The Best Recordings of 2023 (Honorable Mention List)
I'll soon share my 100 favorite albums of the year—meanwhile here are 50 honorable mention records of exceptional merit
This is NOT my best of year list. I’ll share that later this week with paid subscribers to The Honest Broker.
But I also publish an honorable mention list each year (below)—where I showcase deserving albums that just barely missed my top 100. Each one of these recordings is outstanding, and will reward your attention.
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This is my most demanding project every year. I start listening to new recordings on January 1, devoting several hours each day to music discovery, and continue until after Thanksgiving. This year I listened to more than one thousand new albums—with zeal and determination, week after week, to find music of merit even if it doesn’t get much coverage elsewhere.
As always, I cover all genres, all styles, and all historical eras. I realize that many of the names here won’t be familiar to you, but I make no apologies for this. Most of the best music nowadays comes from indie labels, self-produced albums, and outside the major power centers of pop culture.
My readers tend to be serious people who understand this. But if you’re looking for a list of TikTok music memes with a billion clicks, this isn’t it. I’m confident, however, that you can find popularity contests of that sort elsewhere. This is a different type of list, designed for discerning listeners with open ears who are interested in music discovery.
I’ll be back soon with my 100 favorites of 2023.
Happy listening!
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The Best Recordings of 2023—All Styles, All Genres
Honorable Mention List (in alphabetical order)
Àbájade
Latopa
Soulful Afro-Cuban Octet from Paris
Geri Allen and Kurt Rosenwinkel
A Lovesome Thing
Previously Unreleased Concert Recording of Jazz Piano and Guitar Duets
Max Barros
Camargo Guarnieri: Piano Music, Vol. 2
Modern Brazilian Classical Music for the Piano
Trina Basu & Arun Ramamurthy
Nakshatra
Husband-and-Wife Violin Duets Merging South Indian, Classical, and Jazz Traditions
Blue Lake
Sun Arcs
Midwest Pastoral Instrumentals
Fiona Boyes
Ramblified
Blues Guitar
Brooklyn Rider
The Wanderer
Chamber Music, New and Old
Mikaela Davis
And Southern Star
Harpist-Folkist Singer-Songwriter
Jon De Lucia
And the Stars Were Shining
Melodic Cool Jazz for Clarinet, Guitar, and Bass
Aaron Diehl
Zodiac Suite
Revival of Mary Lou Williams' Concert Jazz Suite from 1945
Michael Feinberg (with Noah Preminger)
Blues Variant
Contemporary Hard Bop
Béla Fleck, Zakir Hussain & Edgar Meyer
As We Speak
Genre-Crossing Music for Banjo, Tabla and Bass
Geist
Hurricane Gold
Folk-Pop Song Cycle for Slide Guitar, Faux Orchestra, and Crooning Vocals
Antony Gray
Michael Blake: Afrikosmos
3 Hour Piano Composition (in 75 Movements) Built on Folkish Melodies and Cross-Rhythms
Natalie and Brittany Haas
Haas
Intimate Downscaled Bluegrass from Nashville
Erik Hall
Simeon ten Holt: Canto Ostinato
Dutch Minimalist Masterwork from 1976
Sir Stephen Hough
Federico Mompou: Música Callada
20th Century Catalan Piano Music
The Japanese House
In the End It Always Does
Art Pop
Hermione Johnson
Split
Dreamy Contemporary Organ Music from New Zealand
Khruangbin & Men I Trust
Live at RBC Echo Beach
Texas Trio Collaborates with Canadian Trio
KLM Trio
Providence
French Jazz for Vibraphone, Flugelhorn, and Bass
Dawid Kosiarkiewicz
Baryton
Polish Noir Ambient Baritone Sax
Katrina Krimsky
1980
Improvised Solo Piano from Woodstock in 1980
The Lemon Twigs
Everything Harmony
Indie Rock-Pop from Long Island Siblings
Ivan Lins
My Heart Speaks
Brazilian Popular Music from a Renowned Singer-Songwriter
Magic Tuber Stringband
Tarantism
Bluegrass Noir with Drones
Boyd McDonald, Joseph Petric & Peter Lutek
Heretic Threads
Haydn Straight and Modified
Pat Metheny
Dream Box
Jazz Guitar
muva of Earth
Align with Nature's Intelligence
British-Yoruban Ambient Soul Music
Maciej Obara
Frozen Silence
Plaintive Polish Alto Saxophonist
Elena Papandreou
Paper Moon: Songs by Manos Hadjidakis
Music by Greek Film and Popular Composer Manos Hadjidakis Performed on Classical Guitar
Andres Roots
Vol. 12
Solo Guitar from Estonia with Blues, Baltic, and Modal Ingredients
Nicky Schrire
Nowhere Girl
Jazz Vocals
Alec Schulman
Light That Slips Away
Introspective Singer-Songwriter
Pascal Schumacher and the United Instruments of Lucilin
CTRL Variations
Alt Music for Vibes, Strings, Woodwinds, Percussion, and Spoken Word
Haskell Small
Alan Hovhaness: Mountain Fantasies for Piano
Classical Piano Music Drawing on Armenian Traditions
Joanna Sternberg
I've Got Me
Rootsy, Confessional, Under-Produced Singer-Songwriter
Colin Stetson
When We Were That What Wept for the Sea
Melancholy Sax Drone Master Pays Tribute to His Father
John Storgårds and the Tapiola Sinfonietta
Sebastian Fagerlund: Terral, Strings to the Bone, Chamber Symphony
Postmodern Impressionist Orchestral Music from Finland
Mara Szachniuk
Mara Szachniuk Trio
Franco-Argentine Flamenco Fusion Trio
Trio Medieval
An Old Hall Ladymass
Vocal Music, Medieval and Contemporary
Edgar van Asselt (with Jorge Rossy)
The Gentle Insult
Cinematic Jazz
Various Artists
Ears of the People: Ekonting Songs from Senegal and Gambia
Traditional African Music Performed on the Ekonting, a Three-Stringed Gourd Lute
Various Artists
The Endless Coloured Ways: The Songs of Nick Drake
Reinterpretations of Songs by Nick Drake (1948-1974).
Various Artists
Johnny Nicholas Presents: Moon and the Stars: A Tribute to Moon Mullican, Vol. 1
Tribute Album Celebrating Moon Mullican, King of Texas Hillbily Piano
Various Artists
Sonhos Secretos
Rare MPB Tracks from the Waning Days of the Brazilian Military Dictatorship (1980-1985)
Ben Verdery & Ulysses Quartet
A Giant Beside You
Contemporary Music for Guitar and String Quartet
Johnzo West
Mystic Mountain
Folk-Country Rock from Los Angeles
Haochen Zhang
Liszt: Transcendental Études
Virtuosic Pianism
John Zorn
Nothing Is as Real as Nothing
Intimate Music for Three Guitarists (Bill Frisell, Julian Lage, Gyan Riley) Inspired by Samuel Beckett
Coming later this week: The 100 Best Recordings of 2023.
I'm curious what constitutes the best recording. Are you looking for audio quality and production values? Or just the quality of the music?
Also, you listened to 20 albums per week, or 4 per day (roughly). Do you know you're going to be compiling this list in January, and thus when you hear an album in, say, mid-February, you can say, "Yep, that goes on the best recordings list"? How does that work?
Glad you liked Nicky Schrire’s record Ted! (I’m the bass player on that one)