Temporary notes:
This directory was staged on November 10, 2026. Consider it still under construction. Please point out any errors or confusion, and ask any questions.
Arts Fuse will publish the vote tables and essays in early January. At that time, complete poll results and ballots will be published here. In the meantime, voters may consult the following files for more information (note: "Notes" files are still being edited):
While those files provide lots of information, including detailed reasoning on specific albums, I tried to boil all this down here:
Initial ballot invitations were sent out to people on the jazzpoll [at] hullworks.net email list by November ?. Deadline for voting is Sunday, December 21.
If you have voted in previous polls but didn't receive an invite, please use the invitation link above. If you haven't voted in past polls but are an active jazz critic or journalist, we would like to hear from you. It would save some time if you went straight to the invitation and sent in a ballot. If you see this and know someone who should be voting, please refer them to this page and invitation.
This is not a poll for casual fans. But if you listen to hundreds of new jazz albums each year, and write about them in some capacity (which includes radio, and may include podcasts) we're open to considering you.
If you would like to help with the poll, let us know. We have an email list, "jpadmin," to coordinate information. TH usually posts to this list daily during voting season, up to publication.
If you are a known voter, you should be on our "jazzpoll" email list. This is a low traffic email list, but will include voting reminder, progress reports, and notice of publication.
We also have an email list, "jpmedia," that is intended for public information. Although initially intended for publicists, this list is open to the public. We need to implement a sign-up form, but until then just let us know you want to subscribe.
In general, publicists and professional musicians are not invited to vote. We may make exceptions if you can establish that you are a credible critic. In all cases, we advise voters not to vote for albums they have a professional interest in.
This notice will be removed before the results are finally posted. Additional files may be added along the way.
Francis Davis founded The Annual Jazz Critics Poll in 2006. It was published by The Village Voice through 2011. It has since been picked up by Rhapsody (2011-12), NPR (2013-20), and ArtsFuse (since 2021). The Poll was supervised by Davis through 2021, with various degrees of help from Tom Hull, who keeps it going, and manages this website. Hull wrote a history/memoir of the Poll up through 2022 here.
One change to the website as of 2023 is that album titles in the complete results and ballots files have a link (look for →) which will print out a list of everyone who voted for the album. From there, you can get to the ballots for each voter.
The Mid-Year Poll was inaugurated in 2024. The results here have no bearing on the End-of-Year Polls. While critics may vote for late 2025 albums, we do not factor 2025 votes into the Mid-Year results here.
ArtsFuse will publish several essays by Tom Hull, including tables of the vote leaders.
The 0 voter ballots are presented in batches of 20 ballots:
The complete list of voting critics, with links to their individual ballots, is here.
The draft versions of the Arts Fuse essays are also archived here:
Other essays and scattered notes are available in the website here. Unless otherwise noted, all are by Tom Hull:
Methodology
Voters were asked to pick up to 10 New Jazz Albums. These are albums that consist entirely of previously unreleased music recorded less than 10 years ago (since Jan. 1, 2017). If the list is unranked (preferably alphabetized by artist), each album is given 1 point. If the list is ranked, each album is given points according to rank: 1: 3.0; 2: 2.4; 3: 2.0; 4: 1.8; 5: 1.6; 6: 1.4; 7: 1.3; 8: 1.2; 9: 1.1; 10: 1.0. The totals are sorted by votes. The points are only used to break ties between albums with the same number of votes.
Voters were also asked to pick up to 5 Rara Avis Albums. These are albums that consist of any of previously released music (Reissues), and/or of previously unreleased older (Archival) music, recorded more than 10 years ago (before January 1, 2017). If the list is unranked (preferably alphabetized by artist), each album is given 1 point. If the list is ranked, each album is given points according to rank: 1: 2.0; 2: 1.6; 3: 1.4; 4: 1.2; 5: 1.0. The points are only used to break ties between albums with the same number of votes.
All albums voted on should have been released in calendar 2026, although we also accept votes for albums released in the previous calendar year, 2025, especially if they were released too late to have been considered in the 2025 poll, or were otherwise new to the voters. Votes for albums released in 2024 or earlier were rejected.
We aren't polling for the special categories (Vocal, Latin, Debut) of previous polls.
Critics were asked to refrain from voting for any album in which they were directly involved as performer, producer, annotator, or in any capacity whatsoever.
Additional Notes
We published several more technical files on how the poll works, and especially on how various problematical albums should be handled. We've made considerable efforts to simplify the poll and make it as intuitive as possible, but reality is often troublesome, refusing to conform to norms about how albums are credited and titled, about label names, even about release dates. These files were written to help voters navigate these complexities. They are not necessarily complete and up to date, as many decisions had to be made on the fly, and fully documenting them can be a lot of extra work.
But if you're curious, you may still refer to these files:
We should establish a contact link here. Until then, you may use this form, which will reach Tom Hull.