A new bizarre obsession seems to have taken hold, to join the Best Science Books one. Sad! No — happy!

This particular post collects lists of “best of the year” jazz albums I’ve found across various websites. For the purposes of this project, I’m not giving each list its own post and showcasing the albums that are part of the list. That’s an awful lot of work, which I’m reserving for the science books project which is more core to the mission of this blog.

Note: I’ve included a few not-exclusively-jazz lists if they’ve happened to include either jazz sections or lots of jazz-ish/jazz-adjacent items. If this project has any happy outcome, it would have to be my readers broadening their musical horizons by discovering great new music through these lists, the wider and more varied the better. If I’ve missed any important list, please let me know in the comments. In particular, I’m really looking to expand my coverage beyond English-language lists. I’ve got a few in French and other languages but would love to include a much greater diversity. I hope to update this list of lists at least one more time, likely in mid-January.

I’ve also done lists for 2015, 2016, 2017 and look forward to doing another for 2019 in twelve months time!

Lists with a significant Canadian focus are in bold.

My top 10 Albums? Not possible to come up with any sort of consistent permanent best list, but sure, here goes, 10ish selections in alphabetical order of course. And by “best” I really mean a few albums that made an impression. I’ll also concentrate on maybe a few that didn’t get as much attention in the lists above.

America’s Child, Shemekia Copeland

Beloved of the Sky, Renee Rosnes

Both Directions at Once, John Coltrane

Code Girl, Mary Halvorson

Equilibrium, Samuel Blais

Landfall, Laurie Anderson & Kronos Quartet

Lebroba, Andrew Cyrille

Ours/Theirs, Thumbscrew

Portraits: Songs of Joni Mitchell, Marianne Trudel & Karen Young

Starebaby, Dan Weiss

Universal Beings, Makaya McCraven

Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, Jeremy Dutcher

Favourite concerts? A few of those too!

Turboprop, January 12, The Rex

Mario Allard Quintet, March 23, Diese Onze

Not The Music feat. Joe McPhee, April 29, The Music Gallery

Robi Botos, June 8, Gallery 345

Francois Bourassa Quartet, June 27, TD Toronto Jazz Festival

Cecile McLorin Salvant, June 28, Festival international de Jazz de Montréal

Christine Jensen dirige L’Orchestre national de jazz de Montréal : Hommage à Carla Bley, July 2, FIJM

The Jensen Sisters Quintet feat. Helen Sung, July 3, FIJM

Nick Fraser Quartet w Tony Malaby, September 12, The Rex

Larnell Lewis, September 15, Kensington Market Jazz Festival

Ugly Beauties (Marilyn Lerner), September 16, KMJF

Samuel Blais Quartet, September 25, The Rex

Jaime Baum Septet +, October 19, The Jazz Gallery (NYC)

Andrea Ramolo, November 3, Auerhouse