The new album by Roberto Maria Zorzi, Michael Manring and Scott Amendola relentlessly delivers surprises with sounds heretofore unheard.

After a long fermenting period, Roscoe Mitchell and Matthew Shipp’s ‘Accelerated Projection’ is nevertheless just as relevant today as it did when the music was pulled from thin air more than twelve years before release.

Quoan’s ‘Fine Dining’ is a feast of so many ways two horns and a rhythm section can generate excitement and keep us guessing what happens next.

With emotional directness, wit, and uncanny musicianship found on ‘One Drop of Truth,’ pure Wood Brothers translates into pure roots rock joy.

The baker’s dozen in this Best of 2017 list reveals that fusion jazz has expanded and diversified way past its ‘Bitches Brew’-era beginnings.

None of the great talent assembled here gets stretched near their limits for this Desertion Trio excursion, but this diversion is for an altogether different mood.

Here’s the part of the annual Best of 2017 lists that’s the most fun to pull together.

It was easy to find jazz records that deserved a year-end salute; maybe ‘too’ easy. The heavy lifting came from figuring out which stood above the rest for this Best of 2017 list.

Even in my jazz-centric world, I can come upon enough standout non-jazz records to put together a decent-sized Best of 2017 list.

‘Err Guitar’ by Elliott Sharp, Mary Halvorson and Marc Ribot is three masters of the outside guitar pushing each other to go even further out, making this a notably delirious entry in the catalogs of all three.