Most of us prefer reading others’ best-of lists to writing our own. My former Gazette editor Maggie Hartley called this dreaded chore the rear-ender (NOT “year-ender”) – an annual crisis of doubt, frenzied research and hair-pulling deliberation.
Was that really better than this?
And how about . . . ?
Now, I hope reading this list, of the top performances I saw in 2023, pleases somebody more than it tortured me to make.
It recycles some passages of my original reviews here on Nippertown.
Rereading it tells me to get out to more and different venues, to catch artists I’ve never heard before.
Of course I contradict myself right out of the box, choosing as top performer an artist I’ve seen a handful of times in New Orleans and at The Egg.
1. TROMBONE SHORTY AND ORLEANS AVENUE AT THE EGG – SEPT. 1
Elastic, electric, ecstatic. Trombone Shorty’s simple-on-the-surface music is also deceptively exacting because it feels so organic. To make things fit together with eight players (well, seven and a singer; Shorty is both) takes first-class musical smarts and savvy show-biz pizzaz.
Also, skill and spirit by the boatload.
I saw these guys three times in five months, as they lost an original member and added some newbies.
2. DARLINGSIDE AT THE EGG – MARCH 9
For the restless cleverness of their writing, engaging charm, and precision playing and singing that unerringly sidesteps the merely pretty for a more mature beauty, Darlingside remains a band to love.
Best-ever show of the dozen or so I’ve seen by this unpredictable giant? I think so.
3. BOB DYLAN AT PROCTORS – OCT. 30
It sold out in three hours and deserved to; an old master fronting a black-clad band on a bare stage; both veterans and newcomers.
Dylan paced the show shrewdly; blues-shuffles or rock grooves erupted dramatically among slow-simmering numbers. Familiar songs brought happy recognition shouts alongside fresher tunes. Fans loved the self-doubting “When I Paint My Masterpiece” (’71) between the emphatic, smoky rock of (the new) “False Prophet” and (also new) “Black Rider.” Here Dylan electronically repeated its title couplet, echoing apocalyptically into the ozone.
He sometimes stood to sing, sat for brief breaks and bridges and never played guitar at all. He won’t scare the ghosts of R&B piano giants Art Neville or Allen Toussaint, but he got around the keyboard with grace or gravity as the songs required, especially rocking on bluesy numbers.
4. NRBQ AT THE HANGAR ON THE HUDSON – SEPT. 30
We all just KNEW I’d list these guys, right?
They delighted everybody, as usual, including surprising numbers of younger fans, with fresh song choices. At the end of a tour, NRBQ always plays at their best: supple, tight and flowing. Their music sounds simple because it’s so lean, with nothing extra or out of place. As super-fan Johnny D says, “They make you feel young.”
5. FREIHOFER’S SARATOGA JAZZ FESTIVAL AT SARATOGA PERFORMING ARTS CENTER – JUNE 25-26
Following the recent announcement of next June’s festival lineup, here were this year’s high points.
This festival flew by on wings of top talent. My faves: pianist Emmet Cohen, guitarist Cory Wong, keyboardist Hiromi’s sonicwonder, singer Samara Joy, Afro-beat blasters Jupiter Okwess and blueswoman Bonnie Raitt – though I think I missed the boat by choosing the smaller Jazz Discovery Stage while missing most of singer Kurt Elling and pianist Chucho Valdes on the main amphitheater stage.
Holiday sounds simmered and spiced by New Orleans masters. What’s not to like?
6. PRESERVATION HALL JAZZ BAND CREOLE CHRISTMAS EXTRAVAGANZA AT TROY SAVINGS BANK MUSIC HALL – NOV. 29
The six dapper gents of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, whose touring ensemble is an elastic repertory company taking New Orleans music everywhere, celebrated the holiday season in happy, horn-powered Crescent City style.
They gift-wrapped holiday favorites, both universal and down-home. They also polished familiar and obscure anytime tunes in a show sparkling with individual solo skills and classy cohesion.
Even knowing some facts about this hybrid, international band didn’t prepare us for the startling surprise of how the music felt.
7. ADITYA PRAKASH ENSEMBLE AT MUSIC HAVEN – AUG. 13
This one was close enough to my birthday to feel like a gift, though all free Music Haven shows are. But I digress.
With bracing weirdness that faded into the familiar through feeling, the Aditya Prakash Ensemble made music that was Indian – and it was jazz. But it was subtler and more adventurous than the term Indian jazz might suggest.
Most talents honored here are singular – a top instrumentalist or singer – but Thurman is both.
8. CAMILLE THURMAN AT A PLACE FOR JAZZ – OCT. 6
Camille Thurman came onstage, all elegant 4-foot-9 of her, a silver tenor sax gleaming against her black dress. She played fiery hard bop, uptempo, with off-center phrasing like Eric Dolphy, a robust tone like Dexter Gordon. And then — and THEN — after two tunes, she put down her sax and sang, at least as well as she played.
She’s just not fair to other tenor players, or other singers.
9. EMMET COHEN: FREIHOFER’S SARATOGA JAZZ FESTIVAL (DAY 1) JUNE 24 AND A PLACE FOR JAZZ OCT. 20
Here’s a two-fer: the same leader, with different trios at each show.
At the Jazz Festival: “Cohen played every style, every mood, every era the piano can evoke, with bravura technique, bustling imagination and personality. He covered the waterfront, but in his own colors.”
Four months later, he returned: “Emmet Cohen drew the season’s biggest A Place for Jazz crowd Friday, likely swelled by word-of-mouth raves for his June bust-out at Freihofer’s Saratoga Jazz Festival. He and his trio deserved it, delivering a dazzler deluxe, a two-set exploration – exposition, explosion – of piano trio styles. For all his ferocious, fiery speed, Cohen’s most astounding musical muscle is his mind since he can play anything he can imagine.”
10. AYNUR AT PROCTORS PASSPORT SERIES (MUSIC HAVEN PRESENTATION) – MAY 4
Aynur never announced or explained the songs. Sung in Kurdish, their moods and musical impacts nonetheless somehow felt clear. Her trust in the power of what she sang and how she sang it seemed to absolve non-Kurdish speakers from decoding the lyrics. We could welcome and marvel, and it was absolutely spellbinding.
Late in the show, Aynur was feeling the crowd’s energy flowing back onto the stage and sang at her most free and joyous. Fans flowed to the stage front, forming a line and dancing left and right as she proclaimed her once forbidden song “Kece Kurdan.”
AND FIVE MORE
- Ken Peplowski and the Swing All-Stars at A Place for Jazz – Nov. 3: An eloquent antique show that felt deliciously contemporary.
- Sona Jobarteh at Music Haven – July 23: A Gambian griot and kora master, playing from the particular to the universal.
- PorchFest – Sept. 23: A cool, first-ever event. Local acts on four porches in my northside neighborhood; a 10,000-step day, like the Freihofer’s Saratoga Jazz Festival.
- The Wooten Brothers and ReBirth Brass Band at Troy Savings Bank Music Hall – Oct. 3: Four hyper-skilled brothers with one funky, imaginative idea; plus masters of New Orleans street beats.
- Cissoko & Brotto at Proctors GE Theatre (Passport Series) – Oct. 7: Another kora master, from Senegal, paired with a French accordionist.
ONE MORE
And, a special glowing gold star goes to Nipperfest at Music Haven on July 22.
This publication sponsored and organized it, so listing it here feels a bit awkward, but well-deserved.
FINAL THOUGHT
Looking over this list, I thought again about Aynur.
Did her music hit me so hard, so sweet, because I’d lived on Turkey’s Black Sea coast where I actually met some Kurds?
Aynur gave voice to a people marginalized in their homeland. Her protest music’s underdog fierceness spoke to me.
All music connects with us by speaking to us right where we are. It comes for us and into us, in those deep places where we live and feel. All the music on this difficult-to-compile list did that. And it all brought me joy and wonder.
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