Such is the life of full-time professor who blogs part-time: lesson plans, class prep, and grading always come before new posts (the numerous half-drafted entries notwithstanding). I have been so immersed in grant applications, freelance academic writing, but most especially my majors-level jazz theory & improv course that I even forgot to mark the one-year anniversary of this site. I’d like to thank everyone that has read, commented, shared, and supported TRoS. Here’s a list of the writing that you all visited most in 2013:

1. “On the Launch”
2. “Magnificent Regularly: Cécile McLorin Salvant Premieres WomanChild at 54 Below”
3. “Book Review: Jean-Michel Pilc: It’s About Music”
4. “Enunciating Power and Ex…Plosive Time: Cécile McLorin Salvant’s Woman Child and Silence Undone”
5. “Considering the Approach Before the Aesthetics: Vijay Iyer’s Research and Writings on Jazz”

Special thanks to the media companies and artists that have generously shared recordings, books, comped tickets, and their time with me so that I can share content with all of you: most especially, Jason Paul Harman Byrne of Red Cat Media, Don Lucoff and the whole team at DL Media, Matt Merewitz and Stephen Buono of Fully Altered Media, Seth Rosner of Pi Recordings, Marc Free of Positone Records, Ann Brathwaite of Brathwaite & Katz Media, Jim Eigo of Jazz Media Services, April Thibeault of the Jazz Standard, and Alex Dahne of the University of California Press.

So, in the spirit of the overextended life and the part of the academic’s and audiophile’s psyches that constantly remind us “there’s still more out there to read and listen to!”, here are my best-of-2013 lists for new, (mostly) U.S. jazz books and records: both those that I’ve heard/read already and those that I heard/read about, don’t have, hope to get to, and definitely don’t want to forget about in 2014! I’m listing them alphabetically and not limiting myself to the top 10 or 25 or however many; there’s too much music out there to whittle the list down like that and exclude so many talented musicians and writers, all of whom need our support. I hope there’s something for everyone in these lists.

I’m looking forward to another excellent year for the Rhythm of Study, building new relationships, posting new content, and celebrating brand new (and slighly less than brand new) work. Thanks for all your support!

My Best-of-2013 jazz albums

• David Ake, Bridges (Positone)
• Geri Allen, Grand Rivers Crossings: Motown & Motor City Inspirations (Motema)
• The Jamie Baum Septet, In this Life (Sunnyside)
• Black Motor featuring Verneri Pohjola, Rubidium (TUM Records)
• Ran Blake and Sara Serpa, Aurora (Clean Feed)
• Bodurov Trio, Seven Stamps (Challenge)
• Jaimeo Brown, Transcendence (Motema)
• Marc Cary, Four Directions (Motema)
• Gerald Clayton, Life Forum (Concord)
• Steve Coleman and Five Elements, Functional Arrhythmias (Pi Records)
• Alexis Cuadrado, A Lorca Soundscape (Sunnyside)
• Dave Douglas, Time Travel (Greenleaf Music)
• Kenny Garrett, Pushing the World Away (Mack Avenue)
• Uri Gurvich, BabEL (Tzadik)
• Dave Holland, Prism (Dare 2)
• Vijay Iyer and Mike Ladd, Holding It Down – The Veterans’ Dreams Project (Pi Records)
• Asuka Kakitani Jazz Orchestra, Bloom (19-8 Records)
• Charles Lloyd and Jason Moran, Hagar’s Song (ECM)
• Rudresh Mahanthappa, Gamak (ACT Music)
• Pedrito Martinez, Rumba de la isla (Calle 54)
• Christian McBride, Out Here (Mack Avenue)
• Cécile McLorin Salvant, WomanChild (Mack Avenue)
• Myra Melford, Life Carries Me This Way (Firehouse 12)
• Walter Norris and Leszek Mozdzer, Last Set: Live at the A-Trane (ACT)
• John O’Gallagher, The Anton Webern Project (Whirlwind)
• Meg Okura, Tribute to Ryuichi Sakamoto (self-produced)
• Gretchen Parlato, Live in New York (ObliqSound)
• Chris Potter, The Sirens (ECM)
• Amir El Saffar, Alchemy (Pi Records)
• Craig Taborn, Chants (ECM)
• Warren Wolf, Wolfgang (Mack Avenue)

Those Best-of-2013 albums I haven’t heard yet (but we shouldn’t forget in 2014…)

• Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, Brooklyn Babylon (New Amsterdam)
• Dave Binney, Lifted Land (Criss Cross)
• David Buchbinder & Odessa/Havana, Walk to the Sea (Tzadik)
• Taylor Ho Bynum, Book of Three – Continuum (Relative Pitch)
• Terri Lynne Carrington, Money Jungle: Provocative in Blue (Blue Note)
• Etienne Charles, Creole Soul (MRI)
• Orrin Evans, “It was Beauty…” (Criss Cross)
• Alan Ferber, March Sublime (Sunnyside)
• Robert Glasper, Black Radio 2 (Blue Note)
• David Murray and Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Rendezvous Suite (Jazzwerkstatt)
• No BS! Brass Band, RVA All Day (Electric Cowbell)
• William Parker, Wood Flute Songs (AUM Fidelity)
• Aaron Parks, Arborescence (ECM)
• Luis Perdomo, Links (Criss Cross)
• Enrico Pieranunzi, Live at the Village Vanguard (CamJazz)
• Pete Rodríguez, Jr., Caminando con Papi (Destiny)
• Michele Rosewoman, New Yor-Uba: 30 Years! A Musical Celebration of Cuba in America (self-produced)
• Matthew Shipp, Piano Sutras (Thirsty Ear)
• Wayne Shorter, Without a Net (EMI)
• Tarbaby, Ballad of Sam Langford (Hipnotic)
• Wayne Wallace, Latin Jazz/Jazz Latin (Patois)
• Tim Warfield, Eye of the Beholder (Criss Cross)

Best 2013 jazz books

• Roger Buckley and Tamara Roberts, Yellow Power, Yellow Soul: The Radical Art of Fred Ho (University of Illinois Press)
• Daniel Fischlin, Ajay Heble, and George Lipsitz, The Fierce Urgency of Now: Improvisation, Rights, and the Ethics of Cocreation (Duke University Press)
• Ajay Heble and Rob Wallace, People Get Ready!: The Future of Jazz Is Now (Duke University Press)
• Farrah Jasmine Griffin, Harlem Nocturne: Women of Progressive Politics During World War II (Basic Civitas)
• Peter Leitch, Off the Books: A Jazz Life (Vehicule Press)
• John O’Gallagher, Twelve Tone Improvisation: A Method for Using Tone Rows in Jazz (Advance Music)
• Radhika Philip, Being Here: Conversations About Creating Music (self-published)
• Jean Michel Pilc, It’s About Music: The Art and Heart of Improvisation (Glen Lyon Books)
• Ken Prouty, Knowing Jazz: Community, Pedagogy, and Canon in the Information Age (University Press of Mississippi)
• Guthrie Ramsey, Jr., The Amazing Bud Powell: Black Genius, Jazz History, and the Challenge of Bebop (University of California Press)
• Ed Sarath, Jr., Improvisation, Creativity, and Consciousness: Jazz as Integral Template for Music, Education, and Society (SUNY Press)
• Gabriel Solis, Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall (Oxford Series in Recorded Jazz)
• Tony Whyton, Beyond a Love Supreme: John Coltrane and the Legacy of an Album (Oxford University Press)

Those Best-of-2013 books I haven’t read yet (but we shouldn’t forget in 2014…)

• Tony Allen and Michael E. Veal, Tony Allen: An Autobiography of the Master Drummer of Afrobeat (Duke University Press)
• Gary Burton, Learning to Listen: The Jazz Journey of Gary Burton—An Autobiography (Berklee Press)
• Benjamin Cawthra, Blue Notes in Black and White: Photography and Jazz (University of Chicago Press)
• Okwui Enwezor and Markus Mueller, ECM: A Cultural Archaeology (Prestel)
• Stanley Crouch, Kansas City Lightning: The Rise and Times of Charlie Parker (Harper)
• Phil Ford, Dig: Sound and Music in Hip Culture (Oxford University Press)
• Elina Hytönen-Ng, Experiencing ‘Flow’ in Jazz Performance (Ashgate Press)
• Billy Taylor and Teresa Reid, The Jazz Life of Dr. Billy Taylor (Indiana University Press)
• Ben Watson, Derek Bailey and the Story of Free Improvisation (Verso)
• Thomas Zlabinger, Free from Jazz: The Jazz and Improvised Music Scene in Vienna after Ossiach (1971-2011) (Lambert)

Did I miss some of your favorites? Add them in the comments below!