One of my favorite things to do at the end of the year is sit down and compile a list of my favorite discs from the previous 12 months. I'm sure I'll be slapping my forehead over the half-dozen discs I've forgotten to include, and I'll be mentally updating this collection with the dozen or two others from 2009 I haven't yet heard and loved — there is never a shortage of new and exciting music.

Anyway, here is the list as of today. I'm sure the order would change in the next day or two — maybe even dramatically, as I try to place records I am just hearing, like the Clarence Fountain, with the ones I've been playing for months, like the Vijay Iyer. But what does remain constant is that I heartily recommend everything on this list to any open-minded reader/listener. I only wish there were space and time enough for a description of each one.

But then again, the unvarnished discovery is part of the fun.

Happy holidays!

1)  Mos Def, The Ecstatic, Downtown Records

2)  Maxwell, BLACKsummers’night, Columbia

3)  Matt Wilson Quartet, That’s Gonna Leave a Mark, Palmetto

4)  Otis Taylor, Pentatonic Wars and Love Songs, Telarc

5)  Visqueen, Message to Garcia, Local 638 Records

6)  Darius Jones, Man’ish Boy, AUM Fidelity

7)  Amadou Diallo, Donsoya, Nemes’Ys

8)  Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion, Domino

9)  Henry Threadgill Zooid, This Brings Us to Volume I, Pi

10) Avett Brothers, I and Love and You, American

11) Lucero, 1372 Overton Park, Universal Distribution

12) Clarence Fountain/Sam Butler, Steppin’ Up Steppin’ Out, Tyscot

13) Dirty Projectors, Bitte Orca, Domino

14) Lura, Eclipse, Col

15) John Scofield, Piety Street, Emarcy

16) Chris Potter’s Underground, Ultrahang, Artistshare

17) Marty Ehrlich Rites Quartet, Things Have Got To Change, Clean Feed

18) Nadia Sirota, First Things First, New Amsterdam

19) Gossip, Music For Men, Columbia

20) Oumou Sangare, Seya, Nonesuch

21) Wayne Escoffery, Uptown, Posi-Tone Records

22) Keri Hilson, In a Perfect World, Mosley/Interscope

23) Let’s Wrestle, In the Court of the Wrestling Let’s, Stolen

24) Mayer Hawthorne, A Strange Arrangement, Stone’s Throw

25) Ghostface Killah, Ghostdini The Wizard of Poetry, Def Jam

26) Dafnis Prieto Si o Si Quartet, Live at Jazz Standard, Dafnison

27) DJ Quik & Kurupt, BlaQKout, Mad Scientist

28) Dinosaur Jr., Farm, Jagjaguwar

29) Gibson Brothers, Ring the Bell, Compass

30) Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest, Warp

31) NYNDK, The Hunting of the Snark, Jazzheads

32) Miguel Zenon, Esta Plena, Marsalis Music

33) The Heath Brothers, Endurance, Jazz Legacy Productions

34) Burton/Metheny/Swallow/Sanchez, Quartet Live! Concord

35) Jon Irabagon, The Observer, Concord Jazz

36) Jason Lytle, Yours Truly, the Commuter, Anti

37) MeShell Ndegeocello, Devil’s Halo, Mercer Street Records

38) Blk Jks, After Robots, Strictly Canadian

39) Lightning Dust, Infinite Light, Jagjaguwar

40) Vijay Iyer, Historicity, Act Music + Vison

41) Cliff Eberhardt, 500 Miles, Red House

42) Thao with the Get Down Stay Down, Know Better, Learn Faster, Kill Rock Stars

43) Raekwon, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, Part 2, Ice H2O Records

44) U2, No Line on the Horizon, Interscope

45) Gidon Kremer/Oleg Maisenberg, Duo Recital, haenssler

46) Micachu and the Shapes, Jewellery, Rough Trade

47) Donny McCaslin, Declaration, Cam Jazz

48) Camera Obscura, My Maudlin Career, 4AD

49) Joe Martin, Not By Chance, Anzic

50) Kendra Shank Quartet, Mosaic, Challenge

51) Girls, Album, True Panther Sounds

52) Marco Benevento, Me Not Me, Potato Family

53) Yo La Tengo, Popular Songs, Matador

54) Vic Chesnutt, At the Cut, Constellation

55) Alex Cline, Continuation, Cryptogramophone

56) Sean Jones, The Search Within, Mack Avenue

57) The Krayolas, Long Leaf Pine, Box Records

58) Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, Infernal Machines, New Amsterdam

59) Green Day, 21^st Century Breakdown, Reprise

60) Roy Hargrove, Emergence, Emarcy

61) Funeral Mist, Maranatha, Southern Lord

62) Rosanne Cash, The List, Manhattan

63) The Very Best, Warm Heart of Africa, Green Owl

64) Joe Lovano, Folk Art, Blue Note

65) Ravi Coltrane, Blending Times, Savoy

66) Rez Abassi, Things to Come, Sunnyside

67) Kid Cudi, Man on the Moon, End of the Day, Universal

68) Circulatory System, Signal Morning, Cloud Recordings

69) The Dead Weather, Horehound, Third Man

70) Ceu, Vagarosa, Six Degrees

71) Peacock/Copland, Insight, Pirouet

72) The Dry Spells, Too Soon for Flowers, Antennae Farm