The 50 Best Albums Of 2017
30. Ron Miles
I Am a Man
The cornet, as Ron Miles plays it, is an instrument of warm color and rounded projection. There's no hint of stridency in his tone, and not much slash in his attack. But it would be a gross underestimation to file him away as an easy listen, or someone who'd trade urgency for beauty. Miles has been making his own albums for 30 years, and I Am a Man is his finest yet, building on a profoundly intuitive rapport with guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer Brian Blade. What deepens the picture is a conceptual tie-in: Miles was inspired here not only by the civil rights slogan that lends the album its title, but also by a related artwork, Glenn Ligon's turn-of-the-century diptych Condition Report. And along with Blade and Frisell, the album features pianist Jason Moran and bassist Thomas Morgan, impeccable team players who also happen to be brilliant individualists. Miles' songs, combining melodic grace and sturdy logic, give the band room to move — and gorgeous material to explore, especially on a heart-stopping entreaty like "Is There Room In Your Heart For A Man Like Me?" --Nate Chinen (WBGO)
29. Open Mike Eagle
Brick Body Kids Still Daydream
The politics of place — and the wide-scale displacement of black bodies from urban spaces — might not seem like a canvas ripe for one of the most imaginative albums of the year. But that's exactly what L.A.-based indie emcee/musician Open Mike Eagle delivered with Brick Body Kids Still Daydream. Rather than an awkward attempt at clunky conscious rap, he erects a poetic monument to the humanity that formerly called one of the nation's notorious housing projects home. Demolished a decade ago, the 28 high-rises of Chicago's Robert Taylor Homes housed 11,000 people — including Open Mike Eagle, via extended family who lived there during his childhood — before its controversial. The Project Blowed alum, best known for his dark-witted humor, created a visionary concept album in which he personifies the disappearing buildings through eyes of childlike vengeance that convey the beauty and pain of a community systematically overlooked and undermined. He sing-raps his way through a stark 12-song score as spellbinding as the ongoing saga of erasure that frames debate around the demographic overhaul of cities across America. With , Open Mike Eagle challenges socioeconomic stereotypes by planting a talking epitaph in the ground where living, breathing communities once stood.
