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.

Stephen Stills finds the fountain of youth by going back to one of his original muses, Judy Collins, who co-headlines on ‘Everybody Knows.’

‘Organ Monk Blue’ sustains Gregory Lewis’ intriguing concept of a Thelonious Monk on the organ. It didn’t hurt that this time Lewis revitalizes the blues along the way, too.

Richard Lloyd Giddens Jr.’s ‘Mimosas’ brings in disparate colleagues and disparate composing pens, and molds them into a united musical statement that one can sense portrays the complexion of its singular leader.