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John Chacona's Best Releases Of 2020
by John Chacona
It's tempting to say that this was the year the music died, and for clubs, concert and festival stages, that might generally be true. Yet, in this most confounding and contrary of years it's thoroughly fitting that as live music grew silent, recordings roared with eloquence, fury and, yes, beauty. Here are the releases that most ...
C. Michael Bailey's Best Releases of 2020
by C. Michael Bailey
We are experiencing an existential fold in history, one where we do not even realize its gravity because it has been so cheapened by ourselves. The only thing that rises above all of this is art, and in particular, music. It is but grace that these artists provided us a gift we could never possibly warrant. ...
Mike Jurkovic's Best Releases Of 2020
by Mike Jurkovic
Here we are on the heels of Annus Horriblis still clinging to traditions both minuscule and grand like year end best of lists. So in the spirit of the season and survival, here's a 2020 playlist. Listen to these in this order or random play and perhaps the year in retrospect won't appear so damn bad. ...
Troy Dostert's Best Releases of 2020
by Troy Dostert
2020 will be remembered as a year of resilience. And surely a part of that story will be the fortitude displayed by musicians of all stripes, who have endeavored creatively to manage the challenges of a hollowed-out economy and a global pandemic with innovative business platforms and novel approaches to recording and content delivery. The jazz ...
Mark Corroto's Best Releases Of 2020
by Mark Corroto
Goodbye to 2020 and for the most part good riddance. Unless of course, we are talking about great music. Hopefully, your self isolation bubble had good sounds. Keeping in mind the global pandemic will not end soon, here's a list of my top 18 releases for 2020. I hope they can ease the pain of social ...
Friedrich Kunzmann's Best Releases Of 2020
by Friedrich Kunzmann
Coronavirus, lockdown, election recount, fake news, inspector Javert, Hans Gruber and Lord Voldemort. So, now that most of the uncomfortable topics are dealt with, let's get to the joyful part of 2020, namely the music. As is increasingly the case during the course of the 21st century, the year was filled to the brim with it. ...
Karl Ackermann’s Best Releases of 2020
by Karl Ackermann
2020 abridged: A staggering loss of lives and livelihoods. We had worldwide social unrest, wildfires, locust swarms of Biblical proportions, killer hornets, killer drones, kids in cages; an impeachment, an election, an attempted insurrection. Oh, and Poland accidentally invaded the Czech Republic. It was not exactly the Gilded Age. Yet, amid doom-scrolling, the creative music community ...
Dan McClenaghan's Best Releases Of 2020
by Dan McClenaghan
In a year that will be remembered for the coming of the COVID-19 pandemic, the music survived, thrived even, not on the bandstand playing for live audiences, but in the studio, socially distanced, in many cases collaborating from afar with swapped sound files. Musicians with time on their hands were especially inspired. These are the 2020 ...
Chris May’s Best Releases Of 2020
by Chris May
Not the best year for live gigs in London, but Dele Sosimi's Afrobeat Orchestra just made it under the wire, lighting up the Jazz Cafe in late January. Rather like Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Sosimi's band has form as an incubator of young talent. A recent star in the making was trumpeter Ife Ogunjobi, who has ...
2019: Striking A Balance In Review, Part 2
by Henning Bolte
Part 1 | Part 2This is the second part of an article that looks back and reflects on experiences with live music in 2019. This part deals with a musician's legacy (Ornette Coleman) and continues with an examination of artistic developments and dynamics in the jazz field in a festival (Jazzfest Berlin) and related ...
