Top and best jazz album from South America in 2020 is by Dino Saluzzi whose sublime Albores was released by ECM. Jorge Luis Borges in his poem 'Music Box,' contemplating the music of Japan, decides 'When I hear it play/I am. I want to be. I bleed away.' Listening to Albores regardless of geography that sense of flesh and bone but also retreat and a disappearance into the soul of things is very real. Bandoneón great, Borges' fellow Argentinian, Dino Saluzzi, now 85, in this very moving recording made between February and June 2019 in the Saluzzi studio in Buenos Aires, presents his first solo collection in more than 30 years, work that in its entirety leaps as if from music to the hymn and realm of poetry itself. All Saluzzi compositions, linger long, delve deep into 'Adios Maestro Kancheli,' 'Ausencias,' 'Segun Me Cuenta La Vida/Milonga,' 'Íntimo,' 'La Cruz del Sur (2da cadencia),' 'Ecuyere,' 'Ficcion,' 'Don Caye/Variaciones sobre obra de Cayetano Saluzzi' and 'Ofrenda/Tocata'. Do and gain a sense of wonder.

marlbank albums of the year will be published on Thursday 31 December round midnight