What a tumultous year it has been for our 2006 artist of the year - the remarkably talented David Binney: he dealt with personal grief with the death of his mother while at the same time he releasing two of by far and away the best albums of the year: both "Out of Airplanes" and "Cities and Desire" easily made our top ten list. Not to say competition wasn't stiff: Bob Reynolds, Chris Washburne, Shawn Maxwell and Joel Moore proved the young lions are on the prowl with excellent recordings; while John Moulder's 5-years-in-the-making release - "Trilogy" was a tribute to persistence and artistic vision. The amazing Teo Macero put out a fantastic release at age 81. Trumpet ace Corey Wilkes put on several exceptional shows, including the concert of the year with Maurice Brown at Jazz Fest. And let's not forget the ladies: Nnnenna Freelon and Jackie Allen had excellent releases, while Patricia Barber's "Mythologies" was the best yet of her career. Finally, the dynamic duo of Darwin Noguera and Victor Garcia were an inspired choice due to their spearheading of the effort to give Chicago a Latin big band worthy of the city. Darwin also has an excellent as-of-yet unreleased recording that we hopefully will be seeing avaliable any day now. But to release not one, but two of the most stunning albums of 2006 (and ever for that matter) - come on! In the end, the clear choice was alto saxophonist/composer David Binney whose originality, supercharged writing and playing, and desire to push the envelope while maintaining allegiance to melody made him "JazzChicago.Net's 2006 Artist of the Year." Our congratulations, David! Check out David's homepage Return to jazzchicago home