Fifteen years ago, I started an annual tradition called The Year in Jazz. Inspired by the Slate Music Club, I conceived it as an email chain among peers — a look back at the sounds, themes and events we’d all covered, or at least considered, over the past calendar year. I published this epistolary roundtable in daily installments at The Gig, which was then a Typepad blog. It continued there until 2013, when the National Jazz Museum in Harlem invited me to convene the panel in person.
This year, after a decade of festive gatherings uptown, The Year in Jazz returned to its roots at The Gig, with a video upgrade. We convened over Zoom earlier this week, and I recorded the panel for your enjoyment on demand. Paid subscribers had the option to join us in real time, and a few dozen did (posing a handful of good questions).
Now, a quick word about my fellow panelists.
Over the years, I’ve had dozens of brilliant critics on The Year in Jazz — some good friends, and some colleagues whose work I’d admired without ever meeting them irl.1 I gave myself a rule never to repeat a panelist, to self-impose range and rotation. This year, I made an exception — re-inviting Hank Shteamer, who was part of the inaugural roundtable in 2009. Hank has done excellent work this year for the NY Times, and he’s on Substack, too:
is, like The Gig, a newsletter that previously lived on the jazz blogosphere. (If you know, you know.)Lauren Du Graf, who rounds out our panel, is someone I’ve wanted to have on for a while — and resolved to invite as soon as I first read her superlative liner notes for Alice Coltrane’s Carnegie Hall Concert.2 Then, in early summer, Lauren had a baby. Because she lives on the west coast, I figured the timing probably wasn’t ideal. Converting the panel to a virtual experience made her participation seem possible again, and I’m so grateful. When you hear her contributions, you will be, too.
Typically for The Year in Jazz, it was a lively conversation and an excellent hang. As we head into the holidays, it will be available to anyone who wants to watch it. In two weeks, on Jan. 3, it will go behind the paywall, along with the rest of a now-considerable archive at The Gig. Of course, paid subscribers have access to all of it, along with some paid-only dispatches and the satisfaction of supporting this independent publication. Believe me, every subscription makes a difference.
Whatever works for you, I appreciate it, and wish you the best this holiday season!
The Year in Jazz: A Reading List
(A non-comprehensive list of articles cited in our conversation)
Hank’s Best Jazz Albums of 2024 (NYT, gift link)
Nate’s Best Jazz Albums of 2024 (The Gig)
Lauren’s Alice Coltrane: The Artist in Ascension (liner notes)
The Essential Jazz Discoveries of 2024 (NPR Music)
Year of the Soft Radicals (The Gig)
The Piano Trio: (Still) a Powerful Force in Jazz (NYT, gift link)
Jack DeJohnette, One of Jazz’s Great Drummers, Has a Surprise (NYT, gift link)
Among the critics I had never met in person before inviting them on The Year in Jazz: Mark Stryker, Gene Seymour, Kevin Whitehead, Jennifer Odell, Seth Colter Walls, and Harmony Holiday. I had met Greg Tate, but only casually. I’m probably leaving a few people out; this will sound slapdash of me, but I don’t have a comprehensive list in hand.
This was months before Lauren received a well-deserved Grammy nomination for said liner notes. However you feel about the Recording Academy and its annual ceremony, know that we all have someone to root for in 2025.
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