By Tom Hull

By far, the hardest part of this job is rounding up voters.

The late writer, poet, editor, and critic Raúl da Gama.

When Francis Davis published his inaugural poll at the Village Voice, he signaled its future by calling it the “1st Annual.” He gathered 30 voters into his “NY-and-Then-Some Critics’s Circle,” and they voted for ten new music albums each, plus several special categories he wanted to note but felt might be neglected: Reissues, Vocals, and Debuts. A year later, he added Latin Jazz to the ballot. That first year saw the only landslide in poll history, partly because small groups tend to be more homogeneous, and partly because Ornette Coleman picked that year for his first album in nearly a decade.

Over the next few years, Francis expanded his “circle” dramatically, to 58 in 2007, 79 in 2008, 99 in 2009, and 120 in 2010. The next year, Maria Schneider’s winning Sky Blue appeared on slightly less than half of the ballots (44.8%), and Jason Moran (41.6% in 2010) was the last winner to appear on 40% of the ballots. The number of voters reached 140 in 2014, and finally topped 150 in 2021.

After that, I got more involved in the selection process, for better and/or worse. Francis had worried that without his guiding hand “the consensus I’ve striven for each go-round” might “skew too much to one school of jazz.” [Quote from a 2022 letter.] I was afraid that if the voter count dropped, I would have failed his trust, so despite late starts I hustled hard to add new voters, pushing the total to 177 in 2024. I don’t doubt that as a result I’ve skewed the poll away from consensus, but in many directions. I’ve recruited more free jazz people, but also people who are basically rock critics but who listen to a good deal of jazz on the side. I’ve long wanted to invite more Europeans, and I also picked up a few critics from Asia and Latin America (though no Africans, at least that I’m aware of). I’ve never kept track of the demographics, partly because I’m not impressed by identity tokenism, but mostly because I don’t want to impose on possible voters by grilling them on personal matters. (If I did, I’d be more curious about their listening habits, especially how much non-jazz they hear, and what kinds, but also about political and cultural leanings, if only to test my impression that I’ve never met a jazz fan who wasn’t well left of center.)

But I’ve also added mainstream critics, and a trad jazz critic I’m especially proud of (Joe Bebco). And while I’m almost totally ignorant of jazz radio — a world Francis was pretty attentive to — I’ve accepted enough word-of-mouth recommendations to keep the share of voters with radio credentials close to constant. They (everyone from Ronald Reagan to Elizabeth Warren, but lately most notoriously the authors of Project 2025) say that “personnel is policy.” No doubt it would be possible to skew the poll whatever direction one wanted, as has been proven by magazine polls ranging from the old JazzTimes to Cadence, which inevitably turn into branding exercises. Poll designers are inevitably tempted to favor kindred spirits, which Francis alluded to in 2009 when he wrote, “my wife likes to joke that what I’m really aiming for is a consensus Top 10 identical to mine.” I’ve done a bit of this myself, inviting a few social media acquaintances known to have liked obscure albums I had recommended.

But another approach is to trust democracy: invite a wide range of people, and let them sort out the albums. That doesn’t mean we dispense with all judgments regarding qualifications. Francis was probably more judicious in his invitations. For instance, about half of JazzTimes‘s voters also voted in his poll, but the results often differed significantly, with the half he didn’t invite favoring albums from more commercial labels, while those he invited who didn’t write for JazzTimes had much more eclectic tastes. But we’ve both shown no interest in “smooth jazz” (or, as I’ve called it, “anti-jazz”), regardless of popular interest. What I’ve mostly looked for has been people who play a lot of different things, many obscure, and write about them in some capacity, which could well be on their own blogs (although I’ve yet to consider podcasts).

The late jazz critic Ludwig vanTrikt.

I expected to get an early start this year, and was inspired by DownBeat‘s “largest and most comprehensive jazz critics poll ever,” where they counted 251 ballots (of 409 invitations) — especially as I recognized many critics I had invited but who hadn’t voted recently (as well as many more new to them but old to us). But time got the better of me: I didn’t get my invitation list expanded before the usual time for the invitations to go out, and while I had more than 600 names on my master list, I only managed to send out a bit over 300 invitations, and wound up with “only” 168 ballots (9 fewer than 2024; 29 voters from 2024 didn’t vote this year; 8 voters who missed 2024 returned, and 12 voters cast their first ballots; we had 25 first-time voters in 2024, 12 of whom didn’t vote in 2025).

So as a poll organizer, I feel like I failed. But I’m very proud of these 168 voters. Of those who didn’t make it, four long-time voters (Francis Davis, Larry Applebaum, Raul da Gama, and Ludwig vanTrikt) died. Many others cited health issues, a crushing lack of time, and/or general weariness, expressing best wishes and in many cases a hope to return in 2026. Of the others, it’s impossible to know even if the email got through. By far, the hardest part of this job is rounding up voters. But also the most rewarding part of the job is the feedback I get with or without ballots. By the end of the process, I’m feeling even more solidarity with the critics than with the musicians whose work got us involved in the first place.

So hearty thanks to the fine citizens who did step up and participate in this exercise, offering their ears, expertise, and nearly insatiable appetites to give us this unparalleled insight in to this year in recorded jazz: Rui Miguel Abreu, Paul Acquaro, Scott Albin, Shannon Ali (Shannon J. Effinger), Ali Alizadeh [Sir Ali], Mirian Arbalejo, Hrayr Attarian, Angela Ballhorn, Dave Barber, Chris Barton, Joe Bebco, Larry Birnbaum, Larry Blumenfeld, Richard Blute, Philip Booth, Mike Borella, Marcela Breton, Stuart Broomer, Bill Brownlee, Dan Buskirk, Sidney Carpenter-Wilson, Nuno Catarino, Jeff Cebulski, John Chacona, Gary Chapin, Nate Chinen, Brad Cohan, Troy Collins, Thomas Conrad, J.D. Considine, Mark Corroto, Michael Coyle, David Cristol, Matthew Crook, Anthony Dean-Harris, Steve Dollar, Laurence Donohue-Greene, Troy Dostert, Alain Drouot, Ken Dryden, Chuck Eddy, John Ephland, Lee Rice Epstein, Steve Erickson, Steve Feeney, Gary Finney, Phil Freeman, Filipe Freitas, Pat Frisco, Jon Garelick, Ana Gavrilovska, Richard Gehr, Brooks Geiken, Kurt Gottschalk, David A. Graham, Ludovico Granvassu, Mike Greenblatt, George Grella, Jason Gross, James Hale, Eyal Hareuveni, Chris Heim, Tad Hendrickson, Andrey Henkin, Dylan Hicks, Geoffrey Himes, Rob Hoff, Larry Hollis, Mark Holston, C. Andrew Hovan, Tom Hull, Peter Hum, Jim Hynes, Willard Jenkins, Martin Johnson, Sanford Josephson, Matthieu Jouan, Ammar Kalia, Richard B. Kamins, George Kanzler, Fred Kaplan, Yoshi Kato, Glenn Kenny, James Koblin, Elzy Kolb, Stuart Kremsky, David Kunian, Art Lange, Tim Larsen, Will Layman, Devin Leonard, Lance Liddle, Mark Lomanno, Suzanne Lorge, Brad Luen, Phillip Lutz, Kevin Lynch, Jim Macnie, Peter Margasak, Paul Medrano, Allen Michie, Milo Miles, Bill Milkowski, Roz Milner, Ralph A. Miriello, Rick Mitchell, Chris Monsen, John Frederick Moore, Allen Morrison, Greg Morton, Ivana Ng, Stuart Nicholson, Fotis Nikolakopoulos, Tim Niland, Piotr Orlov, Dan Ouellette, Phil Overeem, Ted Panken, Annie Parnell, Terry Perkins, Lawrence Peryer, Sergio Piccirilli, Steve Pick, John Pietaro, Dan Polletta, Peter Quinn, Derk Richardson, Britt Robson, Akira Saito, Bret Saunders, Rich Scheinin, Sarah Schmidt, Martin Schray, Mike Shanley, John Sharpe, Adam Shatz, Rob Shepherd, Hank Shteamer, João Esteves da Silva, Slim, Stewart Smith, Jeffrey St. Clair, Thomas Staudter, Ariella Stok, Mark Stryker, Mark Sullivan, Dave Sumner, John Szwed, Derek Taylor, Neil Tesser, Michael Toland, Michael Ullman, George Varga, Fabricio Vieira, Philip Watson, Ken Waxman, Bob Weinberg, Jason Weiss, Ken Weiss, Michael J. West, Richard Williams, Carl Wilson, Jerome Wilson, Josef Woodard, Ron Wynn, Scott Yanow, Kazue Yokoi.