Best of 2013: Jazz Guitarist Nir Felder

Photo © Phil Knott

Best meal: A toss up between Battersby in Brooklyn and Cal Pep in Barcelona.

Best coffee: Also a toss up: Courier Coffee or Barista, both in Portland, OR.

Best wine: A 1998 St. Emilion that Eric Harland brought to his birthday show at the Blue Note.

Best gig: Montreal Jazz Festival with Aaron Parks, Orlando LeFleming, and Mark Guiliana.

Best concert: Tie between St. Vincent and David Byrne at the Mountain Winery in Saratoga, CA and a traditional flamenco group at Villa Rosa in Madrid.

Best album: Midlake’s Antiphon.

Best movie: I’m hooked on Michael Apted’s original English Up series.

Best purchase: A 1966 Fender Electric XII!

Best drive: After a gig in Vicksburg, MS I took a couple of days to drive up the old “Blues Highway” from Mississippi to Memphis, passing by Dockery Plantation, the legendary “Crossroads, and many of the unmarked places where the blues was born.

Best achievement: Finally finished reading Infinite Jest, which I started sometime in 2012. . .

Best opera: I had a blast playing with the NYC Opera in Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Anna Nicole, in what ended up being NYC Opera’s final performance. A sad and moving occasion.

Best city: Athens, Greece. You can take a boat to any thousands of beautiful islands, you can study amazing ancient ruins, or you can just hang out and eat Greek food all day. I love it.

Nir Felder‘s next release, Golden Age, will be out on January 21, 2014 via OKeh.