Every month, I comb through previous month Downbeat, JazzTimes, and Jazzwise magazines putting together a list of albums. The trick? I do this with past years magazine though.
I recently discovered the MusicBox app; sort of a listen later. My current playlist has 62 albums, as in December, these magazines are publishing their best of lists.
As someone close said a couple of days: "I didn't realize how much time goes into this music I might not always like to listen every day".
One way to discover new artists that I've been enjoying, is going through the "rising stars" section in the Downbeat critics poll[1].
Each time I pick a different subcategory (e.g. "rising star trumpet") and check out the artists from the list. When I hear something I like, I add it to a playlist. I'm planning to do the same with Downbeat's readers poll[2] and, now that I've seen it, with the Jazzwise list linked by parent.
I also go to my local jazz club about once a month. The enjoyment you can get from live music is incomparable to just listening to the recordings IMHO, and it seems to me that this is especially true with regards to jazz.
I don't know why, but as with so many other things Jazz-y, but the sax feels like "more cowbells" to me.
That is, I overall enjoyed the tunes, but I think it would have been a much more interesting had there been greater variation beyond a "simple" sax as the main instrument.
However, I fully accept that it's just not for me. I enjoy music from a lot of different genres, from medieval music to goa trance to stoner and doom metal, but somehow Jazz has never clicked for me.
I also struggle a lot with jazz. It's very rare for me to find a record that I truly enjoy. Lately I tend to listen mostly to "elevator jazz" playlists on Spotify, which is kinda easy to listen to and helps me focus. "actual" jazz requires more concentration and it's just generally not something I'm in the mood for most of the time, that's for sure.
