As l look back at the albums I loved most this year, I realized the importance of being swept up. There's intellectual noodling and the need to keep attention; there's creating new ideas and reforming old ones; there's high and lows in energy, but what I loved the most this year wasn't just the creating of interesting artistic work but if that work is done so well, the music … [Read more...]
Anthony Dean-Harris’ Favorite Non-Jazz Releases of 2014
I must admit, there's a lot of music this year,even music that I may be praising in this very list, that I may forget some time later. Next year, or two years from now. There's just so much to keep track of nowadays. But for now, in this moment at the end of the year, I would like to feel confident saying that I enjoyed these albums the most.Honorable Mention. D'Angelo and … [Read more...]
Nextbop/Art of Cool’s Favorite Jazz Releases of 2014
We don't like to say "best" around here. We're limited people with limited knowledge, fans with a platform. There's no way we have heard everything released this year or are able to assess what's truly "best" from this year. But there are some things we've listened to more than others. Things that have moved us more, emotionally or physically. There are albums that overall have … [Read more...]
Nextbop/Art of Cool’s Favorite Everything Else Releases of 2014
Like any good lover of music, our tastes at Nextbop are wide. Some overlap, some shape others in regard to genre, but there's a lot of music released this year that we love and are taking the chance to point out to you that are great even if they don't necessarily swing or even fit out in the fringe of jazz. Here's our favorite releases of everything else from 2014. … [Read more...]
Our Favorites of 2014 So Far
As we have reached a little bit past the halfway point of the year, it's about that time to look back on some of the releases of 2014 and highlight some of our favorites, jazz and non-jazz alike (and maybe a few you may have missed).Ambrose Akinmusire - The Imagined Savior is Far Easier to Paint After his remarkable, and often unsettlingly emotive debut (see: "My Tear … [Read more...]