I haven’t posted any best-of lists since early 2004, with 25 movies and 25 CDs from 2003 to praise. One of these days I’ll have to go back and figure out what I liked best from 2004, but for now I may as well get started on 2005. So, with no further ado, here are my favorite CDs of 2005:
- Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane At Carnegie Hall
- Electric Masada At the Mountains of Madness
- John Coltrane One Down, One Up: Live at the Half Note
- Dizzy Gillespie & Charlie Parker Town Hall, New York City, June 22, 1945
- Sweeter Than the Day Live at the Rendezvous, December 2004
- Adrian Belew Side One/Side Two
- The Tiptons Drive
- Yo Miles! Upriver
- Painkiller 50th Birthday Celebration Volume Twelve
- Buckethead Kaleidoscalp
- Jessica Lurie Licorice & Smoke
- Bill Frisell Further East/Further West
- Brian Eno Another Day on Earth
- Keith Jarrett Radiance
- Robert Fripp Love Cannot Bear
- They Might Be Giants Here Come the ABCs
- Crimson Jazz Trio The King Crimson Songbook, Volume One
- Garage a Trois Outre Mer
- Milton Nascimento Pieta
- The Decemberists Picaresque
- Anti-Social Music Sings the Great American Songbook
- Hal Hartley The Girl From Monday
- Kronos Quartet You’ve Stolen My Heart: Songs from R.D. Burman’s Bollywood
- Monty Python’s Spamalot (Original Broadway Cast Recording)
- Seu Jorge Cru
And I might as well toss in an honorary runner-up:
- Seu Jorge The Life Aquatic Studio Sessions