15. Tito Punete - Dance Mania Vol.1 [1958]
Only another 5 years and 20 albums to go until I get the the beginning of the British Invasion.
While I'm doing this blog I'm finding myself listening to more Afro/Cuban jazz than at any point previously in my entire life, and there's probably a good reason for that other than not being from the generation or the place that spawned this stuff, but that's not to say it isn't enjoyable.
The biggest problem for me anyway is all of this stuff sounds the same. Granted there are differences in the songs on offer here, there are some with vocals, some without and ... well that's about it really.
It's all very jolly & bouncy like you'd expect with mambos & cha chas in abundance. It's just that I'm hearing this stuff long after it's day so I have seen this stuff parodied beyond belief to the point where I almost expect Morcambe & Wise to come out and do a comedy dance routine to this stuff.
The best thing about this kind of stuff is that before you've heard a note you know exactly the type of thing you're going to get so you can prepare yourself to listen to it, that however is also it's biggest downfall because after a while the songs kind of merge into one another and the whole things comes kind of predictable.
This is a fun album but then these kind of albums are, it's a bit like a kind of enforced fun. You would have fun listening to it, but why would you want to listen to it when you could listen to something much more contemporary and less dated ?
Everything about this album screams 1950s at you, at first it's novel but doesn't really hold your interest over time because there's nothing really substantial here.
Rating 1.5 / 5
14. Little Richard - Here's Little Richard [1957]
Now this is what I'm talking about.
After a glut of chin stroking jazz it's great to get back to some dirty primal Rock n Roll. And it doesn't get more dirty or primal than this.
I don't think there's an album anywhere that grabs you by the balls right from it's opening line in a way that 'Tutti Frutti' does. Having heard this song my whole life it's kind of hard to imagine just what people thought when they heard this song for the first time back in the mid 50s and how they reacted to it.
The man himself is just a ball of energy screaming and hollering out the lyrics like his life depended on it.
And being a make up wearing, gender bendering black guy singing about screwing white women as well as being from the south you can bet that his life did depend on it a few times. If there's one thing this guy has it's balls.
Obviously the 3 big songs on this are 'Tutti Frutti', 'Slippin' and Slidin' and 'Long Tall Sally', they're tried and tested rock n roll staples, but as well as those there's plenty of great stuff on this album. The pace of the album slows down a little in songs like 'Baby' and 'Oh Why' but you'd be hard pressed to call them ballads, it would be more accurate to call them rest periods between the more frantic moments.
The slowest song on the album is 'Can't Believe You Wanna Leave' which clocks in at a massive 2 minutes and 25 seconds (The albums longest track) and even that is kind of the same pace as a mid tempo blues song.
The album finishes on a real high with 'Rip It Up', 'Jenny Jenny' and 'She's Got It', three blistering songs that finish off the album with the frantic pace at which it begun. At 27 minutes long this album is the perfect length. As the last song fades out it leaves you with a sense of whiplash and wondering just what in the hell just hit you.
If you want to sum up what Rock n Roll was about in less than half an hour I don't think you're going to find anything better to do it with than this.
Simple magnificent.
Rating 5 / 5
13. Machito - Kenya [1957]
More jazz, did people not listen to anything else in the late 50s?
More Afro-Cuban jazz which I've only just listened to with the Sabu album. I guess this stuff must have been popular back then.
Obviously the Sabu album is my direct reference point here given that it's basically all I have to reference this against. While I think that album had more excitement and was more distinctive and grabbed you immediately, this album doesn't do that so much. That's not to say it doesn't, the opening track 'Wild Jungle' does that wonderfully well at making a statement about what this album is about. The following track 'Congo Mulence' keeps going in that direction but then when you get the the third track, the title track of the album 'Kenya' you get a better idea of what this album is about. This is more of a fusion with trad western jazz than the Sabu album. The bongos and the congas are still in abundance but more restrained. They are given a chance to shine in tracks such as 'Cannonology' and 'Frenzy'. 'Frenzy' is particular is just that, a frenzy of hyperactive bongo playing.
The thing this album has going for it is it's layers and it's musicianship. It seems much more polished and thought out than the Sabu album, this is kind of it's sensible brother. It's kind of strange really how I think this album is the better of the two and yet I think when it comes down to individual songs I'm more likely to listen to ones off the Sabu album. Weird.
A good album, well played with some great musicianship, I just don't see myself revisiting it too often.
Rating 3 / 5
12. Miles Davis – Birth Of The Cool [1957]
I was a little apprehensive about doing this album. I have heard this album before (7 years ago, Thank you Last FM) and I remember not being too impressed by it. In fact I don't remember Kind Of Blue doing much for me either. If I wanted something by Miles Davis I would go for something later in his career like Bitches Brew or On The Corner. Let's see if time has mellowed my opinion.
This compilation was recorded over 3 sessions between 1949 & 1950 and finally put out by Capitol Records as one collection in 1957. It obviously became a landmark recording even if it didn't sell too well at the time. And here's where the problem lies.
Even though it is a landmark recording for the time it's not that time now, it's 65 years later. It's difficult to appreciate things as being revolutionary or influential when they sound like things that are commonplace. I can appreciate things that were new 20 or 30 years ago that sound commonplace now mainly because I was there at the time to hear how revolutionary and original they were. But an album as old as this? Forget it.
Of the songs on the album I enjoyed the more uptempo ones like 'Move', 'Jeru' & 'Boplicity'. 'Israel' was a pretty cool song too. I don't know why you would write a song called 'Rocker' that doesn't really rock at all. I guess it did rock back in 1949/50. The final song 'Darn That Dream' is the only song with vocals. I nearly caught myself why you would add a single song with vocals to an album, but then quickly remembered that this is in actual fact a compilation.
Didn't really hate it or find myself having a massive change of heart about this album. It's middle range all the way.
Rating 2.5 / 5
11. Sabu - Polo Congo [1957]
If I've not heard a lot of the albums on this list I can at least say I'm aware of them or the artists that recorded them. I regularly read or watch things on various different types of music I don't even listen to simply in the hope that I may understand them and get into them one day.
Having said that, this album came out of the blue to me, this is the first time I have ever heard of this album.
After reading a little I find out that the 'Sabu' is Louis 'Sabu' Martinez, a talented percussionist and conga player who had done the rounds in various jazz bands with some big names and that this album is Afro / Cuban jazz with influences from Spain, Western Africa, Cuba & Caribbean influences.
Cool, but do I really want to listen to someone banging on the congas for 40 minutes?
We shall see
The opening track 'El Cumbanchero' is kind of interesting because to me it sounds like a modern dance song just with the beats taken out. Add some beats and I could easily see this on one of those modern day cheesy dance compilations probably called something like 'Latin Dance 2014' or 'Havana After Dark' with a cartoon drawing of some half naked olive skinned woman peering out of the cover. The second track 'Billumba-Palo Congo' is even better. It's just a guy hammering the shit out of his bongos while some guy yells his head off. It's fucking fantastic. It sounds like some small African Country is about to declare war on it's neighbour.
'Choferito-Plena' is where the spanish element comes in with the bongos taking the back seat and the guitars taking centre stage for this kind of ballad. 'Asabache' is a 4 minute 25 minute bongo solo and it at this point that the album begins to lose it's novelty value. 'Simba' tries to emulate 'Billumba-Palo Congo' but doesn't quite have the energy or fun of that song. 'Rhapsodia Del Maravilloso' picks things back up again. There's something rather erratic and dissonant about this song, almost like it could have been made up on the spot. It's kind of interesting that to me it sounds a lot of a latin version of Can. 'Aggo Elegua
' continues the percussion & chanting theme which to be honest is starting to wear a little thin at this point.
The album finishes with the Spanish guitar flavoured 'Tribilin Cantore' which while charming enough could easily lose a couple of minutes in length.
On the whole I enjoyed listening to this, when you knew what you weren't going to get next it was fun finding out. Shame it only lasts till halfway through, although it does pick up again towards the end again.
Would I listen to this album the whole way through again?
Probably not
Would I listen to the occasional song off this album just to throw in something random into a playlist?
Most definitely.
Rating 3.5 / 5
10. Thelonius Monk - Brilliant Corners [1957]
It's almost a kind of a shame that I have so many of these classic jazz albums coming thick and fast because I feel as though that trying to listen to so many of them in such a short amount of time and with my jazz ignorance it's probably fair to say I'm not really giving these albums the fair crack of the whip that they truly deserve.
I was actually looking forward to this album, I'd heard a little bit of Thelonius Monk (A very little) and heard it spoken about in hushed reverential tones, but what's it actually like?
The first song on the album (And the title track) is fantastic. I'm not entirely sure what 'Hard Bop' actually is (Like bop but harder?) but if it's all like this then I'm going to love albums with that label. There was lots going on, people are soloing away it's like you can't take your ears off it for fear of missing out on something, I'm beginning to see why this is considered such a classic.
And then the rest of the album happens.
The first three of the albums tracks clock in at just under 28 minutes altogether with the second track 'Ba-lue Bolivar Ba-lues-are' taking up 13 of those minutes. This is where things go off the boil it just meanders along as a steady tempo and has none of the invention of the title track, even the solos seem half assed.
With the third song of the trio 'Pannonica' things grind even more to a halt and you begin to wonder if this album will ever end.
Thankfully things pick up for the final two tracks of the album, 'I Surrender, Dear' is a lovely piano piece that gives the album that change of direction it really needs by now, followed by Bemsha Swing which is a nice uptempo way to finish the album much in the same way it started.
For the most part I enjoyed this album, it just fell flat a little in the middle.
Rating 3 / 5
9. Count Basie – The Atomic Mr Basie [1957]
Nice tasteful cover there,they couldn't have a picture of a model of an atom or something instead? Reminds me a lot of the cover for A-Tom-ic Jones only not as funny.
Why am I prattling on about Tom Jones?
Well because there's not really much I can say about this. I quite enjoy big band jazz and at first I found this album to be much better than the Duke Ellington album I heard before. Well at first it did anyway.
The first 2 or 3 songs really kick off the album in style and really got my hopes up that this would be a great record. Sadly though it doesn't last & it felt like to me that the energy drops after that and soon resorts to being background music. I can't say I didn't enjoy this but it failed to grab me in any significant way after such a promising beginning.
Rating 2.5 / 5
8. Buddy Holly & The Crickets - The "Chirping" Crickets [1957]
Well I never claimed there was never going to be any bias in this list, I mean why bother making it otherwise if I was just going to blindly agree with what everybody else thinks.
Some albums are good because of the music on them, some albums are good because of the memories associated with them. Although I have never heard this album in my life I am familiar with the material on it. That's because in my house when I was a kid Elvis was never the king of Rock n Roll according to my Father, Buddy Holly was.
Listening to this brings back many memories of going through my parents record collection as a small child just discovering records for the first time (More singles than albums) and seeing album covers of this bespectacled geeky guy staring back at me in that kind of over-coloured half portrait/half photo thing that they tended to do on albums in the 50s.
The music as you would expect is faultless, it's like being pummelled in the face with hit after hit after hit. Oh Boy!, Not Fade Away, Maybe Baby, That'll Be The Day... and hell we're still only halfway through the album after all that. Like I said this is an extremely biased review but I loved hearing all this stuff again and I have no hesitation in making it the first album on this list to get full marks.
Rating 5 / 5
7. Frank Sinatra – Songs For Swingin’ Lovers [1956]
So after just 6 albums we find ourselves with our first album by an artist who has already been listed on this countdown earlier and it couldn't be more different to that album. It's called 'Songs For Swingin’ Lovers' and it certainly does swing rather a lot. This is also the first album in the book that I have already heard previously as I came in to doing this list.
If anything you could almost say too much.
I'm noticing a growing trend among these early albums in that record companies tend to find a theme and stick to it for the whole album resulting in albums that sound the same pretty much the whole way through. It's like they're not quite sure how to how to handle this new format just yet and that the concept of having light & shade, peaks & troughs over the course of 45 to 50 minutes of music is still something to be gotten to grips with.
As for this album, well.... this is exactly the kind of thing you want when you think of a Frank Sinatra album, full of swing and energy with that big band feel. I wouldn't exactly call myself a fan of his (I much prefer his daughter Nancy and her work with Lee Hazelwood) but I recognise at least 5 or 6 of the songs on this album that have gone down as classic. Stuff like 'Pennies From Heaven', 'I've Got You Under My Skin', 'Anything Goes', All classic Sinatra songs. Even a the lesser known songs like 'It Happened In Monterrey' still make this album well worth listening to.
But this album does have one fault and I touched upon it earlier, it's just crying out for a change of pace. A few of the ballads on 'In The Wee Small Hours' would have been perfect to make this a much more rounded and complete sounding record. But taking the album in front of me for what it's worth. I have to say it's pretty damn good.
Rating 4.5 / 5
6. Duke Ellington – Ellington At Newport [1956]
I get it, I really do
I realise that jazz isn't really my thing. It's not that I dislike it, it's more that I don't have enough experience of listening to it to really understand what makes a good jazz album & what makes a bad one. I mean don't get me wrong, I would love to be able to, but I'm just not there yet.
The first thing I notice about this album is that it has around 40 tracks and lasts for over 2 hours. There is no way I can digest that much jazz in one sitting. However like a lot of jazz albums from that time record companies have added and added tracks to albums to the point where they are barely recognisable from the original album. So I decided to ignore all that and just listen to the handful of tracks that made up the original album which clocked in at a much more manageable 44 minutes.
I get it that Duke Ellington is a jazz icon and I'm sure this album must have influenced a hell of a lot of people. But to my uneducated ears it simply made some pleasant background music. I wish I could say that certain parts of it grabbed my attention such a a particularly well played solo or a pleasing melody, but nothing grabbed me unfortunately. I'm not saying this is a bad record at all, just that after it had finished I struggled to recall anything memorable from what I had just heard.
Sorry
Rating - 1 / 5
5. Fats Domino – This Is Fats Domino [1956]
Or
5. Fats Domino – This Is Fats [1957]
The book seems conflicted as to which album they are talking about here. They list the cover and the title from 'This Is Fats' from 1957 but the album tracks listed and the year of production given is that of 'This Is Fats Domino' from the previous year. No matter, I'll listen to both.
Of the two albums 'This Is Fats Domino' is the superior record as it seems much more varied in style as well as content. It also has more memorable songs. The first two songs 'Blueberry Hill' and 'Honey Chile' really start the album with a bang. On 'This Is Fats' the opening song 'The Rooster Song' does pretty much the same thing, however after that song the album tends to slump towards songs that basically all sound the same with that generic Rock n Roll riff although I can't say it isn't somewhat enjoyable.
I don't know if it's just me but on 'This Is Fats Domino' I hear much more RnB, Jazz & blues influences. So for me it's the far better album of the two. It's just a shame Blue Monday isn't a cover of the New Order song.
Ratings
This Is Fats Domino - 4 / 5
This Is Fats - 2.5 / 5
4. Louis Prima – The Wildest [1956]
You can probably tell by the cover this is a totally different ball game from the Sinatra album.
You get the impression that Louis would have been an awesome live act to see. The man is just a pure showman mixing comedy with jazz, this is like a party on a record. That's not to say it doesn't have it's faults. One song in particular 'The Lip' I found extremely irritating with it's random out of tune trumpet blasts that go on throughout the entire song, it's only 2.23 minutes long but feels 10 times that. Other than that the rest of the album is pretty good and at barely 35 minutes long doesn't outstay it's welcome despite that one song. Special mention to Keely Smith the vocalist of whom Louis apparently married despite being 20 years older than her.
You can't but help like the guy.
Rating 3.5 / 5
3. The Louvin Brothers – Tragic Songs Of Life [1956]
Well that was a turn up. I wasn't expecting to like this one at all. Not a great fan of country music & was expecting something rather twee or hokey. That wasn't to be found on here. With three of the songs listing place names like Kentucky, Alabama and from what I gather was their big hit single at the time Knoxville Girl, I was never going to be able to relate to this from a cultural viewpoint. But that didn't matter. The album is called Tragic Songs Of Life and it's not kidding either, in fact you could kind of call it a 1950s version of Nick Cave's Murder Ballads album, only slightly more genteel.
A real surprise this one.
Rating 4 / 5
2. Elvis Presley – Elvis Presley [1956]
It's all too easy to remember Elvis as the fat cheesburger munching junkie who stole music from black people and became the acceptable face of rock n roll blah blah blah, but the guy could belt out a tune when he wanted to and this album is chock full of them. Obviously Blue Suede Shoes is the standout here but there's plenty more on offer as Elvis rocks and croons his way through this 12 song set.
Nice cover too, seem to remember seeing it on some punk album as well.
Really enjoyed this one.
Rating 4 / 5
1. Frank Sinatra – In The Wee Small Hours [1955]
Supposedly this was Frank's emo album recorded while he was going through relationship problems with Ava Gardner. I approached this album with some trepidation with it being 16 songs long but in all honesty it wasn't all that bad really. I think it helped that I listened to this early in the morning when I was still half asleep, in fact I would say the title of the album is almost an instruction on when to listen to it. Having to listen to 16 slow jazz ballads normally wouldn't interest me but I found myself just swept along with Frank's voice and found myself rather enjoying the experience.
Rating 3.5 / 5
