Cécile McLorin Salvant’s album WomanChild leads the way

So with a little more than 20 weeks of the year and hundreds of new releases behind us to look back on, has the vocals trend from last year continued unabated? Or is the present state of instrumental music simply in as much thrall to the past as it has ever been? Listening to these excellent new records in the top 10 below will quickly allow you to make up your own mind and go some way to provide the answers to both these questions. Like a living language that borrows from everything, everywhere in real time and cannot be properly written down, the very flexibility and creativity of jazz is both its strength and a passage towards future innovation 

10 Rudresh Mahanthappa (7 January)
Gamak
ACT

9 Susanne Abbuehl (8 May)
The Gift
ECM

8 Sam Crowe Group (29 April)
Towards the Centre of Everything
Whirlwind

7 Soweto Kinch (12 January)
The Legend of Mike Smith
Soweto Kinch Productions

6 Bobby McFerrin (4 June)
Spirityouall
Sony Masterworks

5 Kenny Wheeler, Norma Winstone, London Vocal Project (27 January)
Mirrors
Edition

4 Marc Cary (22 May)
For the Love of Abbey
Motéma

3 Kendrick Scott (28 March)
Conviction
Concord

2 Chris Potter
The Sirens (15 January)
ECM

1 Cécile McLorin Salvant (26 April)
WomanChild
Mack Avenue