LAST OF THE YEAR-END STUFF

I was asked to vote in one more year-end poll, being run by Voice jazz reviewer Francis Davis. Apparently the pool of voters is pretty small - only about 40 writers - so it's either gonna represent a really narrow consensus or a totally scattershot array of highly individualistic picks. My money's on the former; jazz is pretty arid lately. Anyway, here's what I submitted:

2006's ten-best new releases (albums released between Thanksgiving 2005 and Thanksgiving 2006), listed in descending order one-through-ten...

Ornette Coleman, Sound Grammar (Sound Grammar)
David S. Ware, BalladWare (Thirsty Ear)
Shot X Shot, s/t (High Two)
Frank Wright, Unity [recorded in 1974 but only officially released this year] (ESP-Disk)
Rudresh Mahanthappa, Codebook (Pi)
William Parker, Long Hidden: The Olmec Series (AUM Fidelity)
Nels Cline, New Monastery (Cryptogramophone)
Fred Anderson, Timeless (Delmark)
Art Ensemble of Chicago, Non-Cognitive Aspects Of The City: Live At Iridium (Pi)
Jason Moran, Artist In Residence (Blue Note)

The year's top three reissues, again listed in descending order...
Weather Report, Forecast: Tomorrow (Legacy)
Sonny Stitt, Stitt’s Bits: Bebop Recordings 1949-1952 (Concord)
Rufus Harley, Courage: The Atlantic Recordings (Rhino Handmade)

I was also asked to choose the best jazz vocal album of the year, but I didn't listen to any. I hate jazz vocal. Always have. Somewhat similarly, I defaulted the Shot x Shot disc into the "best debut" category, because, though it probably reflects very poorly on me indeed, I didn’t pay much attention to new artists this year.

So that's it. I'm officially finished assessing 2006. I can now move on to a solid two weeks or so of listening to music for pleasure, before I have to start logging new shit for next year's survey consideration.