Rounding up the "Best of 2006" lists

As 2006 winds to a close, many jazz critics are publishing their lists of the year's best CDs, with Sound Grammar, the latest recording by saxophonist and composer Ornette Coleman (pictured), appearing at or near the top of many of those lists.

Personally, I've never been much for year-end list-making under any circumstances, and due to my limited budget and idiosyncratic listening habits, plus the difficulty of getting service from many jazz labels' promotional departments, there are many major releases from this year that I simply haven't heard yet. At some point, I may or may not weigh in with some thoughts about some of my favorite recordings from the year, but for right now, in lieu of publishing a list of my own, I'm just going to point you to a link-dump of a bunch of other people's picks:

• Dan Ouellette of Billboard and Down Beat looks at 2006 jazz sales charts, calls it a lackluster year for mainstream jazz.
• Village Voice 2006 jazz critic's poll results and an introductory essay by Francis Davis
• Ben Ratliff of the New York Times - Top 10 Jazz and Pop recordings for 2006
• Nate Chinen of the New York Times - Top 10 Jazz and Pop recordings for 2006
• Best of 2006 lists from various writers at All About Jazz.com
• All About Jazz.com forum thread on the best of 2006
• eJazzNews' Top 50 jazz CDs of 2006
• Amazon Editors' Picks for best jazz of 2006
• Fred Kaplan of Slate picks his favorite jazz CDs of 2006
• Avant Music News' Best of 2006
• 10 Best Experimental and Avant Garde releases of 2006
• PopMatters' Will Layman's best jazz of 2006
• Clive Davis' (UK music writer, not the US record executive) best jazz & world music of 2006
• Italian jazz critics' top recordings of 2006

If you've read any other good "best jazz of 2006" lists, by all means please leave a note and the link in the comments. And if you'd like to talk about some of your personal favorite releases from the past year, your comments are also very welcome.

In the meantime, if you're so inclined, you can check out some vintage video of Coleman from 1988 in the embedded window below. This performance of "Happy Hour" was filmed at the Montreal Jazz Festival and features Coleman, the Prime Time band and special guest Pat Metheny on guitar. Also, depending on when you're reading this, you may be able to find some individual Coleman audio tracks for free download by checking the Hype Machine music blog aggregator, (which is actually quite a nice resource for finding all sorts of free MP3s.)