#^d 2015-04-25 #^h Downbeat Critics Poll 2015

Earlier this week I filled out my ballot for Downbeat's 2015 Critics Poll. I took my usual copious notes, but I'll just give you the highlights here -- follow the link for more details. The poll is very time-consuming: I've never finished it in a single day (took two this time, at least ten hours). The big problem is that they ask about fifty questions: mostly to identify the best (or most important or something like that) musicians by instrument (or some other category like composer or arranger), and for each question they have a second ballot slot for "rising star." They used to call the latter TDWR, an acronym for "talent deserving wider recognition," which makes much more sense to me. Even if I wanted to, I'm not sure what sense it would make to try to rank musicians. So all I can try to do is to mention a few people I think we should be aware of.

Sometimes those people are obvious -- until their deaths, Steve Lacy on soprano sax and Billy Bang on violin were automatic choices. Often they aren't, in some cases because there's so much competition -- piano, bass, and drums are the top tier; trumpet, alto sax, tenor sax, and increasingly guitar the second -- and sometimes because there is so little (flute, baritone sax -- a special case here is an instrument mostly played by non-specialists, like soprano sax, electric bass, and electric keyboards). Still, in all cases, the picks I made were spur of the moment, subject to the limited information I could think of and whatever whims occurred to me. More often than not, I limited my picks to names listed on the ballot form. This was especially so in nebulous categories like "Jazz Artist" or things I don't keep good mental tabs on (like "Arranger," "Composer," and "Producer").

I have fewer qualms about ranking albums. It's all too true that it is often impossible to weigh the relative merits -- even on such a subjective basis as personal pleasure -- of any pair of albums. The only consistent criteria I can think of would be the order in which I'd buy albums. Of course, that is the most subjective scale of all, which makes it pretty arbitrary when anyone else looks at it. Such rank lists should be easy for me give that I've already spent much effort at constructing them -- e.g., see my 2014 EOY Jazz List. (I haven't assembled a 2015 Jazz List yet, but the list-in-progress can be sorted out from my 2015 List.) One complication is that Downbeat insists on skewing the eligibility list to run from April 1, 2014 through March 31, 2015 release dates instead of using the previous (2014) calendar year. I don't generally keep track of release dates below year granularity, so it would be a huge effort at this point to research 2014 release dates. (Actually, I can't even trust 2015 release dates: I already have several April releases in my 2015 file. So I can save myself some work by limiting my vote to Downbeat's ballot. The problem here is that Downbeat only lists 10-12 albums I consider A-list, out of 60-70 albums I grade that high. Writing in a name sometimes encourages Downbeat to include that name on future ballots, but writing in an album won't have any future effect. So I tried to apply my rank list (interpolating early 2015 releases in place of early 2014 releases) to their ballot, with the result that I voted for my number 1 and 24 2014 albums plus one 2015 album that will probably wind up close to number 20. I took the same approach to Historical Album, Blues Album, and Beyond Album (surprised that Wussy got nominated in the latter). The notes file provides the full breakdowns for the album votes. One reason I make a point of jotting down all of the records I haven't heard is that they give me a reference for future listening (although, frankly, they put a lot of albums on these lists I know better than to bother with).

Each category allowed me to split 10 points among three candidates. I followed their earlier convention of spliting those points 5-3-2 for the two three picks. Write-ins are italicized below. So, without further ado, my votes: