The Downbeat Critic's Poll for 2018 came out, and I pay attention to that. Some interesting choices there, and as a guitar fan in particular, my eye immediately goes to that choice. Mary Halvorson. For those of you who pay attention to the jazz posts here, you'll see a heavy focus on hard bop and post-bop, but very little free jazz or anything "avant-garde." I tend to think that most of those people are naked emperors. Mary Halvorson, though, really may just be smarter than I am. I pay attention to her, try to listen, and I know there's something there. When I listen to her, I feel like one of the old guard, who just barely understood that Bird & Diz were onto something, but couldn't really fully wrap their brains around it. Anyway, here's some Mary Halvorson, if you dare.