#^d 2014-12-05 #^h Jazz Poll Ballots

I voted in a couple jazz polls today. (Does Jazz Times know who I am? Do they care?) I submitted the following to Francis Davis for NPR's Jazz Critics Poll this year:

Your choices for this year's ten best New Releases (albums released between last Thanksgiving and this, give or take) listed in descending order one-through-ten.

  1. Steve Lehman Octet: Mise en Abîme (Pi)
  2. Paul Shapiro: Shofarot Verses (Tzadik)
  3. Digital Primitives: Lipsomuch/Soul Searchin' (Hopscotch, 2CD)
  4. Velkro: Don't Wait for the Revolution (Clean Feed)
  5. Revolutionary Snake Ensemble: Live Snakes (Accurate)
  6. Ivo Perelman: The Other Edge (Leo)
  7. Rent Romus' Life's Blood Ensemble: Cimmerian Crossroads (Edgetone)
  8. Kris Davis Trio: Waiting for You to Grow (Clean Feed)
  9. Craig Handy: Craig Handy & 2nd Line Smith (Okeh)
  10. Allen Lowe: Mulatto Radio: Field Recordings: 1-4 (Constant Sorrow, 4CD)
Your top-three Reissues or Historical albums, again in descending order:

  1. Ted Daniel's Energy Module: Interconnection (1975, NoBusiness, 2CD)
  2. Sun Ra & His Arkestra: In the Orbit of Ra (1957-78, Strut, 2CD)
  3. The Buddy Tate Quartet: Texas Tenor (1978, Sackville/Delmark)

Your choice for the year's best Vocal album:

Your choice for the year's best Debut album:

Your choice for the year's best Latin jazz album:

I think I voted for Ivo Perelman under Latin jazz last year. He's from Brazil, ergo Latin, but plays free jazz, so not what you'd recognize as Latin jazz. I also have a few A-list players from Spain and Portugal (Ridrigo Amado, Luis Lopes) I'd be happy to plug. Not sure why I don't find more Latin jazz, other than that very little finds its way to me. I have several A-list Latin pop records (Shakira, Ricardo Lemvo, Fumaça Preta).

I should also note that I've been counting Jenny Scheinman's The Littlest Prisoner as a non-jazz album (where it's currently number two on my list). Obviously would have made the top-ten here had I gone that way.

Not sure when the results will be posted, but I'll be hosting the ballots again this year, so I'll probably know more before it happens.

Some preliminary stats: 60 new A-list albums, 124 new B+(***) [HM], 368 other albums for total of 552; 10 old A-list, 5 old B+(***) [HM], 11 other for total of 26. Didn't find many late-graded 2013 albums: 23 (3 new + 1 old A-list).

In 2012 (at roughly this time), I had 556 new jazz records (similar, but with 80 ungraded in queue, vs. 15 now), and 36 old records (plus 2 undgraded), so the falloff this year is less than I expected. (Not sure about 2013, as I don't seem to have the data readily available.)

I also have a request from Sergio Piccarilli to vote in El Intruso's "8th Creative Music Critics Poll 2014." I've voted in it before, but procrastinated last year and missed the deadline date (January 5th this year).

It will be a pleasure for us to know your opinion about your favorites in these categories (no more than three choices in each category)

Names were mostly plucked off this year's top album list, with a few reminders from last year and a few more names from memory -- certainly doesn't constitute any serious, deep thinking: pretty sure everyone mentioned deserves mentioning, but many of those unmentioned don't deserve the slight. Several slots could have gone much deeper: drums, bass, alto sax, tenor sax, piano, trumpet. I dropped my number two and four albums somewhat arbitrarily.