More Silliness Courtesy of JazzTimes

I'm not going to pretend that I'm shocked that my pick for the best jazz album of the year (Vijay Iyer's "Tragicomic") didn't even make the JazzTimes top 50, or that I'm shocked that my top 10 only matched up once with their's (Bill Frisell's "History, Mystery," the second best album of the year in my list, was number 5 in JazzTimes'). I will, however, make a few short complaints:

JOE LOVANO'S "SYMPHONICA" AT NUMBER TWO?!???!?!?!

BOZ SCAGGS?!

ROBERTA GAMBARINI & HANK JONES?!

Now that that's over with, I can go back to writing like an educated journalist. While I'm sure that the Boz Scaggs and Gambarini/Jones releases filled some sort of quotient for "vocal jazz" albums on the list (Patricia Barber's "The Cole Porter Mix" and Cassandra Wilson's "Loverly" which are both actually good, also made the list at numbers 29 and 8, respectively). Of course, there has been good vocal jazz this year, and Boz Scaggs' place on the list over "Moss" is a travesty. In fact, I can barely think of a worse travesty than the lack of "Moss" on this list except in hypotheticals; like, for example, if Dianne Reeves' "When You Know" was named the album of the year.

Or, say, if Joe Lovano's "Symphonica" were named the best album of the year. Luckily, JazzTimes doesn't think that "Symphonica" is the single best album of the year (they think that The Charles Lloyd Quartet's "Rabo De Nube" is better, but nothing in my Top 10). I've already given my thoughts on Lovano's Symphonica here, writing any more about it would be like flogging a dead horse.

As for the rest of it, I was pretty happy to see that "Miles From India" (#6) got some love from JazzTimes, which is usually more accepting of new concepts than their older evil brother Downbeat, and that Carla Bley's "Appearing Nightly" (#7), which certainly would have made my list if I'd heard it just a week sooner, was featured in the top 10.