Last year, I made a list of some of my favorite music from 2016, and I’m continuing the tradition just a day late. I’ve thrown into the mix some non-musical stuff, too:
- Nate Smith, Kinfolk: Postcards from Everywhere
Drummer Nate Smith’s new album spotlights his own technical chops in tracks like “Skip Step,” which works some syncopated sorcery in its time signature, and some of the brief interludes like “From Here,” which packs a lot of Smith’s set into just a couple minutes. They were recently featured on Tiny Desk, too. - Ron Miles with Bill Frisell, Brian Blade, Jason Moran & Thomas Morgan, I Am a Man
This album reminds me a lot of Brian Blade’s 2014 album Landmarks. As one review put it, “Ron Miles is a reminder that not all the music is about or around New York City or a city at all.” One can hear some of that sentiment, I think, in tracks like “Mother Juggler,” which trades out big-city buzz for music that’s a bit sparse. - Cécile McLorin Salvant, Dreams and Daggers
What a rich, entertaining, talented vocalist. Salvant is still under 30 and has deservedly rocketed to stardom. This CD, the follow-up to her Grammy-winning For One to Love, showcases her ability as a live performer: even without a visual, you can easily hear how well she plays for her audience on tracks like “Sam Jones’ Blues” and “If a Girl Isn’t Pretty.” A stunning release. - Sufjan Stevens, “Tonya Harding (in D Major)”
This track—which is not part of the new film I, Tonya—was released as a single near the end of the year, and like some of Stevens’ most successful material, it rehabilitates disreputable subjects without irresponsible sentimentalizing. Stevens’ calls the skater “strange, disputable, heroic, unprecedented, and indelibly American,” and when he set out to reveal “the wholeness of [Harding’s] person,” he did just that. - Simone Dinnerstein, Bach Piano Concertos
Not a recording (yet). Simone Dinnerstein played with several other musicians during this series of piano concertos, one requiring four (!) pianists. Daniel Tepfer also performed an algorthimically-assisted improvisation which I’m not sure I loved at the time, but it’s a neat idea for aleatoric music. - The Killing of a Sacred Deer and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Killing is based on Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis, but both of these movies have strong tragic elements—morally impossible choices, protagonists who aren’t clear heroes, and especially in Three Billboards, sharp moments of character development. Lady Bird was really great, too, but these two movies were my favorites this year.