Coming out of my music funk
By Kathy Edwards McFarland

Ted Gioia (Photo by Dave Shafer)
Mr. Ted Gioia, http://tedgioia.com/TedGioiaBio.html, just released his Top 100 recordings for 2017.
This may not be a big deal for some of you, Dear Readers, but his compilation, to me, is not only impressive, but boldly inspiring.
His journey through more than 1,000 albums during this past year, culling his top picks and testifying against the lack of accessible information about the lush, wide range of quality music in all its vibrant genres and forms is priceless.
I enjoy sharing my favorite music with others. But in the last few years, a different
motivation has spurred me. I believe that the system of music discovery is broken in the current day. There is more music recorded than ever before, but it is almost impossible for listeners to find the best new recordings.The most creative work in music is increasingly found on self-produced projects and releases from small indie labels— to an extent hardly conceivable only a decade ago. Very little of this music ever shows up on the radio, where formats seem to get narrower and narrower with each passing year.
Music fans once heard good new music at indie record stores, but most of them have closed. Or they could read reviews in the newspaper, but both the newspapers and the music reviews are shrinking or disappearing.
And the big record labels are the worst culprits of all, picking acts for their looks or their potential appeal to fourteen-year-olds, or some other egregious reason, and in general jumping on the most trivial passing fads.
On the other hand, the Internet presents an almost infinite amount of music and music commentary—yet where do fans even begin to separate the good from the bad and ugly?
My personal solution to this dilemma has been to listen to lots and lots of music, and try to identify recordings of quality and distinction.
This year, Gioia relinquished his numerical ranking, instead, alphabetizing the best recordings, “because each of these albums deserves recognition and the sequential ranking tended to focus too much attention on just a few recordings.
The full list appears soon enough. My take on Gioia’s epic undertaking is one of shear admiration. His work as a musician and writer has set him above most critics and music writers. With passion and attention to fairness and detail, he once again has offered a beauteous musical mix: Pointillistic Anti-Jazz (huh?) to Contemporary Music for Youth Chorus, Illegal Ethiopian Dance Music to Anonymous 16th Century Polyphony for Nuns … Yes, Jazz of all stripes is in there – tip of my hat to the Bernstein piano pieces, Miles Davis’ works, and a new album by Ahmad Jamal. I am also glad to find one of my personal favorites, Americana artist Rhiannon Giddens, on the list.
For the complete blog post and and the 100 Honorable Mention roster, visit http://tedgioia.com/bestalbumsof2017.html
Here’s my list of the 100 best albums of 2017 (in alphabetical order this year). They are drawn from all styles and all genres. Happy listening!
- John Luther Adams
Canticles of the Holy Wind
Contemporary Choral Music
- Teddy Afro
Ethiopia
Illegal Ethiopian Dance Music
- Arca
Arca
Fragile, Ultra-Slow Latin Electropop
- Daymé Arocena
Cubafonía
Contemporary Afro-Cuban Music
- Sam Baker
Land of Doubt
Raw, Self-Produced Singer-Songwriter from the Texas Prairie
- Scott H. Biram
The Bad Testament
Funkish Punkish Country Music
- Björk
Utopia
Groove-Free Techno with Flutes & Birdsong
- Theo Bleckmann
Elegy
Elegaic Jazz
- Stefano Bollani
Mediterraneo: Jazz at the Berlin Philharmonic
Jazz with Classical/Cinematic Ingredients
- Brooklyn Youth Chorus
Black Mountain Songs
Contemporary Music for Youth Chorus
- Betty Buckley
Story Songs
Cabaret/Broadway
- Sarah Cahill
Eighty Trips Around the Sun: Music by and for Terry Riley
Piano Music Composed (or Inspired) by Terry Riley
- Celestial Sirens/Musica Secreta
Lucrezia Borgia’s Daughter
Anonymous 16th Century Polyphony for Nuns
- Bill Charlap
Uptown Downtown
Jazz Piano Trio
- Billy Childs
Rebirth
Jazz
- Clann An Drumma
Order of the Stag
Tribal Drumming with Scottish Bagpipes
- Gary Clark, Jr.
Live in North America 2016
Electric Blues
- Anat Cohen Tentet
Happy Song
Semi-Big-Band Jazz
- Jessi Colter
The Psalms
Gospel/Country/Folk
- The Como Mamas
Move Upstairs
Gospel
- Andrew Cooperstock
Leonard Bernstein: Complete Solo Works for Piano
Modern Classical Music
- Danish String Quartet
Last Leaf
Nordic Folk Music/Chamber Music
- DeJohnette/Grenadier/Medeski/Scofield
Hudson
Old Rock in New Jazzy Guises
- Del Sol Quartet & Gyan Riley
Terry Riley: Dark Queen Mantra
Music for String Quartet and Electric Guitar
- Ani DiFranco
Binary
Singer-Songwriter
- Emerson String Quartet
Chaconnes and Fantasias: Music of Britten and Purcell
Chamber Music
- Emika
Melanfonie
Czech Orchestral Art Pop
- Brian Eno
Reflection
Ambient Music
- Heloísa Fernandes
Faces
Brazilian Music/Jazz
- Fink
Fink’s Sunday Night Blues Club, Vol. 1
British Blues for Moderns
- Champian Fulton
Speechless
Jazz Piano
- Galley Beggar
Heathen Hymns
British Folk-Rock With a Touch of Metal
- Molly Gebrian & Danny Holt
Trios for Two
New Music for Viola, Piano and Percussion
- Rhiannon Giddens
Factory Girl
Americana
- Stanley Grill
At the Center of Things
Contemporary Chamber Music Inspired by Early Music
- Erik Griswold
Ecstatic Descent
New Music for Prepared Piano
- Jo Harman
People We Become
Moody British Singer-Songwriter Comes to Nashville
- Stephen Hartke
The Ascent of the Equestrian in a Balloon
Contemporary Classical Music
- Fred Hersch
Open Book
Solo Jazz Piano
- Jennifer Higdon
All Things Majestic
Ecology-Inspired Contemporary Classical Music
- Ifriqiyya Électrique
Rûwâhîne
Sufi Trance Music from Tunisia with a Post-Punk Twist
- The Infamous Stringdusters
Laws of Gravity
Bluegrass
- Vijay Iyer
Far From Over
Jazz
- Ahmad Jamal
Marseille
Jazz
- Jasper String Quartet
Unbound
Contemporary Chamber Music
- Jlin
Black Origami
Percussion-Driven Multicultural Dance Music
- John Joubert
Jane Eyre
Contemporary Opera
- Mari Kimura
Voyage Apollonian
Music for Violin & Interactive Computer
- The Kraken Quartet
Separate / Migrate
Dance & Trance Music for Percussion and Electronics
- Julian Lage & Chris Eldridge
Mount Royal
Folk/Americana
Nguyên Lê & Ngô Hồng Quang
Há Nôi Duo
Vietnamese Music/Jazz
- Charles Lloyd
Passin’ Thru
Jazz
- The Magnetic Fields
50 Song Memoir
Pop-Rock Art Songs
- Rudresh Mahanthappa’s Indo-Pak Coalition
Agrima
Jazz/South Asian Music
- Laura Marling
Semper Femina
Singer-Songwriter
- Hayes McMullan
Everyday Seem Like Murder Here
Previously Unreleased Country Blues Recorded in 1960s
- Björn Meyer
Provenance
Ritualistic Music for Solo Bass Guitar (Six-String Electric and Acoustic)
- Father John Misty
Pure Comedy
Faux Ecclesiastical Singer-Songwriter
- Stanton Moore
With You In Mind: The Songs of Allen Toussaint
New Orleans Funk
- Randy Newman
Dark Matter
Mordant Singer-Songwriter
- North Mississippi Allstars
Prayer for Peace
Roots & Blues
- Víkingur Ólafsson
Philip Glass: Piano Works
Minimalist Piano Music
- Ed Palermo Big Band
The Great Un-American Songbook, Vol 1& 2
Irreverent Rock Repertory Big Band Music
- Aaron Parks
Find the Way
Jazz
- Maurizio Pollini
Chopin: Late Works
Classical Piano Music
- Billy Porter (with Guests)
The Soul of Richard Rodgers
Flamboyant Updatings of Broadway Tunes
- Chris Potter
The Dreamer is the Dream
Jazz
- Awa Poulo
Poulo Warali
Peulh Music from Mali
- Quercus
Nightfall
Folk/Jazz
- Jason Ricci & The Bad Kind
Approved by Snakes
Dirty Harmonica Blues
- Pepe Romero/Vicente Coves
Federico Moreno Torroba: Guitar Concertos 2
20th Classical Music for Guitar
- Ryuichi Sakamoto
async
Soundtrack Without a Film
- Cécile McLorin Salvant
Dreams and Daggers
Jazz Vocals
- András Schiff
Encores After Beethoven
Classical Piano Music
- Adam Schoenberg
American Symphony/Finding Rothko/Picture Studies
Neo-Romanticist Contemporary Orchestral Music
- Raymond Scott
Three Willow Park: Electronic Music from Inner Space 1961-1971
Previously Unreleased Electronic and AI Music from 1960s
- SFJAZZ Collective
Music of Miles Davis & Original Compositions
Jazz
- Peter Silberman
Impermanence
Singer-Songwriter
- Songhoy Blues
Résistance
West African Desert Rock as Political Protest
- Tyshawn Sorey
Verisimilitude
Pointillistic Anti-Jazz
- Wesley Stace
Wesley Stace’s John Wesley Harding
Singer-Songwriter
- Colin Stetson
All This I Do For Glory
Experimental Saxophone Trance Music
- Sufjan Stevens, Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly and James McAlister
Planetarium
Introverted Pop for Star-Gazing
- Quinn Sullivan
Midnight Highway
Bluesy Rock-Pop
- Systema Solar
Rumbo A Tierra
Cumbia/EDM/Hip-Hop
Tale of Us
Endless
Tech-Noir Chillout Music from Deutsche Grammophon
- The Tangent
The Slow Rust of Forgotten Machinery
Neo Prog Rock
- Otis Taylor
Fantasizing About Being Black
Trance Blues
- Chris Thile & Brad Mehldau
Chris Thile & Brad Mehldau
Jazz/Folk Hybrid
- Thundercat
Drunk
R&B/Hip-Hop
- Tinariwen
Elwan
African Desert Blues
- Tohpati Ethnomission
Mata Hati
Indonesian Jazz-Rock
- Ralph Towner
My Foolish Heart
Jazz Guitar
- Tribalistas
Tribalistas
Contemporary Brazilian Popular Music
- The Unthanks
Diversions, Vol. 4: The Songs and Poems of Molly Drake
Brooding Songs by Nick Drake’s Mother Molly Drake (1915-1993)
- Kamasi Washington
Harmony of Difference
Jazz with a Tinge of Soul/R&B
- Dale Watson and Ray Benson
Dale & Ray
Roadhouse Country
- Willie Watson
Folksinger, Vol. 2.
Folk Music
- The xx
I See You
Dream Pop
- Miguel Zenón
Típico
Jazz
Hi Kathy, I write promo pieces about music, too. You may find them interesting. I’ll send the current one and if you like it, reply and I’ll add you to my list. It’s that easy to get off the list, too. Bill Martin Senior Arts Study Society
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Thanks for letting me know about your expertise in music. Please feel free to visit me on Facebook or email me at kathyedwards57@vereizon.net.
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