Here in the UK, we have seen a resurgent folk scene producing sparkling, jangling psychedelic moments aplenty and for the first time in a very long time, the average age of folk event attendees has dropped below 50 (OK, we made that figure up, but have you been to a Tunng gig?). The Folk Britannia Barbican / BBC series seemed to have had the same galvanising effect on the scene as Jazz Britannia had had (even though the twisted folk scene gets barely a mention in the programme). Older musicians also got their props on the scene like Show of Hands.

We were just as excited about the jazz scene though. Labels like Dune and Babel kept pumping out interesting, challenging and diverse records showing that British jazz was very much alive and constantly mutating like some Doctor Who monster — exactly as it should be. The nu-jazz scene was equally prolific as chronicled by our very own Gerry Hectic.

Globally, pow! WOMAD bowed out of Reading with a hell of a line up (even if people had to find their tents in pitch black darkness), Wychwood blossomed into a charming teenager of a festival and everyone and their mum raved about the Big Chill. Seasoned music journalists went round for months afterwards with dreamy expressions and the cultist’s sure sense of being in on something big and cool.

We got spoiled again by an endless number of great albums coming out of Africa, West Africa in particular and leading the charge was another faultless year by World Circuit. We sadly bade farewell to a number of great musicians and World Circuit led the grieving for Ali Farka Toure and Anga Diaz. One single session at the Hotel Mande in Bamako yielded no fewer than three classic albums: Ali Farka Touré’s Savane, Toumani Diabaté’s Symmetric Orchestra’s Boulevard de l’Independence and both of them together on the sublime In the heart of the Moon. Next year we can look forward to a sensational album by Vieux Farka Touré (Ali’s son) and a heavily promoted Tinariwen release. Will 2007 be the year in which African music goes mainstream in the UK?

We also said goodbye to soul legends including the funk father himself, James Brown, whose death reached us on Christmas Day. We’ll be playing ‘Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto’ in his honour.

Fly also had a hell of a year. For the first time we recorded more than 100,000 unique visitors in a single month, helped by large numbers of people form MySpace land dipping in and out. Also helping was a mention in the Observer’s list of 50 Best Music Websites and a name check from the New York Times. We launched a UK and US Amazon store for Fly music buyers and our hugely popular video sharing site. Remember as well as seeing the best of global music culture on this site you can add your own favourites from YouTube or Google Video for everyone else to share.

All of this made possible by you, our discerning readers who have visited in your hundreds of thousands and left your mark in comments and queries on the site. It goes without saying that the writers who pour over CDs, visit gigs on cold nights and stay up late writing reviews and features are the salt of the Earth.

And we have decided not to do our own best albums of the year list but we invite you to add your own favourites using the comment box below.

Finally, we wish you the very best of the Holiday season wherever you are and we look forward to seeing you in 2007.

PS: There’s just enough time to enter one of our comps and win loads of signed CDs etc.

Photo of Ali Farka Toure by Damian Rafferty