Some Good Albums From 2009

As I said last year, my status as an amateur critic and holder of a day job means I cannot review more than a tiny fraction of the new music that gets released in a given year, so I will leave the year-end lists to the more than capable critics listed below (to be updated as more lists pop up).

• David R. Adler
• AllMusic.com
  
• Jason Crane
• Destination: Out
  
• Phil Freeman
• Ted Gioia
• Peter Hum
• Josh Jackson
• Fred Kaplan
• David Leonard (NY Observer)
  
• Howard Mandel
• NPR Jazz
• PopMatters
• Ben Ratliff
  
• RVAJazz
  
• Hank Shteamer
• Karl Stark
  
• Jacob Teichroew
• Michael J. West
  

Meanwhile, here are a few of my favorites from 2009, which was not a bad year for jazz, all things considered.

• Vijay Iyer Trio: Historicity
• Robert Glasper: Double Booked
• The Bad Plus: For All I Care
• Joe Lovano Us Five: Folk Art
• Fly: Sky & Country
  
• Medeski Martin & Wood: Radiolarians II
• Darcy James Argue's Secret Society: Infernal Machines

Also, let me give one final farewell to George Russell, Rashied Ali, Hank Crawford, John Patrick Diggins, John Updike, Ian Carr, Mark Fidrych, Bud Shank, George Tiller, Ed McMahon, Ali Akbar Khan, Les Paul, and anyone else I may have forgotten.


Photo of Joe Lovano at Newport 2009 via A Blog Supreme