You may have already read the "Top Ten" list I published a few weeks ago here on RTB. If you didn't, or if you want to read it again, don't bother looking - it's gone.
Thinking about my picks (which I was dissatisfied with even as I hit "publish"), I came to the conclusion that a Top Ten list is too narrow a field. A good jazz critic listens to all kinds of music over the course of a year, and every time he hits "play" on his iPod is just as important as every other time, whether it's a new release he's hearing for the first time or an old favorite from Miles, Coltrane or Monk.
So this is my "What I Listened To" list, comprising all the albums, new or old, jazz or not, that really stayed with me over the course of the year. One criterion was that it changed the course of my listening in a major way or was listened to more than other albums. This excludes most of the CDs I actually reviewed this year- so if you want to know what I think of all the 2011 CDs people are writing about on the jazz blogosphere around this time that aren't on this list, check out this, this, this, this, this, or this. Another Roundup (#7) is about to be published.
All finished? Okay.
Benny Carter, Additions To Further Definitions (1966)
Billie Holiday, All Or Nothing At All (1957)
Stan Getz, At The Shrine (1955)
Charles Mingus, At UCLA (1965)