Annual lists bear a bad reputation for the very good reason that they’re hairy blue hell to write. My (very good) years-ago Gazette editor Maggie Hartley renamed our Year Ender summaries as Rear-Enders. Tear-out-your-hair frustrating, they subject us writers to endless second-guessing: “Is this really better than that?” Multiply those doubts by the number of engaged readers, and writers have prickly, explosive dialogs by email, phone and letters.

So, I’ll dodge that for now and go oblique with these 2025 Onstage Hokey Awards.

Hat’s off to Greg Bell, the tireless, tasteful promoter of top shows. I knew I loved the guy when I went up to him after a great but sparsely attended show some years back. He didn’t lament losing money on it; instead, he was so jazzed by the music that he was absolutely beaming, walking-on-air happy. He announced his retirement earlier this year, and punctuated this news perfectly with a handful of shows this weekend; some free, some featuring longtime pals moe. But even after that announcement some months ago, he nonetheless crammed the calendar with high-quality performers in theaters, bars and farm fields. So here’s hoping his retirement works no better than Cher’s.

Joel Moss, RIP

Gone But Impossible to Forget, Part 1: The late, great Joel Moss, our most modest music-tech super-hero. He came to Caffe Lena after award-winning, big-star studio work all across the country and made everybody sound world-class on the Caffe’s top-quality streaming channel. Quiet and self-effacing, you’d never know he won more Grammys than almost anyone who’d played the Caffe – until, that is, the place hosted a classy memorial fandango complete with a Second Line street parade led by New Orleans trombonist Glen David Andrews and a two-stage tribute.

Gone But Impossible to Forget, Part 2: The Eighth Step at Proctors GE Theatre celebrated the enormous respect musicians and fans share for DJ, singer and culture hero Jackie Alper in an all-star showcase of singer-songwriter fare, political-social messaging and community building. Longtime folk heroes Andy Spence (retired from running Old Songs) and Margie Rosenkranz (Eighth Step impresario) concocted the idea; Spence and a fine fine cast made it real.

Andy Spence, left, directs the Eighth Step’s tribute to Jackie Alper

“So Long, It’s Been Good to Know You:” Janis Ian’s film-and-talk farewell at Caffe Lena hailed and summarized the astounding career she launched in her mid-teens. She’s played places much larger than the cozy Caffe, including nearby SPAC; but the folk-and-more mecca was perfect for her good-bye.

Road Trip: Alejandro Escovedo Sept. 13 at the newly reopened Iron Horse in Northampton with a sparse but muscular trio. This was far easier than my first visit there; an hours-long pilgrimage through freezing rain to see Richard Thompson for the first time. Both runs were well worth it. Check out founder and longtime leader Jordi Herold’s “Positively Second Street: My 25 Years at the Iron Horse Music Hall,” a delicious, unconventional memoir.

Edmar Castaneda, shown here at Proctors

Double Header: Columbian jazz harp virtuoso Edmar Castaneda with a sprawling world-beat band at Proctors in a Music Haven presentation Aug. 24; then with Bela Fleck and Antonio Sanchez as BEATrio playing jazz Oct. 2 at Universal Preservation Hall. He also played two other shows here in between.

New-to-Me Discoveries – all jazz performers, at it happens: pianist Julius Rodriguez and harpist Brandee Younger; both at Saratoga Jazz Festival Presented by GE Vernova (Rodriguez June 28; Younger June 29); saxophonist Sara Hanahan and singer Tyreek McDole, both at A Place for Jazz (Hanahan Oct. 3; McDole Nov. 7)

Julius Rodriguez, above; Brandee Younger, below

Sara Hanahan, above, and Tyreek McDole, below; Hanahan’s saxophone further below

Also, in a sax-rich jazz season, veteran stars Kenny Garrett (SPAC Jazz June 28); Gary Bartz (SPAC Jazz 29) and David Murray (A Place for Jazz Sept. 5) earned Explosive-Elders Wings.

Kenny Garrett, above; Gary Bartz, below; David Murray even further below

Let Me Ask You a Question: Imagine Larry David (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”) demanding, “Do Jon Batiste and Gary Bartz use the same tailor?” Both wore jackets onstage that sparkled so hot you could see them from Montreal.

OK, OK – The (Shortened) Live List

Knee surgery and recovery tore some pages from my concert calendar: No shows from Feb. 12 (guitarist Yasmin Williams at Caffe Lena) to April 26 (jazz saxophonists Scott Hamilton and Harry Allen at A Place for Jazz) – both pretty good.

I missed both Jazz Fest in New Orleans and a memorial for instrumental-rock guitar pioneer Duane Eddy in Nashville, an all-star celebration with brother Jim Hoke as musical director.

I hit 41 shows in 2025; far fewer than 100 or so in my peak years, but with some high spots.

Shows by grass-roots non-profits drew me more than corporate enterprises. Meanwhile, repairs to mid-size venues The Egg, Troy Savings Bank Music Hall and Spa Little Theatre reshaped the scene. 

Admitting that even we music writers choose to hit shows by performers we know to be good, or by unknown artists, hoping for surprises, I looked for skill, soul and sincerity and found them in these top 10 – listed chronologically here.

David Greenberger, above; and with band, below

David Greenberger and the Huckleberries Jan. 19 at Universal Preservation Hall. Words Greenberger collected by talking with oldsters, the earnest life’s work of research and preservation he began in 1979 as “The Duplex Planet,” fit well with music by a versatile quartet. Unified, unique and organic, his recitations reminded us how we all age, if we’re lucky, and to cherish good times as fate serves them unpredictably. Somehow, it all felt upbeat.

Nathan and the Zydeco Cha-Chas Feb. 7 at Universal Preservation Hall. Conga lines looped together ‘tweens-to-boomers with wide smiles, waving arms, clapping hands and shuffling feet in kinetic joy. Onstage: five Louisiana virtuosos threw it down. Saddened by brother Sid’s death, bandleader Nathan Williams – accordion ace, gruff singer, spark plug – needed a party as much as anybody, so he gave us one.

Bettye LaVette May 17 at Caffe Lena. Japanese potters repair by pouring molten gold into cracks. LaVette’s voice cracked, burnishing lyrics with the pure gold of deep soul. Singers have pretty voices or they don’t; she doesn’t; saying hers is more James Brown than Doris Day. She cast an intimate spell, of “coming over to my house.” Few singers can summon such deep confiding candor and flow from desperation to outrage to peace so gracefully.

Saratoga Jazz Festival-1, June 28. Highlights of the day-long, two-stage showcase were newcomers pianist Julius Rodriguez and trumpeter Keyon Harrold, explosive veteran post-bop saxophonist Kenny Garrett, the funk fireworks of Lettuce, and blues guitarist-singer Gary Clark Jr. For all its stylistic variety, it was maybe most jazzy in music urging social justice. Lettuce plays Jan. 28 at Empire Live.

Bria Skonberg, above; Gary Clark Jr. below

Saratoga Jazz Festival-2, June 29. Like day 1, this hit like a highlight film of favorites and fresh discoveries. Harpist Brandee Younger topped the newcomer category as established stars showed why they are: trumpeter-singer Bria Skonberg, singers Cassandra Wilson and Gregory Porter, saxophonist Gary Bartz, and New Orleans brass-soul-band rocker Trombone Shorty. He should close every festival, everywhere.

Trombone Shorty, above; and with band, below

Red Baraat July 13 at Music Haven. Who can inspire Sikhs in turbans, Muslim girls in hijabs, friends I know to be Rastafarian, Jewish and agnostic – in short, as Boz Scaggs sang: “Every Kinda people” – to dance to “Hava Nagilah” together? Brooklyn’s Red Baraat making music from everywhere, that’s who. Big structures from short riffs like brassy soul bands, or Sun Ra-style anarchic jazz spiced like audio vindaloo invited fans to dance wild onstage.

Terrance Simien Aug. 17 at Music Haven. Per his simple mission statement – “help you feel it right” – the zippy accordionist, soulful singer and wide-grinned energy source blew up the common definition of zydeco from Creole dance music to include soul, rock, pop and folk. His all-aces band, co-starring keyboardist Danny Williams, played with jazz band precision. Few fans left even as rain fell, dancing in the wet.

Jon Batiste with band and Philadelphia Orchestra Aug. 22 at Saratoga Performing Arts Center. Glowing at the chance to play with full orchestra and homecoming glee in the town where he’d met his wife, he dazzled in tunes from a new album, soul classics and sweet sounds of his New Orleans home; complete with Second Line parade through the happy crowd. Nothing else I saw all year matched this for fun, fire and feel.

Alejandro Escovedo, above; and with band, below

Alejandro Escovedo Sept. 13 at the Iron Horse, Northampton, Mass. Leading a new band, just drums and keyboards, he showed how he fell in love with punk rock while sounding unmistakably Texan, writes songs like a heart’s road-map and sings them like life and death. Now 70, his shows have grown more autobiographical, and this sparse, strong format served him very well – reaching back to the 90s and toward the future.

From left: Bela Fleck, Antonio Sanchez and Edmar Castaneda

BEATrio Oct. 2 at Universal Preservation Hall. With banjo (Bela Fleck), drums (Antonio Sanchez) and harp (Edmar Castaneda), the self-proclaimed “world’s most unlikely band” blended bluegrass, folkloric Latin dances and brisk jazz invention into something unprecedented and irresistible. Each member introduced a segment around their own repertoire, but their unified ensemble force dazzled throughout.

OK, so I was jones-ing for Jazz Fest and therefore felt maybe more attuned to zydeco and Mardi Gras parade chants than usual. Also, I was happily loving on music given away free, so I hit a higher percentage of Jazz on Jay freebies than any other program. My favorites of those were guitarist Todd Nelson’s hybrid genre-jumping JazzAmericana and the similarly free-flowing Afro-jazz crew Heard.

Guitarist Todd Nelson’s JazzAmericana, above; Heard, below, leader Elizabeth Woodbury Kasius at the keyboard