Jazzy New Year 2011 wishes !!!/ some thoughts on 2010 poll

While the new review is ready to be posted I will postpone it till tomorrow and take this chance to share some thoughts or things I'm proud of.

1.

 This it the first blog I've ever done so I don't really know whether these numbers are good or not, all  I know is that they are very satisfying to begin with. The number of visits reached 1.000 after 1 month and 1 day of activity, the number of 2.000 visits is very likely to be reached withing next 24 hours wchich means (after another 1/2 month). I would like to thank all visitors - meaning all of You, for taking their time to check this blog and Invite You to participate more and leave comments (we all love comments :) don't we)

2.

I'm proud to say also that I've been invited to participate in El Intruso-The 3^nd New Creative Music Critics Poll 2010 poll by forward-thinking Elintruso portal (unfortunately spanish-speaking readers only can fully appreiciate its content but the resuls and list of participants in 2009 poll is impressive).

3.

Any kind of "Best of" list is subjected to many problematic issues:

-how to compare products of art at all? It's no competition at first place, why make it one? And obviously it's extremely subjective even if You're trying to do Your best to not favour Your personal favourites (who gained Your trust with music created previously and weren't necessarily as compelling in 2010).

-it's impossible to track all new releases, any lists one makes is by far more influenced by what one did NOT listen to than by what he DID hear.

-especially in case of 'instrument' section - I'm far more impressed by live events (again influenced by both what I was able and NOT able to see) so, how do You compare concerts and recordings, how can You ignore impressive live statements even if the recordings are not that spectacular?

-it's easily forgotten that true evolution of Jazz and Improvised Music happens on stage, not so much in the recording studio, because of the production cycle, cd releases are also far behind the 'real' act. Thus the poll of 2010 actually says more about 2009 and so on. (point presented already in "Hera" review about Waclaw Zimpel - all his recent recordings are among best published in 2010 making strong his case for musician of the year - all those were recorded in 2009 while Waclaw has now moved already to new projects).

-it's too easy to forget cds released in the beginning of the year (Satoko Fujii Ma-Do Quartet release comes to my mind).

-it's equally easy to miss the most recent releases (november, december) that don't have time to get

enough recognition before the end of the year.

-most probably I will get to know as many cds from 2010 after the poll closes as during the entire year (even if I managed to listen to fair amount of new albums). It's easy to imagine that I will find cds released in 2010 in far future, that, had I know them now, would change the list entirely.

Neverthelless all those "Best of" lists are most of all a lot fun, we do love lists (as much as comments maybe :) don't we? It's also great source of information about worthwile recent music, when treated as usefull guidelines, not as a definitive and undiscussable statement.

The deadline for El Intruso poll is 15th January so by that time You can expect my annotated list here.

4.

I want to wish everybody a great year! Full of excitement, happiness, passion and spiced up with great music.

Happy New Year and All That Jazz :)