53. John Coltrane - A Love Supreme (1965)

Tracks: Part 1: Acknowledgement // Part 2: Resolution // Part 3: Pursuance // Part 4: Psalm

Review:

I'm coming to this album again for the first time in a long while, now imbued with the perspective that comes from having slogged up through the foothills of this list. It's interesting, having a slightly (albeit, only slightly) expanded knowledge of jazz, to listen through A Love Supreme and appreciate the ways in which Coltrane and his band have pulled-apart bop structures and then reassembled them into something loose and free and very, very beautiful. Kind of Blue was extremely free in its improvising, but the tracks on that album still seemed to hew to the notion of introducing a theme, playing it a few times, and then suddenly wandering off on a free and abstract (albeit, very pretty) jam. Conversely, The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady displayed an awe-inspiring degree of compositional acumen, effectively rewriting the rules of jazz from the ground up.

On A Love Supreme, however, Coltrane seems to have found a balance between the beauty that comes from improvisation and the beauty that comes from adherence to traditional forms, and has hit upon a way of mixing bop with free jazz that is extremely loose and lyrical, and at times rather wild, but which also maintains a great deal of coherency, and progresses logically from album opener to close as though it were one single track (which, I suppose, is a fairly valid way of looking at it). The result is an album which is both highly experimental, and immediately accessible - a gorgeous, swirling mass of cymbals and saxophones anchored by Latin dance rhythms and woven-through with unusual-yet-catchy melodies. It's like watching the waves churn-up foam from the ocean on a cloudy day.

I will admit that there are bits of this album that I don't really like - specifically, the middle section, where the horns and piano die down in favour of some improvisation by the drums and bass. Now bear in mind, I have nothing against drums and bass - I just don't think the solos are all that great. Then again, it does break-up the album, providing some interesting sonic contrasts, and paves the way for the absolutely beautiful "Psalm" to finish with. The tones conjured-up on this album really are gorgeous - it's amazing to think what they acheived with a more-or-less live recording in 1964. It sounds like nothing else on Earth.

I don't adore A Love Supreme (which is odd, because by all rights I should) but at the same time I can't find much to fault it for. It's beautiful, spiritual music that manages to be just abstract enough to be moving, without ever giving-up the rhythms and melodies that make a person listen in the first place. I think this is a classic example of one of those albums where, even if you hate it with every fiber of your being, you will still be a better person for having listened to it (the Ulysses of jazz albums, maybe?). I'm very, very glad that it exists, even if I don't listen to it more. Maybe I should play it more often, and then I'd finally love it as much as every other person on the planet happens to.

Anyway I like it. It's a very pretty sound.

A+

52. The Beach Boys – The Beach Boys Today! (1965)

Tracks: Do You Wanna Dance // Good to My Baby // Don’t Hurt My Little Sister // When I Grow Up (To Be A Man) // Help Me, Rhonda // Dance, Dance, Dance // Please Let Me Wonder // I’m So Young // Kiss Me Baby // She Knows Me Too Well // In the Back of My Mind // Bull Session with “Big Daddy” // The Girl from New York City

Review:

I like the Beach Boys! And why? Because they were a very good band. They had delightful harmonies, they had oddly-structured melodies, and they weren’t afraid (at least, under the management of Brain Wilson) to throw rock to the wind in favour of big, strange, all-encompassing pop. On this album, they start to move on from Chuck Berry-derived rock & roll and into the realm of Phil Spector, Les Baxter, Burt Bacharach and Bachman Turner Overdrive. Well, maybe not that last one.

I am biased in my fondness for the Beach Boys, in that they were in certain ways the soundtrack to my life. I suppose they are an omnipresence in the Western musical world, but that doesn’t change the deep personal resonance attendant upon listening to my granddad sing “Barbara Ann” to my sister while setting her on his knee. Nor can in tarnish the memory of solving year five maths problems to the sounds of “Surfin’ USA”, punctuated at regular intervals by the intonations of the voice actor declaring the sums and how long we had in which to get them right. And looking about at the current Indiescape, with its ten thousand bands all desperate to resurrect Surf’s Up, one can only feel a sense of vindication coupled with a deep and penetrating weariness. Move on, you jerks! I want it all for myself. I own “Wind Chimes” to the depths of my jealous heart.

Putting this aside, this is quite a good record. “Help Me, Rhonda” is very beautiful. The first half of the album boasts up-beat pop numbers, all of them extremely enjoyable, while the second half veers into nostalgic melancholia that would come to define the best of the band’s later work. If I am correct (and I’m probably not) this is the album where Brian Wilson locked himself away in the studio and decided he’d tour no more. Even if this wasn’t actually the album where he did it, such was a bold and well-chosen move that would send deep quivers down the spine of the pop-sonic landscape.

If I wanted to say something beyond the vague ululations of reminiscence, then I would declare that “Do You Wanna Dance” is a kick-ass bit for dancing, what with the explosion of the chorus*; that “When I Grow Up (To Be A Man)” asks some hard questions and has some soft melodies; that “Dance, Dance, Dance” has a kick-ass riff and a nice descending melody; that “Please Let Me Wonder” is so delicate and pretty as to be heart-breaking; that the same goes doubly so for “Kiss Me Baby”, which is almost painfully beautiful; and that “She Knows Me Too Well” basically invented the 1970s (ABBA, the Carpenters, Chicago... ain’t nothin’ wrong with that).

It’s not Pet Sounds, but then what is? What this is is very, very good.

A golden victory for squares in the realm of pop.

8.5/10

*the Ramones did it better.