues to make his tuba sound like whale song and to embed it in vibrant compositions. Link

F

Fergus McCreadie - Cairn (jazz) Sparkling Scottish piano trio building jazz on celtic rhythms. Link

Francis M. Gri - The Ropes (ambient) Delightfully melodic ambient, great for quiet evenings. Link

H

Hiroshi Ebina - If There's Any Tinge of This World (Ambient) Wistful keyboard meditations sprinkled with bleeps and woozy distortions. Link.

I

Ian Hawgood and Stijn Hüwels - Bloom (Ambient/field recording/drone) One of those abstract, minimalist, long-form tracks that builds very, very slowly and rewards high levels of patience. Link

Ill Considered - Liminal Space (jazz) Energetic British jazz with African rhythms. Enormous fun. Link.

M

Michael Grigoni, Chihei Hatakeyama, Stephen Vitiello - Earth Awhile (ambient) More highly textured and immersive soundscapes from three eminent collaborators. Link.

Midori Hirano - Soniscope (ambient/piano) Engaging elctro-acoustic piano and ambience experiments, slow to grow on me at first but increasingly interesting with repeat listening. Link

Mind over Midi - Never Leave (ambient) Practically stereotypical rustic ambience with nature field recordings, but a Biosphere-like undercurrent that makes it compelling. There are days when I need albums like this. Link.

Mono - Pilgrimage of the Soul (post-rock) After following their early work avidly I found it hard to warm to a whole string of their more recent albums until this one got me back on board. Noise, melody, and tranquility bundled up together. Link.

N

The Neal Morse Band - Innocence and Danger (progressive rock) Another enormously entertaining double album from NMB, a disk of regular songs and a disk of epics. Link.

P

The Pineapple Thief - Nothing but the Truth (progressive rock) The Pineapple Thief had to my ear reached new heights since Gavin Harrison joined - this "live in the studio" pandemic show is compelling viewing and listening. Link.

S

Scattered Light - Beacons (ambient/loops) Soothing but evocative loop-based quiet expanses. Link

Sonmi451 - Seven Signals in the Sky (ambient) Atmospheric, highly textured, beguiling. Link

T

Taylor Deupree - Mur (ambient) So-called because the music "murmurs," this is as detailed and meditative as any of Deupree's recent releases. Link

Transatlantic - the Absolute Universe (All versions!) (progressive rock) Epic in every sense (released in single album, double album, and Blu-Ray versions with different arrangements and lyrics), and the album of the year. Brilliant progressive rock and already a favorite album. Link  Video

W

Wau Wau Collectif - Yaral Sa Doom (world/jazz) “Yaral Sa Doom” means “educate the young” in Wolof. A dream-like coming together of musical minds in a  fishing village in Senegal; whatever genre this is, it's utterly charming. Link

Wil Bolton - Cumulus Sketches (ambient) A bit more drifty than Bolton's usual sound, this was my favorite of his several releases this year and has already accompanied many a late evening glass of wine. Link

Honorable Mention

This year's new godspeed you! black emperor album sounds like their best in many years, but I only just belatedly got it and have not spent enough time with it to know it; maybe it'll be retrospectively on the list soon, who knows. in similar vein, I suspect that Old Friends New Friends by Nils Frahm will be worth attending to closely, but I don't have it in my hands yet. I enjoyed the palindromic Red Roses are Red Now by Thme (ambient), Gardening by Julia Reidy (ambient), Herbario by Federico Durand (ambient), and Unscientific Italians Play the Music of Bill Frisell Volume 1 by Unscientific Italians (jazz) quite a bit, but when push came to shove they felt as if they were on the cusp of the list rather than squarely on it, so I left them off. As always, I might have chosen a different list on a different day. I hope someone finds something they like, because that's the point.

omnifoo

@Germanprof your list has a lot to explore, much not found on others.  Thanks!

jonahpwll

The Best Jazz on Bandcamp 2021 courtesy of yours truly:

https://daily.bandcamp.com/best-of-2021/the-best-jazz-of-2021

Doofy

The 2021 Jazz Critics Poll is up! No longer covered by NPR, interestingly. @jonahpwll I'm delighted to see James Brandon Lewis getting the recognition...Nobody has put together a bigger/better run of new work over the last few years. There is also a Non-Jazz list that looks cool.

soulcoal

I'm always fascinated with the composite/"poll of polls"-type lists for jazz.   While there are certainly a number of wonderful albums near the top of the list, I still can't help but wonder how the list would differ it was based on play count data on each critic's actual (or hypothetical) Spotify or Apple Music or iTunes (or whatever) list.   e.g.   I'm also interested in what their favorite or most-listened-to albums were, not just those for which there is a long tradition to award accolades.    Anecdotally, when I look at streaming play counts for these albums vs. other jazz albums that were also widely acclaimed, but perhaps more accessible in style, the latter nearly ALWAYS have higher streaming numbers.   Of course, not every listener is a critic in a jazz poll.   But I still have a nagging sense that a lot of these albums get admired and glowingly written about a lot more than they get listened to, even by the critics ranking them so high.   

In no way is this meant to disparage the quality or value of such recordings - I've listened to and/or own several of these myself.   But (personally) I can only listen to so much free jazz - esp. if the "skronky sax" ratio is high in the mix :-) - so I find that my own list of favorites for the year tends to include some artists not usually found at the top of these "critics lists" (but are often present further down in the list, etc.)

Stated differently, I guess I tend to me more interested in what were people's favorite albums of the year vs. what were the alleged "best" albums.

jonahpwll

Doofy said:

The 2021 Jazz Critics Poll is up! No longer covered by NPR, interestingly. @jonahpwll I'm delighted to see James Brandon Lewis getting the recognition...Nobody has put together a bigger/better run of new work over the last few years. There is also a Non-Jazz list that looks cool.

JBL has really emerged these last few years.  I was pretty happy to see him claim the top spot, too.  I didn't expect that.

soulcoal said:

 But I still have a nagging sense that a lot of these albums get admired and glowingly written about a lot more than they get listened to, even by the critics ranking them so high.   
...

Stated differently, I guess I tend to me more interested in what were people's favorite albums of the year vs. what were the alleged "best" albums.

There's a divergence between my best-of list and favorite list.  With the former, I attempt to view the music objectively, whereas with the latter, I let all of my preferences and subjectivity run wild.

Not sure a critic's play count would do much good from a number of perspectives. With my listening queue overflowing, I can't spend a lot of time with any one album.  Also, some albums are easier to write about than others, and some days I feel like writing about music more than others.  I've put together some decent write-ups with only listening to an album a few times, whereas others stump me (or I'm just in a writing dead zone) and I've got to listen over and over and over.

Not to mention, there's some albums that are more conducive to repeat listening than others.  If you looked at my iTunes library playcount on, say, Fire Orchestra, you might think I don't like them very much, when, in fact, I treasure "Enter" and "Exit" beyond measure.  But I only listen to either of those recordings in very specific moods.

But that's just speaking for myself.  I'm suspicious of some of these writers' ballots that come off looking like they were generated by an algorithm.  Four of the ten slots will be filled by ECM & Blue Note, one slot by Highnote or Smoke Sessions, one slot by Mack Avenue, one slot by anything from Chris Potter or Maria Schneider, and then, strangely, something avant-garde on Pi Recordings or, the trend more recently, something on Intl' Anthem... almost as if they're using that selection to defend themselves against only listening to the mainstream stuff that lands in their inbox from a PR rep.  In these instances, it could very well be that an analysis of their play count would reveal some truths.

peterfrederics

For a really eclectic mix ranging from doom metal via Prog to folk and hip hop head for the Rate Your Music top 20 for 2021.

https://rateyourmusic.com/feature/rate-your-music-best-of-2021/

interestingly, one of my favourite jazz bands discovered (like many great bands and albums) through this “Discussion” comes in at No. 20 on the list - “Liminal Space” by Ill Considered.

omnifoo

Sounds like we're fast approaching a time when we all have to make three lists, each interesting for different reasons but maybe overkill for folks who don't overthink like this forum:  most-played, favorite, & "best" of the year.

Doofy

If we're going by play counts, this is my runaway favorite this year. That mainly reflects the mood that I need in the morning. I don't presume to make a best-of list, but if I did, I might use different criteria than "I listen to this a lot of mornings when I'm waiting for the coffee to kick in"

If I did have to choose a "best," it might be this. A great representation of talent, covering a meaningful but previously unassembled repertoire, in a way that you can feel the love ❤️

djh

I'm very glad that Brad Rose is back blogging and alerting folk to some great sounds. It helps that quite a few of the comps he mentions I picked up this year, several others are now on my wishlist, others will doubtless follow.

https://foxydigitalis.zone/2021/12/21/a-compiled-list-of-excellent-2021-compilations/

Interesting comments on the nature of Best Vs Favourite Vs Most Played albums, especially since the ones with immediate impact don't always last the course, so slow builders will get more plays over time. Also of course it being a subjective universe there is no such thing as Best - unless you are being paid to say so, "ahem".

Anyway HNY to all here. Onward and sideways in 2022.

Dave H

Germanprof

Two more reasons why play counts are tricky: (1) there are a couple of ambient albums that are my go-to when I need to take a nap in the day - I put them on at low volume on headphones and I am off in less than a minute. Their play count is very, very high but usually I was asleep for most of it. (2) the stuff I like best I tend to buy on CD to make the most of my good speaker system - so there are albums I listen to a lot that have very low play counts simply because CD plays don’t get logged. (That was also one of the reasons why the Last.fm habit didn’t stick with me).

djh

djh said:

I'm very glad that Brad Rose is back blogging and alerting folk to some great sounds. It helps that quite a few of the comps he mentions I picked up this year, several others are now on my wishlist, others will doubtless follow.

https://foxydigitalis.zone/2021/12/21/a-compiled-list-of-excellent-2021-compilations/

Interesting comments on the nature of Best Vs Favourite Vs Most Played albums, especially since the ones with immediate impact don't always last the course, so slow builders will get more plays over time. Also of course it being a subjective universe there is no such thing as Best - unless you are being paid to say so, "ahem".

Anyway HNY to all here. Onward and sideways in 2022.

Dave H

This is one from the Foxy Digitalis list of comps which I will be hoovering up

https://thejewelgarden.bandcamp.com/album/the-future-disintegrates

soulcoal

Good discussion.  And my "playlist count" example was probably a poor proxy for my underlying point (which I think was understood by everyone here, despite the poor example - e.g. the "best of lists" of critics don't seem to always be the best jumping off point for finding interesting new music to listen to, and jazz perhaps exemplifies this more than other genres (though it is certainly not the only genre where this phenomenon occurs).    I don't necessarily care about play counts from a critic (and, as @jonahpwll wisely notes, critics who are constantly reviewing new material probably don't listen to anything repeatedly as much as the rest of us might).   But that "generated by an algorithm" feel to the lists make them, ironically, slightly less interesting to read than I would otherwise expect.     As an aside, I agree that JBL was a worthy recipient of praise this year (and I wasn't really aiming the "skronky sax" comment at either of his recent releases... yeah, there is some of it present, but it feels in context with the music and it's not omnipresent).

I guess I am at a point where the more academic "what was best" analysis is less interesting than knowing what people's favorites were.   It's not like the two sets are must be mutually exclusive (e.g. being a favorite does not imply poor quality), but I think the former ("best of") tends to cater to "popular groupthink" more than the latter.

Germanprof

@soulcoal I get and sympathize with the points you’re making that sparked the digressions. The published lists are mostly barren for me - the time I spend trawling them for things I missed is waning, because I keep listening in to the top picks and going “huh?” I also always feel it from the other side when I am making my own list and with certain releases find myself thinking variants of ‘I really enjoyed this but there is no evidence any of the experts thought it was any good’. Especially if I am also aware that the release in question might have its limitations, but it was fun anyway. It’s a thought that is increasingly easy to dismiss, but it does recur.
The label distribution point is interesting, and a slightly different issue. I don’t know the jazz world as well, but in the areas I pay most attention to, I have a baseline expectation that, for instance, something released on 12k is more likely to be very well done than something on [insert random ambient netlabel to avoid me dissing a specific one here]. That means I am more likely to listen in the first place, and to listen with positive expectation, and it is more likely that the release might in fact match my tastes. So at an individual level I can see why labels might recur. But I am not sure that goes far enough to justify a kind of standard distribution of labels - that sounds more like dues paying. And either way really enjoyable stuff is going to be missed.
One more thought since I don’t want to go back to the tasks of the moment: “enjoy” and “favorite” are relative terms too. Some things I enjoy because they are conceptually fascinating or aurally challenging, but I would never put them on in the evening over a glass of wine. Other things are comfort food, or great for background listening, or for when I need energy, or for working to…just like there’s really no “best” I find it hard to think there is really a “favorite” without all those qualifications. (Again this is a tangent to your original thought).

jonahpwll

soulcoal said:

But that "generated by an algorithm" feel to the lists make them, ironically, slightly less interesting to read than I would otherwise expect. 

I think a primary factor in some of the intra- and inter-homogeneity of these lists/individual ballots is that the collective vote includes writers who just don't listen to enough of the new releases to really have a foundation on what is "best" from a particular year.  And if they're mostly sticking to the same few labels and the same handful of familiar names, then the lists won't reflect the diversity of the modern scene or be of much use to measuring the quality of a particular year's releases or for discovery for those listeners who really want to dig into the best that year had to offer.   

And this isn't specific to just the NPR/ArtsFuse/Francis Davis poll.  The Jazz Journalists Association is a great example of this effect.  In addition to albums of the year, they also do labels and individual instruments.  I've seen musicians get voted for a particular instrument of that year that didn't release a single album, which leaves me guessing the writers couldn't/didn't want to think of someone on bass clarinet or alto sax who put out an exemplary recording that year, but just simply took the first name they could think of.

I go through each and every ballot for the FD Best Of that's up on Tom's Hullworks site and I look for the albums that didn't hit my radar, and I'll look at the full album ranking... every album that got a vote... and I'll check out the albums at the very bottom of the list... the ones that only got a vote or two from all of the critics combined.  That's where I find the value.  But these critics who have half of their selections for ECM/Bluenote and the rest spread across some of the tamer labels like Highnote/Mack Avenue/Criss Cross/Smoke Sessions, I'm pretty much ignoring their ballots altogether... because those ballots reflect writers with a narrow focus and not much willingness to expand their listening range, and if they can't be bothered to truly explore everything that's out there, then I'm not going to waste my time reading their opinions.  Those ballots end up being no different than some of these "travel" pieces written by people who never actually travel to the places but compiled from what they've found online... it's just regurgitating what's already out there and not adding anything insightful.

Bad Thoughts

Whenever I reflect on the best things I have encountered over a year, be it books, films, board games, and indeed music, I see it as a reflection of the journey that I have taken that I have taken. I'm not actively seeking the very best, objectively or subjectively. I think of most lists as personal journeys, even if some try to speak to a broader public.

Some journeys may be shorter than some critics are willing to admit.

(Written from the hospital--have  CV, but not CV related).

djh

Bad Thoughts said:

Whenever I reflect on the best things I have encountered over a year, be it books, films, board games, and indeed music, I see it as a reflection of the journey that I have taken that I have taken. I'm not actively seeking the very best, objectively or subjectively. I think of most lists as personal journeys, even if some try to speak to a broader public.

Some journeys may be shorter than some critics are willing to admit.

(Written from the hospital--have  CV, but not CV related).

Get well soon! Both my wife and myself have CV and I'm on week three of horrible tooth ache. Good luck to you and your journey!