2007 continued the growth trend seen in 2006, with over 150 interviews published. The number of interviews is increasing so rapidly, in fact, that we've expanded the Interview Center on the AAJ homepage, in order to allow for four interviews a week, with an eye to publishing five a week in 2008. As always, AAJ provided coverage of well-known artists like John McLaughlin, Joshua Redman, Herbie Hancock and the recently departed Joe Zawinul, as well as relative up-and-comers including Kate McGarry, Steve Lantner, Anat Fort and Samo Salamon.

While every interview published provided valuable insight into the artist, here are twenty of the year's best (in alphabetical order):

Steve Berrios
Latin Jazz Innovator

Interviewed by: Mark Merella
Steve Berrios is an innovative drummer/percussionist well-known to aficionados of Latin jazz. His groundbreaking work with Jerry Gonzalez and the Fort Apache Band, numerous sessions as a sideman, as well as his two solo albums—First World (Milestone, 1995) and the Grammy-nominated And Then Some (Milestone, 1996)—show a body of work that is a unique amalgam of hard bop, Latin jazz and Afro-Caribbean folkloric rhythms.

Chris Botti
Italia

Interviewed by: Katrina-Kasey Wheeler
When one thinks of Italy certain things come to mind, chief among them—romance, fashion, the culinary arts and a cherished optimistic outlook on life. For years, the Italian arts have chronicled the human condition. And now, prolific trumpeter Chris Botti has personified this through his release, Italia (Columbia, 2007); employing outstanding singers Andrea Bocelli, Paula Cole and a posthumous duet with Dean Martin. The result is something truly extraordinary.

Taylor Ho Bynum
Spontaneous Yet Focused

Interviewed by: John Sharpe
Cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum is at the forefront of a younger generation of creative musicians in New York. He combines thrilling improvisation with stealthy composition, unconfined by genre. Best known for his association with Anthony Braxton, Bynum has played a leading role in the realization of the saxophonist's recent oeuvre. There has been a deserved upsurge in Bynum's profile of late, culminating in the release of two excellent, but very different, recordings: True Events (482 Music, 2007), a duet with drummer Tomas Fujiwara, and The Middle Picture (Firehouse 12, 2007) by his sextet. The latter is on the new Firehouse 12 label, in which he is a partner.

Graham Collier
Forging Ahead

Interviewed by: Nic Jones
British bandleader and composer Graham Collier is seventy this year. In the course of his career he has, perhaps, unusually become more expansive in his musical outlook, fashioning pieces for ensembles larger than those he was working with during the late 1960s and early 1970s, a period which is effectively the high water mark of the documentation of his music on record.

Barbara Dennerlein
A Study in Contrasts

Interviewed by: Alan Bryson
In many ways Barbara Dennerlein is a study in contrasts. From a North American perspective she is an insider's tip, a superlative Hammond B3 player known to hardcore jazz fans, admired by fellow B3 players, and respected by her musical peers. We can contrast that with how she is known in the German speaking countries of central Europe.

Mark Feldman
His Own Music, His Own Sound, His Own Aesthetic

Interviewed by: Paul Olson
In his twenty years in New York City, violinist Mark Feldman's played a dizzying number of gigs and sessions with trumpeter Dave Douglas, pianist Uri Caine, saxophonist Tim Berne, drummer Billy Hart, pianist Muhal Richard Abrams, bassist Mark Dresser, and of course, saxophonist John Zorn, with whom Feldman has had a particularly fruitful association.

Alvin Fielder
It's About Time

Interviewed by: Clifford Allen
Drummer Alvin Fielder grew up in Mississippi, but the fruition of his musical career in Chicago came in the 1960s, when he worked with Sun Ra and appeared on Roscoe Mitchell's legendary Sound (Delmark, 1966) LP, one of the first AACM recordings to be released. After returning to a pharmacy career in Mississippi in the late 1960s, Fielder began working regularly with New Orleans saxophonist Kidd Jordan in the Improvisational Arts Ensemble.

Jerry Granelli
Groovemaster or Destroyer?

Interviewed by: Paul Olson
It's easy to mention drummer Jerry Granelli's accomplishments, but hard to really make clear his importance, or the way he's continuously, over forty years, been at the forefront of most of the innovations and new movements in jazz music.