1. Luke Stewart – Works for Upright Bass and Amplifier (Astral Spirits)
2. Stephanie Richards – Fullmoon (Relative Pitch)
3. Mary Halvorson – Code Girl (Firehouse 12)
4. Weasel Walter – Skhiizm (ugEXPLODE)
5. Sarah Bernstein’s Unearthish – Crazy Lights Shining (Phase Frame Music)
6. Jeremiah Cymerman – Decay of the Angel (5049)
7. Fay Victor’s SoundNoiseFUNK – Wet Robots (ESP-Disk’)
8. Andrew Barker Trio – Avert Your I (Astral Spirits)
9. James Brandon Lewis-Chad Taylor Duo – Radiant Imprints (Off)
10. Brandon Lopez – Quoniam Facta Sum Vilis (Astral Spirits)
11. Anteloper – Kudu (International Anthem)
12. Artaud – Cábala (Fort Evil Fruit)
13. Jen Shyu – Song of Silver Geese (Pi)
14. Patrick Shiroishi – Tulean Dispatch (Mondoj)
15. Devin Gray – Dirigo Rataplan (Rataplan)
16. Han-earl Park, Catherine Sikora, Nick Didkovsky – Eris136199 (self-released)
17. Dustin Carlson – Air Ceremony (Out of Your Head)
18. Ensemble Fanaa – Ensemble Fanaa (Bandcamp)
19. Adam Hopkins – Crickets (Out of Your Head)
20. Cataclysmic Commentary – Audience Participation (Eschatology)

Special mention

Because we limit our ‘best of’ list to one record per bandleader or co-leader, collaboratively led bands sometimes are underrepresented. That was the case this year, and we want to make special mention of four collaboratively-led bands that made superb record releases this year that we would have loved to include on the above list.

• Thumbscrew – Ours (Cuneiform); Theirs (Cuneiform)
• Blacks’ Myths – self-titled (Atlantic Rhythms)
• Sandy Ewen & Weasel Walter – Idiomatic (self-released)
• Andrew Barker & John Dikeman – All Things Are Possible (Phantom Ear)

Historical Releases of the Year

• Robbie Basho – Live in Forli, Italy 1982 (ESP-Disk’)
• Kaoru Abe & Sabu Toyozumi – Mannyoka (No Business)
• Sun Ra – Of Abstract Dreams (Strut)
• Alan Braufman – Valley of Search (Valley of Search)
• Charles Mingus – Jazz in Detroit/Strata Concert Gallery/46 Selden (BBE)

Label of the Year

• Astral Spirits