Things I've listened to most this year

This is a curious list of the 25 or so tunes I have listed to most since moving my music files to a new hard disc about six months ago (and resetting the play count).

I'm very surprised to see pianist Tord Gustavsen at the top, but then again. Paying ten pounds a month to emusic for the last year or so has meant that I have been able to download things on spec. Tord Gustavsen has been one of these finds. The music is ECM, nordic, ambient, jazz chillout music. The pace is often slow and deliberate, the tone moody and atmospheric, the harmonies and melodies soulful and jazzy. Tord is not up there with Brad Mehldau (genius!) but I seem to listen to him lot:

• when wanting to doze on a train journey
• when wanting to work on a train, cutting out the background noise but not really listening
• on Sunday morning

There are few surprises and few changes of pace but it has grown on me and it I do pick up more each time I listen (or half listen).

Stablemates is a tune I spent studying in depth for a couple of months, writing and playing solos on the changes. Benny Golson writes quirky tunes with quirky changes. Tunes like this and Along Came Betty have provided me with a lot of inspiration - I never felt I have come across the definitive solo on this one. It has encouraged me to stop treating it like some kind of puzzle and to try and create a coherent melodic idea from beginning to end.

Another find on emusic, Simone Dinnerstein's recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations is very personal take, tender and meditative from the start with a very slow Aria. At the time she recorded it (at her own expense), she was teaching piano in Brooklyn. I like the fact that she does not try to impress through virtuousity. The music flows very naturally and it really brings out the best in the Bach's writing without ever getting in the way. Here's an interesting article on her and the recording from Slate.

I have been listening to Joe Henderson's Black Narcissus for a few months now. Joe's playing on this recording is quite understated and the tune itself moves from calm and almost wistful to something to something almost tempestuous on this version (from Power to the People). I like Herbie Hancock's impressionistic use of the Fender Rhodes on Ron Carter's bass part played up the top end. Coincidentally, the tuned up in the Saturday workshop I take with Geoff Simkins and has proved a nice workout for improvising over. I have subsequently head a version recorded a few years later with a much bigger band. It is surprisingly different, lacking the intimacy of the original quartet recording, but showing that a good tune is worth many treatments.

There are many recordings of Larry Goldings (Hammond B3) with the great Peter Bernstein on guitar and Bill Stewart on drums. As One is one of the most satisfying although, for me, the highpoint is seeing them on the Peter Bernstein Live at Smoke DVD where you can see every one of Peter's grimaces as he squeezes each note from the guitar.

Guitarist Joshua Breakstone has been a big discovery for me this year. This French recording, Memoire, is Joshua at his best. A sympathetic rhythm section including Michel Petrucciani's brother Louis on bass, a great choice of tunes and beautiful soloing throughout. Joshua's plays with poise throughout and shows what he has learnt in a career that has spanned almost four decades.

Surprisingly no Kurt Rosenwinkel in there, then the recent Reflections is his first release in almost two years. He's certainly been up there in the past with The Next Step and Heartcore, and I remember listening to Milton Nascimento's Club D'Esquina for almost a year when I got my first iPOD about five years ago.

Tony Kofi at Brighton Jazz Club

Brighton Jazz Club has a long tradition of supporting UK jazz musicians, through good times and bad. When I first came to Brighton over 16 years ago, visiting American musicians like Art Farmer played alongside local musicians to packed houses at The Concorde. The Club is now based at the Sussex Arts Club, where audiences are often slim and at the silver-haired end of the age spectrum (I'm in my forties and was one of the youngest there). The venue is cold (the band had hats on for much of the gig) and lacking atmosphere and you dare not talk for fear of being told to be quiet. And whatever happened to the younger crowd, the people getting into jazz at the same time as saxophonist Tony Kofi and trumpeter Byron Wallen?

Supported by Anders Olinder on Hammond organ and the Winston Clifford on drums, soprano, alto & baritone saxophonist Tony treated us to tunes form his latest album, Future Passed. The first number was a groove number - the dominate vibe being a sound palette from the golden age of the Blue Note Hammond organ groove (think Lou Donaldson, Dr. Lonnie Smith) mixed with some more modern melodic, harmonic and rhythmic influences. For the second number, trumpeter Byron Wallen jumped onto the stage, took his coat off and joined the band for an uptempo tune called The Journey. The unison head reminded me immediately of organists's Larry Young's band with Woody Shaw and Joe Henderson that recorded the modern jazz classic, Unity. Byron and Tony certainly know their jazz history - I picked up Miles, Freddie Hubbard, Woody Shaw and Lee Morgan in Byron's playing, and Lou Donaldson, Jackie McClean and Coltrane in Tony's.

The tunes were memorable and accessible (confirmed when I downloaded the album from iTunes). One highlight was an Ellington/Strayhorn type ballad dedicated to Tony's father (A Song for Papa Jack), with Byron taking the lead. There was a clear empathy between between Byron and Tony, who have been playing together since Tony arrived in London 15 years ago. At times ther reminded my of early Ornette Coleman with Don Cherry (trumpet), when the two played Ornette's complex heads as though they were joined at the hip.

Winston Clifford is certainly one of the best jazz drummers in the UK, and he has a more modern sound than most other I've heard. His playing is both subtle and powerful. It sounds as though he has been absorbing digitally-generated hip hop beats and making them all his own.

In Anders Olinder's organ playing you can certainly here the modern, progressive influence of Larry Young (once nicknamed The Coltrane of the Organ for his approach to harmony and improvisational drive). Talking to Anders after the gig he, like me, is a big fan of Larry Goldings, the New York organist who play with Metheny and Scofield, as well as his own trio with Peter Bernstein (guitar) and Bill Stewart (drums). These players are probably closer in approach to pianist Bill Evans than, say, Jimmy Smith. Andreas avoided the blues cliches and focused on exploring and picking out interesting intervals during his soloing.

These are musicians I'll certainly look out for in the future. I'm just staggered that they are not playing to larger audiences of people their own age.