26. Miriam Makeba – Miriam Makeba (1960)

Tracks: The Retreat Song//Suliram//The Click Song//Umhome//Olilili//Lakutshn, Ilanga//Mbube//The Naughty Little Flea//Where Does It Lead?//Novema//House of the Rising Sun//House of the Rising Sun//Saduva//One More Dance//Iya Guduza

Well, this is a nice album, although I get the feeling they may have included it more because it’s Miriam Makeba’s debut than anything else. Is this an important album in the history of African music? Well, it has “The Click Song” on it, and that was a big hit in the West, so maybe it is. I poke about on the net and no-one ever seems to mention this that much. Miriam Makeba is a big deal, anyway, what with having been a major anti-apartheid and civil rights activist and getting exiled from South Africa during a trip to the USA - so I suppose it warrants inclusion on that point alone.

Of course, saying all that makes it seem as though I don’t think much of this. It’s good, though. Quite good. Frequently, very good, and perhaps at times even great. Makeba does a lot of different things here, and she manages to do most of them well. This suits her background – a South African with a jazz background and strong interest music folk, classical and pop. I guess that makes her a lot like Nina Simone, although Simone would have been less inclined to fill her album with jaunty calypso numbers about naughty fleas wanting a bite of Brigitte Bardot. Ah, but then I don’t actually know if some of these songs are calypso – they sound like calypso, but then where exactly is the line between Afro-Caribbean and straight-up African? I don’t know much about African music, and almost everything I do know is limited to West Africa, with folks like Fela Kuti and Bembeya Jazz National and Konono No.1 and all that jazz (quite literally). Miriam Makeba may have lived in Guinea for a time, but that was all well into the future and there isn’t all that much that’s Guinean about the music here. So, my frame of reference for South African music is limited largely to this, and to Paul Simon’s Graceland. And there isn’t much that sounds like Graceland here, either.

Putting my incoherent rambling aside. The predominant modes here are down-tempo jazz with a light guitar backing, like you might expect to here on a 50s Julie London album, and big boisterous African-style tunes (no I do not know the name of the genre) with lots of call-and-response vocals and deep, chanted rhythms. But, Makeba mixes it up, and the results on both fronts are something curiously quintessential in character. Some of the most revelatory moments are the ones where she just sings a cappella as a lead-in to some of the songs. Her voice really is extraordinary.

There are some very good songs here, and only two that even approach bad. “House of the Rising Sun” is sort of mangled, since Makeba attempts a sort of jazzy deconstruction and doesn’t quite pull it off. Her voice is beautiful – something that holds true for all the songs here – but as a composition it’s a little disjointed. “One More Dance” has immense novelty value, as it is just so incredibly weird. Basically, Miriam duets a rather standard song in the vein of “Baby it’s cold outside”, with the difference being that the song is about her putting off going home to tend to her dying husband, and the man she is dueting with is, throughout the song, in paroxysms of laughter. Actually I don’t know if it’s fair to call the song bad, so much as it is just so extraordinarily weird.

On the flipside, however, we have three songs that are absolutely extraordinary. Firstly, there’s “Mbube”, which is sort of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” except that it is far more complicated and fun and exciting, does not have the wimmuways, and is generally just better all round than the more well-known version. Hell, it's just glorious really. Secondly, there’s “Where Does It Lead”, which is an utterly beautiful folk ballad which is really the main reason I mentioned Nina Simone in the second paragraph. Makeba sings at full force over a sparse, faintly Latin guitar backing, and it’s really just utterly mesmerising stuff. There’s a sort of stiff, classical character to the vocal which gives it an otherworldly air. And then there’s “The Click Song”, which gets its name from the fact that it’s sung in Xhosa, and as a consequence features a quasi-tango rhythm lots of, well, clicks. But then it also features these delightful little growls, and they remind me of an African housemate I used to have who would get angry sometimes, and who I had something of a crush on. So. Lola, if you are reading this – you are pretty.

Between all of this is a lot of other great stuff. “Novema” is a lazy, up-lifting song with wonderful rhythm. Makeba has such a tremendous ability to put joy into her songs. It helps, I suppose, that a lot of them are just overlapping rhythmical interplay seemingly built around the concept of shouting joyously. This is a quite an understated album, really, and mostly just coasts along in a series of cheery, laid-back grooves. I have absolutely no idea what Makeba is singing about, but it sounds great and that’s really enough for me. I mean, “The Retreat Song” sounds happy as hell, so I have no idea what they’re retreating from. Although she may just be happy to run away. Who knows? People who speak the language, and ethno-musicologists, probably.

I have realised at this point that most of what I could say about this album is kind of just repeating myself. It’s really good, anyway. The fact that I don’t understand the lyrics means that I can’t really appreciate it as a particularly deep experience, but the mix of African and Western styles combined with the generally blissful, earthy tone meant that I enjoyed it anyway.

Although it is kind of funny to hear stereotypical late-fifties “oohing” choirs on an album like this. It certainly pushes the gospel aspect forward a bit.

8.5/10

Download: Miriam Makeba - The Click Song Mp3
Download: Miriam Makeba - Mbube Mp3
Download: Miriam Makeba - Where Does It Lead? Mp3

25. Elvis Presley – Elvis Is Back! (1960)

Tracks: Make Me Know It//Fever//The Girl of My Best Friend//I Will Be Home Again//Dirty, Dirty Feeling//Thrill of Your Love//Soldier Boy//Such A Night//It Feels So Right//Girl Next Door Went a-Walking//Like A Baby//Reconsider Baby

Yes, Elvis is back and better than ever! I couldn’t resist saying that, and I’m sorry. It’s not even particularly accurate – I mean, yes this a better album than Elvis Presley was, but that’s not really saying all that much. And there’s the fact that I said most of what I have to say about Elvis back in my review of his debut... Well, let’s get on with it.

Firstly, just what is Elvis back from? The army and a corresponding drop in public profile, that’s what. Elvis got called-up in ’57, and after finishing filming on King Creole he was promptly shipped-off to Germany for two years, where he would no doubt spend a great deal of time mucking-about in tanks and making lewd comments about bratwurst. And fun as that may be, it also meant two years without new Elvis! These days a two-year break between albums might not seem like that big a deal but back in the late fifties, acts were popping-out two or three albums a year -often more. And now such a drastic ebb in the tide of Elvis. How would the world survive in such a horrible state? It’s like the Ruskies finally dropped the bomb and we’re suddenly living on tinned beans and old lingerie catalogues. How terrifying.

Well, the stop-gap solution was that RCA did a bit of a Buddy Holly, and kept releasing singles and albums from a stockpile they had accumulated during intense recording prior to his enlistment. And it worked. So even though he was half-way around the world he’d never really gone away (what a relief). But he couldn’t do live shows and he couldn’t do media appearances, and so people started to get a bit antsy. This is a guy who was arguably more about the image than the music, after all. And then throughout there was the deep curiosity as to whether, when he finally did get back from Germany, Elvis would still have “it” (whatever the hell “it” is).

The short answer is, yes, although “it” may in fact be at least a couple of years out of date. While there’s nothing really wrong with Elvis is Back, it’s not the most instantly exciting stuff. It’s just a solidly enjoyable slab of turn-of-the-60s pop rock, with no real highs or lows. If that’s enough for you, then great! Although personally I’d sort of hoped, given his reputation, that Elvis might deliver something a little more exciting given all his years of experience.

Still, it’s a qualitive leap of considerable proportions from the rather scatter-shot realm of his debut. Which is only to be expected - by this point they’d been putting out his albums for several years, and had a very clear idea of both who Elvis was and how he (or his creative team) should be presenting himself. So this is a very polished effort. The songs are all catchy, immediately likeable and well-performed. Personally I’m not all that taken with Elvis rather muddled attempt at “Fever”, but considering the Peggy Lee version is one of my absolute favourite songs that’s only to be expected. I mean, it started-out as a rock tune so maybe, when compared to the original, this is a dazzling work of genius. Maybe. To my ears it just sounds poorly mixed and Elvis is a little off the beat. Those finger-snaps are just ill-advised.

But hey, there’s a lot of other stuff that’s actually pretty good. A few songs even manage to step beyond being “pretty good” and into the realm of genuine, rocky greatness! “The Girl Next Door Went Walking” is just such fun. I am a fan of any song built around a double entendre, it’s true. It’s better than “Dirty, Dirty Feeling”, anyway, which has great rhythm but features a rather bizarre and perhaps ill-advised “minstrelesque” vocal. Still, that’s immediately followed by “Thrill of Your Love”, which is a gorgeous piano-led ballad with very clear R&B influences but without the silly voice, so it all balances out. Ah, and there is a much bigger emphasis on balladeering by this point, which is good, since Elvis really does excel at ballads. “Soldier Boy” is just lovely, and has obvious resonance (however manufactured) with Elvis’ own recent past. It doesn’t have to be true, it just has to get the bobby-soxers swooning. Oh god! And the break-out chorus on “Such A Night”. Heh, and then all the little orgasmic moans. For a guy who reportedly had so much trouble with women, Elvis sure could be a sexy devil. I suppose the Jordanaires help more than a little. Actually scratch that the Jordanaires help a whole lot. The see-sawing backing vocals on “Like A Baby” are just amazing.

Anyway, this broader variety is what really makes the album work. It’s short, and it changes it up a bit, and the result is something that’s constantly entertaining even if it’s not especially deep. The lyrics are decent, the songs are fun, and Elvis throws himself into the performances without ever lapsing into the twitchy lunacy that marred his earlier performances (although doing a sub-par Ray Charles impression on “Reconsider Baby” may be just as great a crime – the song works, but not till he drops the mimicry and goes his own way). The songs have a focused, restrained compositional approach that lets them rock-out without ever becoming annoying. So, it’s not as raw and dirty as a lot of black music Elvis is drawing on, but if I wanted that I would just go and listen to Howlin’ Wolf or something. By this point in his career, Elvis seems to have a much surer sense of himself as a "pop" rather than a "rock" musician, and his music is nothing if not the better for it.

So, this is one of those albums where I start writing the review with one opinion and by the end of it I’ve done a complete 180. Elvis delivers a solidly enjoyable rock album that ticks all the boxes for what I’d want from something of this period, and frequently manages to veer into something like greatness. I never really bought the Elvis myth, and even if I still haven't changed my mind, albums like this are enough to make me understand where all the obsessive whack-jobs are coming from. Hell, if it weren't for "Fever" I might even give this album a 9.

Anyway, pretty darn good.

8/10

Download: Elvis Presley - The Girl Next Door Went a-Walking Mp3
Download - Elvis Presley - The Thrill of Your Love Mp3

Joan Baez – Joan Baez (1960)

Tracks: Silver Dagger//East Virginia//Fare Thee Well//House of the Rising Sun//All My Trials//Wildwood Flower//Donna Donna//John Riley//Rake & Rambling Boy//Little Moses//Mary Hamilton//Henry Martin//El Preso Numero Uno

We’ll never get anywhere at this rate...

Well, here’s the 60s, and we open with one of the most iconic styles of the decade – folk – and one of its most iconic figures – Joan Baez, naturally.

It’s difficult to say all that much about Joan Baez as a musician. Yes, she was seemingly everywhere when it came to activism and hobnobbing. She introduced the world to Bob Dylan! She developed a specialised form of yoga which allowed her to splinter into several thousand simulacra of herself, thus explaining her ability to appear in footage of seemingly every major political event of the early to mid 60s. She and her friends got together at a concert once and pestered Tom Waits off the stage. All fascinating and admirable of course, but leaving that aside is there really all that much to say about a young woman crooning along to a guitar?

Well, to Baez credit she did do it first. The album was recorded live with her sitting down on the floor in a hall somewhere or other – as Baez put it, at the time it was probably all she knew how to do. Well, thankfully she did it well. Not only does she possess a truly extraordinary voice, with a steady vibrato and near-inhuman control, but she was also a pretty good guitarist, and for some reason no matter how tired I sometimes get of rock music, I can always stomach a lightly handled acoustic guitar. Although putting good points aside, Christ but she doesn’t half belt at times. The high notes are enough to level a bunker.

Lyrically, we get the standard selection of songs from the folk repertoire, most of them kind of depressing. There’s even an alternative version of “Silver Dagger”, which we last heard on the Louvin Brothers album. Hey, that’s kind of neat. This seems to have been before the song-writing trend really took off in folk, back when it was all about being an interpretive artist and being “authentic” and such nonsense. All well and good but somewhat limiting. Then again, can Joan Baez even write? I don’t know – but she does fine singing these tunes and it’d probably be best if I focused on that a bit more. And hey, she slips in a few Spanish-American ditties too, which is only appropriate given her last name and gives the album a little something to make it stand-out amidst all the more resolutely blues-oriented stuff. The fact that "El Preso Numero Nueve" is actually pretty great is just the icing on the cake. Honestly, she gets angry and I fall in love a little.

But, like I said, there’s not much to say. On the one hand, this is groundbreaking stuff – it doesn’t sound like the 50s at all. Baez puts her stamp across everything, thoroughly updating some rather elderly tunes. “The 60s” have definitely arrived. Clear, clean production and a dynamic approach which is just sort of.. different. The results are, quite frankly, fucking amazing. I mean, look at a song like "The House of Rising Sun", which by a simple switch of gender pronouns turns from being a poor me story about debauching into a harrowing tale of girls trapped in prostitution. That's impressive And yet through the whole album we are mercifully spared overt politicising, with Baez instead couching her criticisms within the simple humanistic stories of the folk tradition. That's one of the things I've always like about folk and gospel music. But on the other hand, so many people have followed in her footsteps that close analysis seems almost irrelevant. Although having said that, as much as Sandy Denny owes to Joan Baez the two don’t really sound much alike.

Anyway, I’m not sure what I’m even talking about anymore. This is a very good, very beautiful album. As an interpreter of songs, you’d be hard-pressed to find many better. At turns eerie, funny, sad and just sort of there (in a good way). And then you have haunting and delicate tunes like "Mary Hamilton". Oh god, and the part where she sings "HE shall turn robber" in "Henry Martin". It's a song to send chills down your spine, her voice doing little tumbles like a trapeze artist.

Oh great now I have a crush on Joan Baez.

8.5

Download: Joan Baez - Silver Dagger MP3

Download: Joan Baez - Henry Martin MP3
Download: Joan Baez - El Preso Numero Neueve MP3

23. The Dave Brubeck Quartet - Time Out (1959)

Tracks: Blue Rondo A La Turk//Strange Meadow Lark//Three to Get Ready//Kathy's Waltz//Everybody's Jumpin'//Pick Up Sticks

I'm back! Assuming anyone realised I was gone. My excuse? Well, I guess I like the Fifties so much I just never wanted it to end. But, end it must. Doff your slacks and clear-out your bomb shelters, the Fifties are out of time. So here's Time Out.

There are so many strange things about this album. Strangest of all is that it reached number 2 in the charts. Listening to the dizzying, jagged rhythms that open "Blue Rondo A La Turk", it's fair to say that it doesn't seem like the likeliest of pop hits. I mean, look at the cover - it's a piece of thoroughly modern art. The music, meanwhile, consists of a range of carefully studied fusions of contemporary classical music with Eastern traditional music and jazz, most of it in funny time signatures.

The time signatures are, of course, the point of the album (yet another pun - what is with jazz albums and puns?), although the greater bulk of the music is in 4/4 or waltz time, which makes it slightly less impressive. Still, consider - up until around this time, damned near every single jazz tune had been in 4/4 or waltz time. The most adventurous time signature we've had till now was double waltz on Kind of Blue. "Blue Rondo A La Turk" opens in 9/8 and sounds like a thunderstorm in a glass factory. "Take Five" is in 5/4 (yet somehow managed to be a top ten single). The reason for this is that apparently the Quartet went on a military tour of the Middle East, where they were exposed to Levantine dance rhythms. They thought to themselves "Hey, if the Turks can swing to this then why can't we", and of course the rest is history.

People were angry with Dave Brubeck about this. They told him he'd gone to far in mucking about with the 4/4 foundations of jazz. And then they went and said that a lot of the music on this album wasn't even jazz to begin with. And to be fair, a lot of the music here is not always especially jazzy - but if it's not jazz, then we'd have to invent a new category of music for it, so let's just call a spade a spade and head for the club. Really, Dave Brubeck's piano sounds like a Picasso painting more than anything (he owes a debt to Monk - that much is obvious). I really hate these wags who go about trying to declare something "jazz" or "not jazz". Most of the time they're just fusty old jerks who want to sit alone at home doing possibly illegal things to their Duke Ellington collections. Things evolve! Everything evolves! It's like those punk rock guys who think that keyboards are the tool of the devil and it's wrong of you to ever use more than four chords in a song. This album was integral in opening jazz up to a whole host of "Bach to Jazz" and treacly semi-classical albums. To my mind, jazz is just putting the blues on classical or the classical in blues, and if that's not good enough for you then go back to Dixie and have a lot of fun with your marching bands.

In the spirit of this album's spirit, I've decided to break with convention myself and present my notes for each of the individual tracks:

Blue Rondo A La Turk – Truly amazing composition that regrettably lapses into what is actually a pretty solid bit of bop. I say “regrettably” because, firstly, it doesn’t really fit the strange nature of the rest of the piece. This is nightclub jazz that suddenly appears out of nowhere halfway through an elaborate bit of dazzling minimalism-meets-jagged, see-sawing Eastern folk. Still, the fact that they tie such disparate elements is what ultimately makes this song so impressive – this is basically a full-on classical suite in the jazz idiom.

Strange Meadow Lark – A very pretty piece. Opens with an pretty, angular extended solo piano introduction in a semi-classical mode . There is very little, if any, blues on the intro. It’s tied to the blues in the same way one of the Beatles’ chamber-pop tunes is. This is a large part of what got Brubeck dismissed by some folks – he wasn’t bluesy or traditional enough. The main body of the song is much more “jazz” and “blues”, and sounds oddly like “I Guess I’ll Have to Change My Plans”. The sound of the clarinet does a lot to make this album, but then the harmonic innovations are also quite impressive. Jazz should evolve, or it’ll become a museum piece. The solo piano outro is also gorgeous. The solo piano here really makes this piece, and I wish they’d focused more on that than on a pleasant but ultimately inconsequential jam.

Take Five – This song still sounds quite like nothing else. Like Brubeck and Co inventing Krautrock and funk ten years early. That jerky little piano riff is utterly captivating, and the drumming is truly exceptional. The drum solo taken here is astonishing, like cannon fire. My favourite quote regarding this album is clarinettist Paul Desmond’s remark that “Take Five” wasn’t written to be a pop hit, it was written to be a drum solo for Joe Morello. The funny thing is, however, that Brubeck and Co are at their best performing things that soundly like fully-composed songs. But the thing that really sells this is the supremely melodic clarinet playing. Who doesn’t know that melody? It’s astonishing. One of the finest melody lines ever produced and single-handedly responsible for the mega-selling status of what is actually a pretty weird album, when you think about it. This song doesn’t sound like music created by humans.

Three to Get Ready – This has a lovely little rising piano melody that can only be called “charming”.

Kathy’s Waltz – Lovely little clarinet bit here, swinging around like a circus melody and utterly gorgeous. There’s a piano transition that sounds exactly like “All My Loving” by the Beatles. Utterly gorgeous crashing solo piano closer that brings back the “All My Loving” melody but buries it under lots of water chords.

Everybody’s Jumpin’ – this is one of those instrumental songs where you can actually hear the clarinet and piano cry “Everybody’s Jumpin!”. It doesn’t need words. And then Brubeck goes off on these utterly astonishing, chiming piano chords that just repeat and repeat like a jack hammer, faster than I’d thought possible. Amazing.

Pick Up Sticks – Most straightforward here. Nice cymbal clatter. Plenty of jaunty piano comping. Lovely clarinet solo. Very “Kind of Blue”. Certainly the most succesful bit of straight-up jazz on display. Brubeck’s trademark jerky piano is all over the place with some love chords doing utterly wonderful, clattering things. This is Brubeck’s chance to shine and he does some astonishing things with chords. And then Morello comes in to close the track out on beats that sound like wood being chopped.

And there you have it. Is this a great album? It's a pretty good one. Unfortunately the experimentation which makes it so unique and compelling also undercuts the strengths of some of the songs In the end, however, this is a remarkable piece of work - it's not just "Take Five" with a few extra tracks tacked on, no sir it isn't. It's not the best jazz album we've had so far, either, though it's certainly interesting and unique, and it certainly managed to do its job in breaking new ground as to what you could get away with in jazz while still being popular.

So basically I guess the lesson we learned today is that people will let anything slide if you've got a way with melody.

8.5/10

Download: The Dave Brubeck Quartet - Blue Rondo A La Turk MP3

22. Marty Robbins - Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs (1959)

Tracks: Big Iron//Cool Water//Billy the Kid//A Hundred and Sixty Acres//They're Hanging Me Tonight//Strawberry Roan//El Paso//In the Valley//The Master's Call//Running Gun//Down in the Little Green Valley//Utah Carol

Review:

The last country album we had was Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, and a very stripped-back and rootsy affair it was. Here on the opposite end of the spectrum, Marty Robbins presents us with a very slick, polished effort – from the cover art to the ooh-oohing backing vocals to the sweeping, cinematic storytelling of the lyrics, this is Hollywood all the way.

But then, there’s nothing wrong with that is there? This is a slick album, but it’s also a damned good one. Marty Robbins may not be a technically dazzling lyricist, but he tells straightforward stories with great power and clarity. “Big Iron” and “El Paso” are entire little films unto themselves, with amazing sweeping narratives and striking imagery. Robbins’ tendency to uncritically accept that the girl is always to blame may make songs like “El Paso” and “They’re Hanging Me Tonight” a little irksome to anyone who tends to think to much about these sorts of things, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re masterpieces of narrative music. “Cool Water” is honest to goodness desperation distilled. These are fine songs. The fact that they’re about cowboys shooting each other is just the icing on the cake.

I have to admit I have a soft spot for this album. When I was younger my dad used to always have the radio on Magic 693 AM, where Marty Robbins was a perennial favourite. Thankfully, a song like “The Master’s Call” is all the defense I need against any pundits or wags who might feel the need to mock me. Yes, it’s an overly earnest song about finding Christian redemption after almost being struck by lightning, but it’s also got some dazzling imagery and one of the most astonishing hooks to come along so far.

Although, speaking of those hooks does tend to lead me around to the melodic construction of a lot of these songs. There’s actually a fair bit of stylistic variation here, with Robbins throwing-in everything from Hawaiian guitars to Irish folk music and what sounds like nothing so much as laika on one track. “They’re Hanging Me Tonight” even manages to step right out of country and western and become an honest to god pop song! It could have been by damned near anyone. But be that as it may, he does tend to rehash his vocal delivery. That’s at least in part a hang-over from the material, but the fact that Robbins’ vocals are up front and centre for the entire album does mean that things can get a little samey at times. Thankfully, however, this was 1959, when people knew how to keep their albums short and sweet. The fact that I listened to this on vinyl, and had to get up and turn the thing over halfway through, didn’t hurt either.

There are a number of important aspects to this album, I suppose. Firstly, the massive chart success of both the album and its singles point very clearly towards the future of country music. Big, glossy songs by the likes of Glen Campbell, that’s what. I like Glen Campbell, but you can’t help but get a little teary eyed for depressing murder songs that sound like they were recorded through a soup tin. Oddly, however, this album also points forward to the sort of outlaw country that would get popular in the late 60s and early 70s, and is comprised mostly of the very same murder songs I was just lamenting. It’s a nice glimpse of a time when the two traditions hadn’t entirely splintered yet.

Another interesting thing about all this is that Marty Robbins wrote most of the songs here. That wasn’t an entirely novel occurrence by 1959 (a lot of the rock acts so far did likewise), but you do have to remember that this was still a period when, in pop music, many acts performed songs which had been written for them by stables of song-writers (usually Neil Diamond, for some reason). The most important initial contribution of the Beatles, after all, was the idea that a band should play its own songs. Robbins may not be spearheading anything, but this album does point to a growing trend.

In the end, though, all that really matters is the music. As I’ve said, it’s pretty solid. There’s some filler here, unfortunately – I have no real fondness for “Strawberry Roan”, and the second half of the second side just sort of blends together after a while. But the good stuff is just so amazingly good that it doesn’t really matter.

8/10

Download: Marty Robbins - The Master's Call Mp3
Download: Marty Robbins - El Paso Mp3

And here are the Beasts of Bourbon lamenting the death of a great man:

21. Miles Davis - Kind of Blue (1959)

Tracks: So What//Freddie Freeloader//Blue in Green//All Blues//Flamenco Sketches//Flamenco Sketches (First Take)

I don’t know that bop ever sat very comfortably with Miles Davis. Even as far back as The Birth of the Cool, he wasn’t really playing by the rules. So it makes sense, some ten years down the track, that he would be the one to sit down and push things... somewhere else?

“Somewhere else” certainly seems to describe this album. Davis had experimented with modality before, but here you have an entire album freed-up from rigid chord structures and opening into a whole new sonic universe. The bassist and pianist lead through on loose scales, and often the songs are built around little more than a two-note vamp. The result is that each of the players is free to do a lot more moving around within the parameters set for them, giving the songs on this album a very open and airy sound despite there actually being an awful lot going on at any given moment. It’s certainly a contrast with the “busy” sound of a lot of the other jazz albums we’ve had to this point (I am thinking of Brilliant Corners in particular).

This is a very lovely, pretty album. “So What” drifts down out of a cloud of Bill Evans’ gentle impressionist piano (most of this album sounds like Satie or Debussy), and then suddenly slides into life on a truly wonderful, bouncing bass riff, accented by a two chord sting that shifts around from piano to trumpet and so on throughout the song. And then the drum kit snaps into life, the bass starts walking down into the depths of an ocean of cymbals (the production by Teo Macero is exceptional, and key to the album’s success), and Davis comes in on some wonderful, low, peaceful trumpet. The start of “So What” is one of my favourite starts, to any song. And the rest of the piece is quite nice, too. It just sort of wanders around, while the soloists (Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderly!) take turns.

This sets a pattern for the rest of the album. With the exception of “Blue in Green” and “Flamenco Sketches”, which trade in less rhythmic, more mournful tones, you get a very steady procession of brisk, beautiful, simple rhythmic and harmonic frameworks over which is presented some truly lovely soloing. Evans’ classically influenced piano work is wonderful throughout, and one of the cornerstones of the album. Coming back to this album after a long time away, I was initially dismissive of Paul Chambers’ bass work; after a bit of thought, I’ve decided I really do quite like it. Yes, it’s omnipresent and “busy”, but it works, and the frequent interplay between the soloists and the lines that Chambers is playing is a great deal of fun. And then you have Jimmy Cobb on the drum kit, doing all sorts of weird things. A repeated snapping, cracking sort of noise that carries the momentum through stretches of “Freddie Freeloader” is one of my favourites, but then you get these neat little fills that have the habit of spinning the entire song around so it sounds like it’s just started again, which contributes a great deal to the constant feeling of freshness.

Of course damned near anyone reading this is shaking their head at this point; they’ve both already heard this album, and know just how bad a job I’m doing of describing it. Well, I’ll stop describing it then, and talk about more general things. Although honestly, despite never having written on Kind of Blue before I feel as though I’m repeating myself. What more can one say about it? This is one of the most revered and beloved albums in history. At some point, it went from merely being “a very good jazz album” to “the very good jazz album”. People have written whole books on the thing! Its influence in contemporary popular, classical and jazz music is inestimable.

But why is that? I don’t know. I guess a part of it might be that, like most great works, it’s helped to create a world of which it is a cornerstone. People might point to Kind of Blue and declare it a masterpiece because it so obviously is – it’s been so influential, and so many people love it, and ergo so on and so forth... Well, I won’t deny that Kind of Blue is a masterpiece, but if we lived in a world where jazzists hadn’t been sitting around, feeling hemmed-in by bop, wanting a new language to fiddle with, would people still praise this? I mean, if Kind of Blue hadn’t been a massive success, then would we consider it a massive success?

Well, the swinging rhythm and the tight, focused soloing on “All Blues” makes me say “yes”. But then let’s consider another Miles Davis album, his On the Corner from 1972. A completely different album. Can-like, mind-bending funk-rock that frequently sounds like someone tuning a spaceship's radio in to the frequencies of a Jovian Sabu tribute night. It’s a great, great album, but it was a critical and commercial disaster on its release. If hip-hop hadn’t come around to give people context for the sort of things he was doing, would it’s stature as an artwork ever have recovered to the levels it did?

I’m not sure what my point is. I guess my point is that Kind of Blue is a brilliant album, but no album with “Blue in Green” on it can be considered “the greatest jazz album of all time”. What the hell does that even mean? That’s like declaring Ege Bamyasi the greatest rock album of all time. They’re both utterly amazing, but it’s just sort of ridiculous to do such a thing. It has it’s stature as “the only jazz album non-jazz fans own”, “the best-selling jazz album of all time” and “the first jazz album most people buy” (it doesn’t get to keep its “recorded all in first takes” stature, as apparently the tracks included are only the first complete takes). It’s certainly absolutely beautiful on its own terms, but I guess I dislike hagiographical statements. I don’t see why the fact that everyone likes it makes it perfect.

The real strength of Kind of Blue, I feel, is that it hangs together. Davis has done some individual tracks elsewhere that are better than the lesser cuts from this album, and other people certainly have (anyone who tries to tell me that “Goodbye Porkpie Hat” isn’t as good as almost anything here will get slapped). But, as an album, it works. I think this might be because they find one simple, compelling idea and run with it. The Jesus and Mary Chain of jazz!

I don’t know. It’s a masterpiece. I get bitter about masterpieces because I can’t complain about them as much.

“Flamenco Sketches” is pretty (both takes).

10/10

Download: Miles Davis - So What Mp3

And here we have Davis' legacy in action:

19. Ella Fitzgerald - Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George & Ira Gershwin Songbook

Tracks:

Review:

Well here you have it – an album so long, and so self-indulgent, that it almost derailed the whole project only a month in. Which isn’t really fair to Ella Fitzgerald, I suppose; her album is a chore to listen to from end to end, but then this isn’t the sort of album you should listen to from end to end. It’s a catalogue of the music of the Gershwins! You pop it on if you want to hear “I Got Rhythm”, or leave it playing around the house. It conveniently collects the majority of their tunes into one handy package – if you consider what must have been something like a 5 x LP box set convenient.

And, amazingly enough, this all holds up pretty well. Going into detail on the individual songs would be a maddening and time-consuming task, but thankfully this set lends itself to being discussed in broad terms. And, in short, it’s generally pretty good, but not great. Well, a couple of the songs are sort of great – the explosive instrumental section of “Just Another Rhumba”, for example, and “’S Wonderful”, which is just such a happy and charming little tune. Actually, most of disc 1 is pretty good. And, you know, Ella is pretty good. Not great, but good. Maybe a little flat?

This is the George & Ira Gershwin songbook, and so the focus shouldn’t be entirely on Ella Fitzgerald. Nelson Riddle did the arrangements on this album, working with Ella for the first time, and a lot of the time the instrumentation is more compelling than the vocals. That may sound harsh, but consider this – firstly, Ira Gershwin wasn’t that great a lyricist. In fact, most of his songs could be best described as “inane”. His strength lies in very simple, emotional pleas for companionship and in jokey novelty tunes, and when he plays to that strength you get some great stuff. But then, sometimes you don’t. Although, having looked on the internet, some of these songs seem to feature alternate lyrics, which means I may not have all the evidence at hand to give him a fair trial. In any event, the songs succeed more on emotional and melodic levels than lyrically. Is anyone going to defend “Stiff Upper Lip” as anything other than an awful bit of stereotyping performed badly?

Secondly, Ella sings almost everything in a very measured and deliberate manner. This is Gershwin! It should swing more. Take “Boy Wanted”, which could have gone-off like a rocket, but which instead plods along very pretty but ultimately less than dazzling. And then, Ella’s voice isn’t placed anywhere near far enough forward in the mix, thus making it seem rather small and thin and “away in the distance”, which is a pity. But then you have the wonderful vocal glissando that opens “Soon”, or the low vocal on the pretty “Somebody from Somwhere”, which comes complete with swirling harps and begs to be performed by Judy Garland, or “A Foggy Day”, which also has a lovely little brassy bridge.

In the end, this whole album is a mixed bag. You have some good songs performed badly (“Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off”, or “The Man I Love”), some bad songs performed well (“Somebody from Somewhere”), and most of the songs are neither particularly good nor particularly bad. They are just, well, alright. The insistence of Riddle and Fitzgerald on performing every singly song in an “pop” style, adapting the material to themselves rather than themselves to the material, is a bit annoying. These are show tunes, damn it! They deserve to be swinging, trashy and rough. When Ella complained in one song that Gershwin “won’t stop pounding tin” I had absolutely no idea what they were on about. As a document of Gershwin’s music it might be argued that this fails because, ultimately, it’s far too reverential, prettying-up the tunes of a duo who’d already been canonised. Most of these songs are nothing but barely-dressed lust, and where is the sense of that? Ella does the pretty, reflective tunes well, but I just don’t know... Is it wrong to simply not like Ella Fitzgerald much? I feel guilty about it, but fuck it! This is my blog! I don’t like Ella Fitzgerald much! I think she has a fine voice but she’s a mediocre interpreter of songs.

I guess if I had to sum up, this is an album of exceptional instances and general consistency, rather than a full-on wower, but then, you can’t really expect much else can you? It’d be preposterous to assume that George and Ira Gershwin wrote only great songs, and it’d be equally idiotic to suggest that every single song that Ella Fitzgerald recorded was going to turn-out spectacular. This is an important album, because it provides a glimpse into all the strengths and weaknesses of both the Gershwin brothers and Ella Fitzgerald, and as a consequence you get a fascinating document of three of the most important figures in modern music.

8/10

Download: Ella Fitzgerald - 'S Wonderful Mp3