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Dan Bilawsky's Best Releases Of 2017

By Dan Bilawsky
December 1, 2017
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Few things are a given, yet we can always count on a flood of new music making its way into the world over the course of a year. In 2017 some of the best jazz found its path by looking forward, doubling back, and/or branching out. In short, this music and the dedicated artists who make it continued to uphold a legacy paradoxically built on tradition, change, absorption, and refraction. I had the pleasure of listening to more than four hundred albums over the past year, and I covered approximately one hundred of them for All About Jazz. These twenty-five stood tallest in that crowd (Note: selections on this list are NOT ranked):

Ron Miles cornet 1963 - 2022 " data-original-title="" title="">Ron Miles I Am A Man (Yellowbird)	Christian McBride bass b.1972 " data-original-title="" title="">Christian McBride Big Band Bringin' It (Mack Avenue Records)	Tomas Fujiwara drums " data-original-title="" title="">Tomas Fujiwara Triple Double (Firehouse 12 Records)
Fred Hersch piano b.1955 " data-original-title="" title="">Fred Hersch Open Book (Palmetto Records)	Hilary Gardner vocals " data-original-title="" title="">Hilary Gardner/ Ehud Asherie piano b.1979 " data-original-title="" title="">Ehud Asherie The Late Set (Anzic Records)	Josh Nelson piano b.1978 " data-original-title="" title="">Josh Nelson The Sky Remains (Origin Records)
Paul Jones saxophone, tenor " data-original-title="" title="">Paul Jones Clean (Outside In Music)	Brian Landrus saxophone, baritone b.1978 " data-original-title="" title="">Brian Landrus Orchestra Generations (BlueLand Records)	Scott DuBois guitar b.1978 " data-original-title="" title="">Scott DuBois Autumn Wind (ACT Music)
Adam Rogers guitar b.1965 " data-original-title="" title="">Adam Rogers DICE (Self Produced)	Charles Lloyd saxophone b.1938 " data-original-title="" title="">Charles Lloyd New Quartet Passin' Thru (Blue Note Records)	Dan Tepfer piano b.1982 " data-original-title="" title="">Dan Tepfer Trio Eleven Cages (Sunnyside Records)
Ariel Pocock piano " data-original-title="" title="">Ariel Pocock Living In Twilight (Justin Time Records)	Terry Gibbs vibraphone b.1924 " data-original-title="" title="">Terry Gibbs 92 Years Young: Jammin' At The Gibbs House (Whaling City Sound)	John McLean guitar " data-original-title="" title="">John McLean/ Clark Sommers bass b.1977 " data-original-title="" title="">Clark Sommers Band Parts Unknown (Origin Records)
Diego Barber guitar, acoustic " data-original-title="" title="">Diego Barber One Minute Later (Sunnyside Records)	Anat Cohen clarinet b.1975 " data-original-title="" title="">Anat Cohen & Marcello Gon?alves Outra Coisa (Anzic Records)	Peter Campbell vocals " data-original-title="" title="">Peter Campbell Loving You: Celebrating Shirley Horn (Self Produced)
Sarah Partridge vocals b.1960 " data-original-title="" title="">Sarah Partridge Bright Lights & Promises: Redefining Janis Ian (Origin Records)	Billy Childs piano b.1957 " data-original-title="" title="">Billy Childs Rebirth (Mack Avenue Records)	Michael Attias saxophone b.1968 " data-original-title="" title="">Michael Attias Nerve Dance (Clean Feed Records)
Sonny Rollins saxophone b.1930 " data-original-title="" title="">Sonny Rollins & Horace Silver piano 1928 - 2014 " data-original-title="" title="">Horace Silver Swiss Radio Days, Vol. 40—Zurich 1959 (TCB Music)	Jerome Jennings drums " data-original-title="" title="">Jerome Jennings The Beast (Self Produced)	Michel Camilo piano b.1954 " data-original-title="" title="">Michel Camilo Live In London (Redondo Music)
	Philipp Gerschlauer/ David Fiuczynski guitar b.1964 " data-original-title="" title="">David Fiuczynski MikroJazz!: Neue Expressionistische Musik (RareNoise Records)

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