Best Albums of 2023

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Follow the link to check out the 4-, 4.5- and 5-star album reviews published in DownBeat in 2023!

(Photo: DownBeat)

What were the best albums of 2023? DownBeat’s annual list of the top albums reviewed in the magazine gives a glimpse. Of course, it does not include those year-end beauties due to publishing deadlines, but there’s plenty of great music to dig into. Check out the full list by clicking HERE or on the image below. DB






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    “Watching people like Max Roach or Elvin Jones and seeing how they utilize the whole drum kit in a very rhythmic and melodic way and how they stretched time — that was a huge inspiration to me,” Hussain said in DownBeat.

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    “I love doing ballads,” Mike Stern says. “It’s just a part of me, some part of emotionally how I feel sometimes.”

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    Queen Latifah extols Harlem and the Apollo Theater at this year’s Kennedy Center Honors.

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    “With jazz I thought it must be OK to be Black, for the first time,” says singer Sofia Jernberg.

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    Robertson had a penetrating, pliant sound with a remarkable softness at its center.


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January 2025
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