Maria Schneider

Paul Wells missed out on our 2015 Missed It List. But here’s the best music he heard in 2015 all the same.

I’m off to the Montreal Jazz Festival tonight. I covered the festival for 17 years in a row (!) but I haven’t attended it since 2005. Home-owner adventures will keep me from most of the 30th-anniversary edition of the biggest, liveliest, and sometimes most rewarding music festival in North America, but tonight’s opening night and on Sunday Kenny Werner, Branford Marsalis, Josh Redman and Joe Lovano will all be playing, so two brief road trips are in order.