Fred Kaplan

My annual piece on the Best Jazz Albums of the Year appears in today’s edition of Slate (for which I write a regular column, though usually on foreign and military policy). This time, I also drew up two lists of the Best Jazz Albums of the Decade—one for new recordings, the other for previously unreleased historical recordings (treasure troves of which were excavated this past 10 years). Readers of this blog may recall reading about most of these albums in this space.

In the Slate piece (see the External Link below), I included 30-second sound clips for each of the best albums of 2009. For the list here, I will place two asterisks (**) next to those recordings with excellent sound quality, one asterisk (*) next to those with quite good sonics.

BEST JAZZ ALBUMS OF 2009

1. *Ella Fitzgerald, Twelve Nights of Hollywood (Verve)
2. **Keith Jarrett, Paris/London: Testament (ECM)
3. *Jim Hall & Bill Frisell, Hemispheres (ArtistShare)
4. *Steve Kuhn Trio w/ Joe Lovano, Mostly Coltrane (ECM)
5. *Fly, Sky & Country (ECM)
6. *Dave Douglas’ Brass Ecstasy, Spirit Moves (Greenleaf)
7. *Nellie McKay, Normal As Blueberry Pie (Verve)
8. *Masada Quintet, Stolas: The Book of Angels, Vol. 12 (Tzadik)
9. The Bad Plus, For All I Care (Heads Up)
10. *Ran Blake, Driftwoods (Tompkins Square)

BEST NEW JAZZ ALBUMS OF 2000-09

1. *Ornette Coleman, Sound Grammar (Sound Grammar, 2006)
2. **Jason Moran, Modernistic (Blue Note, 2002)
3. Wayne Shorter, Footprints Live (Verve, 2002)
4. John Zorn’s Bar Kokhba Sextet, 50th Birthday Celebration, Vol. 11 (Tzadik, 2005)
5. **Keith Jarrett Trio, The Out of Towners (ECM, 2004)
6. **Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra, Sky Blue (ArtistShare, 2007)
7. *Bill Frisell With Dave Holland and Elvin Jones (Nonesuch, 2001)
8. **James Carter, Chasin’ the Gypsy (Atlantic, 2000)
9. *Ted Nash, Sidewalk Meetings (Arabesque, 2001)
10. **Geri Allen/Dave Holland/Jack DeJohnette, The Life of a Song (Telarc, 2004)

BEST PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED HISTORIC ALBUMS OF 2000-09

1. Dizzy Gillespie & Charlie Parker, Town Hall, New York City, June 22, 1945 (Uptown, 1945/2005)
2. *Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane, At Carnegie Hall (Blue Note, 1957/2005—also available as Classic Records LP)
3. Sonny Rollins, Road Shows, Vol. 1 (Doxy, 1980-2007/2008)
4. Bill Evans, The Last Waltz: The Final Recordings, Keystone Korner, September 1980 (Milestone, 1980/2000)
5. *Ella Fitzgerald, Twelve Nights in Hollywood (Verve, 1961-62/2009)
6. *Charles Mingus Sextet with Eric Dolphy, Cornell 1964 (Blue Note, 1964/2007)
7. *Andrew Hill, Passing Ships (Blue Note, 1969/2003)
8. Art Pepper, Unreleased Art, Vol. 2: The Final Concert (Widow’s Taste, 1982/2007)
9. *Stan Getz, Bossas & Ballads: The Lost Sessions (Verve, 1989/2003)
10. *Shirley Horn, Live at the 1994 Monterey Jazz Festival (Concord, 1994/2008)