At one major label, the jazzmen and women were picking their own retrospectives, writes Ray Comiskey

It's been a good year for jazz CDs. ECM was massively active with its rarum series, inviting its artists to select their own retrospectives. The artists included Tomasz Stanko and Arild Andersen who, apart from picking possibly the finest compilations in the series, also released two of the label's best releases reviewed this year: Stanko's Suspended Night and Andersen's The Triangle. ECM's quality included John Abercrombie's Class Trip, Keith Jarrett's The Out of Towners, Jan Garbarek's In Praise of Dreams, Jon Balke's Diverted Travels, and Trygve Seim's extraordinary Sangam.

René Marie confirmed her place as a great jazz singer with Serene Renegade for Maxjazz. Other singers to make a mark were Christine Tobin with Romance and Revolution (Babel), and Madeleine Peyroux, making a comeback with Careless Love (Rounder/Universal).

Outstanding piano trios were another feature of the year: Uri Caine's Live at the Village Vanguard (Winter & Winter); Jan Lundgren's tribute to the music of Matt Dennis, Will You Still Be Mine? (Fresh Sound); Enrico Pieranunzi's Play Morricone 2 (CamJazz), with bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joey Baron; and Steve Kuhn's Love Walked In (Sunnyside). Kuhn also made a very personal album, Promises Kept, with strings for ECM.

From Maxjazz's strong stable of pianists came Denny Zeitlin's superior Slickrock and two excellent live CDs by Mulgrew Miller and Jessica Williams. From Palmetto there were Fred Hersch's Trio + 2; Frank Kimbrough's Lullabluebye; bassist Ben Allison's Buzz; and, especially, bassist Steve Swallow and saxophonist Ohad Talmor's striking L'histoire du Clochard, modelled on Stravinsky's Soldier's Tale. And Brad Mehldau had a final Warner's release, Anything Goes, with his working trio, before marking a switch to Nonesuch with a fine solo CD, Live in Tokyo.

Among the more unusual releases this year was a double CD set by the exceptional American pianist Bill Carrothers. He made Armistice 1918 (Sketch), a moving musical homage to and comment on the tragedy and times of the Great War, using the songs of the era and original material with a group which included Drew Gress, Bill Stewart, a cellist, a contrabass clarinettist and voices.

One of the best jazz releases in any genre was Maria Schneider's beautiful Concert in the Garden, issued on her own label through the internet service ArtistShare. There were other excellent big band CDs, including Bob Florence's Whatever Bubbles Up (Summit) and Mike Holober's Thought Trains (Sons of Sound).

It was great to see the wonderful trumpet and flugelhorn of Kenny Wheeler on a couple of releases under his own name, Dream Sequence (psi) and Where Do We Go from Here? (CamJazz); his duetting with John Taylor on the latter was extraordinarily beautiful.

Among the best releases on Blue Note were Bill Charlap's Somewhere and tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano's gorgeous I'm All for You, with Hank Jones, George Mraz and Paul Motian. And two more obviously retro tenors, Scott Hamilton and Harry Allen, showed there's life in the idiom on a surprisingly vibrant Heavy Juice (Concord).

The top dozen new CDs reviewed in 2004 were:

Arild Andersen: The Triangle; Uri Caine: Live at The Village Vanguard; Bill Carrothers: Armistice 1918 ; Scott Hamilton/Harry Allen: Heavy Juice; Keith Jarrett: The Out of Towners; Jan Lundgren: Will You Still Be Mine?; René Marie: Serene Renegade;Maria Schneider: Concert in the Garden; Trygve Seim: Sangam; Tomasz Stanko: Suspended Night; Kenny Wheeler/John Taylor: Where Do We Go From Here?; Denny Zeitlin: Slickrock