Last year, I looked at “best of” lists from the English-speaking world and complied a survey  comprising the New York Times, The Guardian, JazzWise, Pitchfork and Slate. This year, I took a slightly different approach and combined the Anglo-Saxon view provided by the New York Times and The Guardian with two German sources, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Bayerischer Rundfunk (Bavarian Public Radio).

As a result, the survey contains more (continental) European artists. But like last year, there is very little overlap and the compilation is pretty diverse. 

Last year’s “winner” Charles Lloyd features again and tops The Guardian’s list. No album made it onto more than two of the four top ten lists. This year, re-relases or posthumous releases by Esbjörn Svensson and Miles Davis were selected.

The albums on that list that I listened most to the ones by Oded Tzur and Julia Hülsmann. The Apple music data revealed that Shabaka’s “African Culture” was a 2022 album in my personal top ten, with “Call it a European Paradox” a favourite track.

The “The 17th Annual Francis Davis Jazz Poll” compiles its “best of” lists on the basis of ballots cast by more that 150 jazz writers – the ultimate meta lists in five categorgies: New Album, Reissues/Archival, Debuts, Vocals and Latin.

Finally, I suggest you check out the list compiled by Ana Gavrilovska at Sick Sad Motherslug – interesting selection that is definitely not mainstream. She is one of the “The 17th Annual Francis Davis Jazz Poll” contributors.

Photo: Dirk Neven, Oded Tzur Quartet Junushoff Wageningen 23 september 2021 – Oded Tzur (51524360869), CC BY 2.0