End-of-year picks, December 20th, 2023: 50 favorite albums of 2023
Below is a list of my 50 favorite albums of new music of 2023. As with any year, there was a lot more music released this year that I enjoyed than I could find a place for in this list. Many of those deserve mentions, too, and in some cases, I’ve written about them in either Musikkmagsinet, Jazznytt, or on this site previously. As of today, these 50 will suffice.
The list is not ranked in any strict manner, and I have my reasons for doing it this way. You may infer, however, that the closer an album is towards the top, the stronger I feel about its virtues and qualities, and the more confident I am that, were I to redo this in a week’s or month’s time, the album would be included again.
2023 brought many things, some good and some definitely bad. On a personal level, it has been an trying year economically,. This has meant that I have had to take on work that has cut down on my listening time significantly. As such, the list below is shorter than usual on music that is outside my main professional focus of jazz and related idioms.
That said, I’d argue there is still great variety among these picks. From the hard and occasionally loud and brassy “life on the line” swing of Isach Skeidsvoll’s Dance to Summon, and the fiery yet catchy Protect Your Light by Irreversibel Entanglements, to Sylvie Courvoisier’s Chimaera, The Neck’s Travel, and Naturla Information Society’s Since Time Is Gravity, that each present sorts of transcendental minimalism in quite different ways. There’s a selection of sax/bass/drums albums that prove how durable and versatile a vehicle that band format continues to be, such as Lukas Traxel and his trio juxtaposing stirring tranquility with twitchy bounce on One-Eyed Daruma and the Mark Lomax Trio weaving many elements of African-American music history into their Tapestry. To mention only a few highlights.
Isach Skeidsvoll: Dance to Summon (Ultraääni Recrods)
Sylvie Courvoisier: Chimaera (Intakt Records)
James Brandon Lewis Red Lily Quintet: For Mahalia (With Love) (Tao Forms)
The Mark Lomax Trio: Tapestry (CFG Multimedia)
Rodrigo Amado The Bridge: Beyond the Margins (NotTwo)
Lukas Traxel Trio: One-Eyed Daruma (We Jazz)
Bounaly: Dimanche à Bamako (Sahel Sounds)
Jason Moran: From the Dancehall to the Battlefield (Yes Records)
Brötzmann – Bekkas – Drake: Catching Ghosts: Live at Jazzfest Berlin (ACT)
Angelika Niescier - Tomeka Reid - Savannah Harris: Beyond Dragons (Intakt Records)
Irreversible Entanglements: Protect Your Light (Impulse!)
Steve Lehman/Orchestre National de Jazz: Ex Machina (Pi)
Natural Information Society: Since Time Is Gravity (Eremite)
The Necks: Travel (Northern Spy)
Koma Saxo: Post Koma (We Jazz)
Robert Forster: The Candle And the Flame (Tapete Records)
Andreas Røysum Ensemble: Mysterier (Motvind)
Per «Texas» Johansson: Den Sämsta Lösningen Av Alla (Moserobie)
Ricardo Dias Gomes: Muito Sol (Hive Mind Records)
Sam Weinberg Trio: Implicatures (Astral Spirits)
Christian McBride’s New Jawn: Prime (Brother Mister Productions)
André Roligheten: Marbles (ODIN)
Marthe Lea Band: Herlighetens vei (Motvind Records)
Billy Woods and Kenny Segal: Maps (Backwoodz Studioz)
Gard Nilssen’s Supersonic Orchestra: Family (We Jazz)
Hein Westgaard Trio: First as Farce (Nice Things Records)
Ingrid Laubrock: The Last Quiet Place (Pyroclastic)
Anthony Pateras: A Dread of Voids (Another Timbre)
Scott Clark: Dusk & Dawn (Out Of Your Head Records)
Withered Hand: How to Love (Reveal Records)
Caroline Davis: Alula: Captivity (Ropeadope)
Jaimie Branch: Fly Or Die Fly Or Die Fly Or Die ((World War))(International Anthem)
Superless: Superless (Øyvind Jazzforum)
I.P.A.: Grimsta (Cuneiform)
Aila Trio: Shaped By Waves (Edgetone Records)
Joakim Rainer Trio: Light.Sentence (Sonic Transmissions Records)
JPEGMafia and Danny Brown: Scaring the Hoes (Peggy/AWAL Recordings)
Mendoza Hoff Revels: Echolocation (AUM Fidelity)
Ingebrigt Håker Flaten & Paal Nilssen-Love: Guts and Skins (Sonic Transmissions Records/PNL)
Allen Lowe and the Constant Sorrow Orchestra: America: The Rough Cut (ESP Disk)
James Brandon Lewis: The Eye of I (-Anti)
The Ghost: Vanished Pleasures (Relative Pitch Records)
Peders Hode: The Things I Ate (Sonic Transmissions Records)*
GEORGE: Letters to George (OOYH)
Luís Vicente 4tet: House In the Valley (Clean Feed)
Lakecia Benjamin: Phoenix (Whirlwind Recordings)
Johan Lindström & Norrbotten Big Band: Johan Lindström & Norrbotten Big Band (Moserobie Music Productions)
Darius Jones: fLuxKit Vancouver (its suite but sacred) (We Jazz)
Ember: August In March (Imani Records)
Fire Orchestra!: Echoes (Rune Grammofon)
* Disclaimer: I helped write promotional material for this release.