Once again, the chronic health problem that has reduced my writing pace to a crawl continues without any respite. My best of the year lists have traditionally been predicated upon having reviewed the releases chosen, but with only a relative handful of reviews to choose from this year (and with those choices, more than ever now, always representing music that moved me in a big way), there's simply no way to come up with the big lists I used to compile.

And so, like last year, I figured I'd throw in a top ten (well, eleven) for jazz and beyond (meaning: anything else), including a mix of new releases and reissues/archival finds. But to let folks know that this lists barely scratches the surface of all the music I've been privileged to hear this year—and that, as ever, there are far more "best of" titles than even my previously large lists included—I'll also add, at the end, for anyone interested, a whack of releases would have been reviewed, had it been possible.

So, bearing that in mind, first up are just a few of the top recorded events in jazz and beyond for 2018 (in alphabetical order):