Much as I hate to put a nearly half-century-old performance at the top of a year-end list, this 1957 recording was a Holy Grail find, the best available document of the two giants' historic collaboration. Beyond mere scholarly significance, the disc captures a very "on" night, the band benefiting from four months together and knowing full well how to spur each other on.

An ambitious and illuminating jazz oratorio, Hersch's setting of Walt Whitman's poetry gathers a strong cast of musicians and vocalists to explore the limbo between jazz and classical. Taking his cue from Whitman's irregular rhythms, Hersch weaves an unpredictable path through the poet's text.

Innovation has resided in the court of the pianists over the last couple of years, and none reach (and, occasionally, overreach) as strenuously as Moran. Same Mother is his sprawling take on "the blues," a term that here stretches to cover Russian film scores as well as front-porch bottleneck slide.

Frisell has surely received enough accolades to last him the rest of his career, but this two-disc, two-trio, two-coast collection is a rollicking summation of the guitarist's many facets. Standards, originals and pop covers; abrasive group improvisations next to Frisell's wistful take on roots music next to smirky humor; folksy acoustics and buzzing electronics. All familiar to Frisell's fans, but all coexisting on the edge where he constantly resides, always subtly pushing forward.

The albums Lloyd has been releasing on ECM over the past decade have featured some of the rawest soul-searching this side of John Coltrane. Exploring Eastern musics and philosophies, Lloyd's playing eases between Middle Eastern melodies and pop standards, rising from near-silent contemplation to beseeching wails to the heavens. Pianist Geri Allen's own growth as Lloyd's regular foil culminates here in a staggering take on Jacques Brel's "Ne Me Quitte Pas."

This trio places trumpeter Nate Wooley's mutated blowing in a group context, with trombonist Steve Swell and percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani, both equally willing to use their axes in ways for which they were not intended. Compared to most sane people's definition of music, this is still willfully obscurantist, aggressively atonal music, but relative to the lowercase world in which Wooley resides, this is boisterous enough to sound like fucking P-Funk.

Not all the news out of Africa this year was bad. Russ Gershon's Boston 10-piece (with an assist from Jim Jarmusch) traveled to Ethiopia for a gathering of the country's legendary '70s jazz pioneers. This double-CD memorializes the funky, genre- and nation-bridging performances.

A single, hour-plus composition, Way Up combines the Metheny Group's varied styles into a jazz symphony of sorts, resulting in a whole greater than the sum of its parts. For someone who could rest easily within his mainstream rep, Metheny should be commended for his restless experimentation.

Always adventurous, Caine is flat-out mischievous on this mash-up of electronic music with his Bedrock trio. Hopscotching around every subgenre spawned of knobs and switches, the pianist creates the imaginary soundtrack to a futuristic '70s sci-fi game show, at times launching into a deeply funky Headhunters vibe, at others barely stifling a laugh while indulging in shameless retro cheese.

The Baltimore pianist's second disc is full of the tight, foot-stomping compositions that distinguished last year's debut, but Gilchrist's skill in writing and arranging for his New Volcanoes sextet has evolved impressively. The hip-hop influence still shows in the pounding rhythms, and the lessons of former employer David Murray are evident in the jagged, contrasting lines taken by the horn section while Gilchrist rumbles underneath with Monk-by-way-of-N'Orleans interjections.