by Pico
In the past, I’ve gotten these year-end lists out about two weeks before the end of the year. This time, a crush of projects in the fall set me back and I’m still sorting through a stack of records. Since it wouldn’t be fair to declare the winners without evaluating all the contestants, I’m going to hold off with this list until after the first of the year.
With gift cards becoming such popular Christmas offerings these days, this delay hopefully shouldn’t inconvenience the legion of readers here who are dependent on my sage advice for their record buying decisions (heh).
I already have fairly good idea about how this one is going to roll. My “Best CD of the Batch” has pretty much been decided for each category. There’s going to be a much bigger spotlight on smaller-label artists, not because I’m deliberately trying to avoid the “popular” choices; that’s just a reflection on where I’ve been pointing my ears toward more this year. Whack jazz will get a bigger list as there were so many delightful unhinged music records I’ve come across in 2009. That means something’s getting the short shrift, and that’s probably the blues. But out of those blues records I’ve laid ears on, there are some choice selections to honk about.
So eat more leftover turkey, watch the bowl games and keep your Amazon gift cards in a nice, safe place for another week or two. And then we’ll figure out how to put ’em to good use.
Here’s a record that has no relation to the subject matter, except that I happen to be listening to it at this moment. Unless of course it turns out good enough to go on some year-end list:
Purchase: Manassas – Pieces
- McCoy Tyner and Joe Henderson – ‘Forces of Nature: Live at Slugs’ (2024) - November 21, 2024
- Lydia Salnikova, “Christmas Means a Different Thing This Year” (2024): One Track Mind - November 19, 2024
- Darius Jones – ‘Legend of e’Boi (The Hypervigilant Eye)’ - November 15, 2024
