Mercury Prize 2016 Jazz Apple Music Playlist

The award celebrates its 25th anniversary this year and once again features a truly diverse selection of artists on the final short list of 12 Albums of the Year. It’s a particularly strong year, with David Bowie’s heartrending swansong Blackstar and Radiohead’s A Moon Shaped Pool two of the strongest contenders to take the award. Running through several of the shortlisted albums is a prominent jazz influence – be it avant garde space cadets The Comet Is Coming, Bowie’s heavyweight New York jazz band notably featuring saxophonist Donny McCaslin and drummer Mark Guiliana, and Laura Mvula’s album The Dreaming Room including an appearance by former Miles Davis guitarist John Scofield. To celebrate such diversity and depth we’ve put together a playlist of the jazz-offshoots – and a classic Radiohead track featuring Humphrey Lyttelton on trumpet – of all the aforementioned artists.

Click here to see the full shortlist of nominated albums – BBC 6Music will broadcast live coverage of awards and an hour-long special, Best Album of the Year 2016 – Mercury Prize Live, presented by Lauren Laverne will be shown on BBC Four. In the meantime enjoy our playlist.