Francis Davis

The best new and rediscovered jazz recordings that lit up the dark and unsettling year that just ended, as voted on by 148 jazz critics.

2020 was an annus horribilis if there ever was one, writes Francis Davis, the founder of NPR Music's Jazz Critics poll, and much of the year's best jazz carried post-apocalyptic feelings within it.

The results of the year-end poll of 140 jazz critics offered surprise after surprise, including what's likely the youngest group of musicians, and more women than ever, in the top 10.

The organizer of NPR Music's Jazz Critics Poll says that as the pillars of the jazz establishment have splintered, there's new space for music at the edges of the genre to find recognition.

A new album by the octogenarian saxophonist is always a big deal, but his latest — and the winner of the 2018 Jazz Critics Poll — is also just plain big: 3 discs and an 84-page graphic novel.

Over 130 critics voted on the best jazz albums of 2018 — celebrated elders dominated the top of the results, but a class of younger musicians is rising.

Jazz critic Francis Davis says veteran musicians — particularly Wadada Leo Smith and Henry Threadgill — are making some of the most adventurous music of their careers.

Critic Francis Davis surveyed the jazz community to determine the best albums of the year. The winner has had a very good 2016.

NPR Music is pleased to present the results of a poll where 147 jazz critics selected their favorite recordings of 2015.

For 10 consecutive years, this poll has been a labor of love by eminent critic Francis Davis. It's grown tremendously since he initially submitted the consensus of 30 writers ...

Only it wasn't a tie, exactly. I abhor ties more than nature does a vacuum. Ties are unlikely, if not impossible, in the poll's upper echelons. The rules are cleverly designed to circumvent them. See those parenthetical figures next to the point totals?

1 (tie). Rudresh Mahanthappa, Bird Calls ...

NPR Music is pleased to present a poll in which 140 jazz critics picked their favorite recordings of 2014.

For nine consecutive years, this poll has been a labor of love by eminent critic Francis Davis. It's grown tremendously since he initially submitted the consensus of 30 writers to The ...

Could anyone have predicted that Steve Lehman and Wadada Leo Smith would place first and second in this year's NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll, among a field including previous winners Sonny Rollins, Vijay Iyer and Jason Moran, plus 2011 runner-up (and favorite going in) Ambrose Akinmusire? Not me, and I ...

As a coda to the 2013 NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll, here's a roll call of jazz figures who died last year. Not all of them played an instrument or sang, and a few of those included here who did were better-known for their achievements in other fields ...

NPR Music is pleased to present the results of a poll asking well over 100 jazz critics to pick their favorite recordings of 2013.

For eight consecutive years now, this annual poll has been conducted by Francis Davis, one of the most respected critics in the field. In 2006, he ...

It says a lot about his enduring hold on jazz listeners that over a half century into his career, the descriptive phrases most commonly put in front of Wayne Shorter's name — along with "the great saxophonist and composer" — remain "the elusive" and "the enigmatic." The inside ...