Music

The Puerto Rican jazz musician leads his long-running quartet on his new album. Critic Kevin Whitead says Típico is full of "feverishly intricate music that ... comes from the heart."

She has a new solo recording out this month, At Last. Knight began her singing career at age 4. Since that modest start, she went on to lead one of the most successful vocal soul groups in America, Gladys Knight and The Pips. The group stayed together for 39 years before disbanding.Among, the group's most notable songs include: I Heard It Through The Grapevine, Neither One of Us, and Midnight Train to Georgia. Knight then launched a solo career. Terry interviewed Knight before a live audience in San Francisco in 1996.

Acoustic guitar and the occasional faint cry of a pedal steel guitar frame Merritt's vocals on her new album. Rock Critic Ken Tucker has a review.

Jay Bakker is the son of televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. In 1989 his father, Jimmy, was convicted of defrauding his followers at the Praise The Lord ministry, and sent to prison. Then his parents divorced. Bakker was 13 years old at the time. In his new memoir, Son of a Preacher Man: My Search for Grace in the Shadows, (Harper), he writes of returning to faith after a long period of alcoholism and disillusionment. Jay Bakker now heads his own ministry, Revolution, in Atlanta, ministering to skateboarders, punk rockers, and hippies, and other neglected kids.

Rock Critic Ken Tucker reviews “Get Rich or Die Tryin’”(Interscope Records), the new CD from rapper 50 Cent.

The second album by the California-based singer features an optimism often associated with West Coast pop. Critic Ken Tucker says Little World creates an "alternate universe of the sunniest sounds."

It was a great year for old pros and newcomers, big pop stars and beloved cult stars, as well as a couple of not-yet-stars. As always, winnowing down a list that could have easily been double this length was tough — but it was also a pleasure, since it forced me to concentrate on what made this music the best of 2016. The following picks are arranged in alphabetical order.

Enter Me

Before he died earlier this month, Cohen released a new album with songs that wrestled with mortality, transcendence and the question of God — themes he touched on in this 2006 Fresh Air interview.

Mid-Thirties Single Scene, the new album by the Australian group Scott and Charlene's Wedding, describes the thoughts and actions of a character who has just turned 34. Critic Ken Tucker has a review.