Didn't get the usual "Best of 2008" post that music blogs are prone to put out, so I'm going to use this Take Five Friday post as an opportunity to make up for that. "Best of" lists are not really my bag, so I'll let you know about a few that I've run across elsewhere. So...Take Five:

• All About Jazz NY, a newsletter about NYC jazz distributed by AllAboutJazz.com has a Best of 2008 special feature, including best of categories of: Musicians, Labels, Club, Performances, Albums, Unearthed Gems, Tributes, Reissues, Latin Jazz, Debuts, Large Ensembles, Vocals, Boxed Sets, Books and Original Album Artwork. Get it here (a 4mb PDF).
• National Public Radio's Take Five series (seriously, I didn't know when I put this together and spent all that time on the fancy graphic) asked contributing jazz partners WBGO, WDUQ and Jazz24 radio to recommend Take Five's top jazz albums of the year and compiled what they thought were the very best of the best with their own picks. If you want to see the full lists, NPR had them too, including WGBO's The Year In Jazz: Best CDs Of 2008 and Seattle's KPLU Living Your Life With 2008's Best In Jazz.
• Fred Kaplan's Top 10 Jazz Albums of 2008: Crowned by one immortal recording, in Slate.
• AllAboutJazz.com's Managing Editor John Kelman's Best of 2008 with his selected picks representing the top recorded events in jazz and beyond for 2008.
• OpenSkyJazz's personal take on the Independent Ear blog of recommended 2008 recordings compiled during a year of hosting a new releases program on WWOZ in New Orleans.

So take five and explore. Let me know what you think in the comments ....There will be five more next week.