And the best jazz albums of 2022 were…?

Bill Frisell "Four": Understated and beautiful.

Micah Thomas "Piano Solo": He's a monster. 

Harish Raghavan "In Tense": Esp. the last two tracks.

Domi & JD Beck "Not Tight": The future of jazz?

Tomasz Dabrowski & The Individual Beings: Maybe not 5 a star album (despite Downbeat review), but interesting left-of-center stuff.

"In Common III": Seriously good band.

...recorded 50+ years ago?

to me jazz should be relaxing and many of the new albums are trying to make jazz sound like modern pop. full disclosure: I have no use for modern pop.

As @carlsbad said, quite a few newer jazz albums I try to listen to aren't relaxing at all. In fact, they make me tense. I listen to music to relax most of the time. I looked through Roon and see I added 26 albums Roon considers jazz and only 4 show to be from 2022. I don't even think some would consider them jazz. They are as follows:

Leland Whitty "Anyhow"

Lady Blackbird "Black Acid Soul" (came out in '21 but release date streaming shows October '22)

Joshua Redman/Brad Mehldau/Christian McBride/Brian Blade "LongGone"

Matthew Halsall "Changing Earth"

I just tried listening to Mary Halvorson's new album, "Amaryllis" and don't enjoy it at all. Just not the style I like.