75 Years of the Album: 21b. June-December 1969

Isaac Hayes – Hot Buttered Soul (Enterprise June).

There are just four tunes on Hot Buttered Soul, the most remarkable of which are the twelve minute version of Bacharach and David’s “Walk on by”, and the near nineteen minute reading of Jimmy Webb’s “By the time I get to Phoenix”. Rock bands had been pushing beyond the three minute barrier for several years, but soul music was still in thrall to the 45 and its time constraints. Ike blew that idea out of the water with this, and at the same time invented seventies bedroom soul (see Barry White, Teddy Pendergrass etc). Norman Whitfield was also taking the Temptations into the realm of lengthy funk workouts, with a social dimension hitherto entirely absent in Motown music. Cloud Nine (Gordy) had the nine minute “Run away child, running wild” and Puzzle People had the lengthy anthems “Message from a Black Man” and “Slave”. Sly & The Family Stone had been pioneers in rock/soul crossover, and Stand (Epic) was their best LP to date. Less lauded soul records are the mercurial Bettye Swann’s two great albums on Capitol: The Soul View Now and Don’t You Ever Get Tired of Hurting Me, and the Imprtessions’ The Young Mod’s Forgotten Story (Curtom).

Roberta Flack – First Take (Atlantic June).

Back to the theme of classic 1969 albums disappearing without a trace, 32 year old jazz pianist and singer Roberta Flack’s soul jazz take on songs from sources as disparate as Gospel, Latin, Anglo-Scottish folk singers and Canadian poets was a particualrly strong and surprisingly cohesive record. It was well reviewed, but only reached the wider public three years later when her version of “The first time ever I saw your face” became a massive hit on the back of Clint Eastwood’s film Play Misty For Me.

Miles Davis – In A Silent Way (Columbia August).

Miles threw the cat among the pigeons with this. There was much clutching of pearls from the jazz establishment. How dare he use electronics, tape edits etc etc. Each side is a single piece, and the mood is mellow – it’s a far cry from the obsessively busy nature of most jazz-fusion records. The eight piece band includes virtually all the main players in seventies fusion: Wayne Shorter, John McLaughlin, Dave Holland, Tony Williams, and no fewer than three keyboard players in Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock and Joe Zawinul.

The Band (Capitol September).

The Band’s second album had no Dylan songs, but was all self-penned. It’s another kind of fusion record, mixing ballads of the old west with a loose, country rock feel. For a bunch of Canadians, they seemed to nail the old South down to a tee, without the flag-waving braggadocio of the southern rockers to come (hello Lynyrd Skynyrd). Dylan’s Nashville Skyline (Columbia) went down an even-more country road than its predecessor and featured a duet with Johnny Cash whose own scond live in prison record Johnny Cash At San Quentin (Columbia) was at least the equal of the first.

King Crimson – In The Court Of The Crimson King (Island October).

It’s not the first prog album, but it is the first really convincing fusion of orchestration, jazz and rock, with long, drawn out tracks, chopping and changing time signatures, flutes, saxophones and mellotrons. “21st Century Schizoid Man” is an astonishing opening statement, as wild and brutal as anything Van Der Graaf Generator came up with, whilst the title track does the symphonic mellotron thing later picked up and run with by Tony Banks. There is a lot of prententious, po-faced, and plain silly prog. But this album shows how good it can be when ambition and ability go hand in hand.

What have I missed? A trio of great San Francisco albums, two predominantly live (Jefferson Airplane’s Volunteers (RCA Victor), Quicksilver Messenger Service’s Happy Trails (Capitol) and The Grateful Dead’s Live / Dead (Warner Brothers). The British rock underground gave the world two enormous albums by Led Zeppelin (both Atlantic), ex Cream mainstay Jack Bruce’s exquisite Songs for a Tailor (Polydor), Pink Floyd’s seriously underrated film soundtrack More (EMI Columbia), and Procol Harum’s epic A Salty Dog (Regal Zonophone). Canadian troubadours Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell and Neil Young came up with the goods with, respectively, Songs From A Room (Columbia), Clouds (Reprise) and Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (Reprise). Love fell apart and were rebuilt in Arthur Lee’s image to make their last great album Four Sail (Elektra), and fellow Angelinos Spirit came up wit their third excellent album Clear (Ode). Now without John Cale, the Velvet Underground reined themselves in with the realtively restrained self-titled third album (Verve). Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica (Reprise) doesn’t feel as revolutionary or influential as it did in the eighties and nineties, but it’s still a sharp collection. More revolutionary were Can’s Monster Movie (United Artists) and White Noise’s An Electric Storm (Island), a David Vorhaus project which featured important contributions by Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson. “Black Mass: an electric storm in Hell” is astonishing. Finally, the Beatles and the Stones. Abbey Road is an overrated hodge-podge. George Harrison’s two songs are brilliant, as is the lengthy second side medley. “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”? really? and Lennon’s seven minute dirge “I want you” is just awful. Let It Bleed, though, is classic Stones from start to finish.

75 Years of the Album: 13. 1961

John Coltrane – Coltrane Jazz (Atlantic February) / My Favorite Things (Atlantic April) / Africa / Brass (Impulse! September) / Olé Coltrane (Atlantic (November).

1961 was a fairly remarkable year for John Coltrane. Four of his most notable LPs were issued during the year. The first of these was Coltrane Jazz, a collection of eight concise pieces, seven of which were taped in late 1959 by a quartet of Coltrane, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb. Coltrane and Kelly returned in October 1960 with bassist Steve Davis and drummer Elvin Jones to cut the more expansive My Favorite Things, four extanded takes on show tunes from the pens of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Cole Porter and the Gershwin Brothers. The same sessions also produced Coltrane’s Sound (1964). Africa / Brass appeared in September, the saxophonists first album for Impulse! For this album Coltrane used a big brass and wind ensemble that stretched out over just three pieces: two originals and an arrangement of “Greensleeves” by McCoy Tyner. The whole of Olé was recorded just two days after the first Africa session with just seven musicians involved including Freddie Hubbard, Tyner and Eric Dolphy.

Oliver Nelson – The Blues and the Abstract Truth (Impulse! September).

Saxophonist and composer Oliver Nelson’s masterpiece is six self-penned tracks of exquisite post-bop that features a seriously all star band. Freddie Hubbard, Eric Dolphy and Bill Evans each have at least as much of the limelight as Nelson. In his later career, Nelson concentrated more and more on composition and arrangement scoring both television programmes and films. He died of a heart attack in 1975 at the age of just 43.

Miles Davis – In Person Friday Night at the Blackhawk, San Francisco / In Person Staurday Night at the Blackhawk, San Francisco (both Columbia September).

These two classic live sets were taped over two nights in April 1961 and featured Davis’s quintet of Hank Mobley, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb. The original pair of single LPs have since been expanded to a four CD set that contains all of the performances from both nights. A month earlier the quintet had taped Miles’ 1961 studio LP Someday My Prince Will Come in New York.

Robert Johnson – King of the Delta Blues Singers (Columbia October).

Few people had heard of Johnson, let alone heard his music when this compilation came out. There weren’t even any known photos. These sixteen tracks were all recorded in 1936 and 1937 and consist of more than half of the recordings that Johnson ever made. Without doubt this is one of the most influential records ever released.

1961 was a good year for jazz albums. Dexter Gordon emerged from his fifties drug nightmare with The Resurgence Of Dexter Gordon (Jazzland), and better still Doin’ All Right (Blue Note). Ornette Coleman continued to tear up the jazz tradition with This Is Our Music and the extraordinary Free Jazz (both Atlantic). Hank Mobley’s Roll Call (Blue Note) was a notable post-bop album. In pop, rock, folk, or rhythm and blues there was little album-wise to set the pulse racing. It’s incredible how rapidly that changed over the decade.

75 Years of the Album: 11. 1959

Miles Davis – Kind Of Blue (Columbia August) / Charles Mingus – Mingus Ah Um (Columbia October) / Ornette Coleman – The Shape of Jazz to Come (Atlantic November) / Dave Brubeck Quartet – Time Out (Columbia December).

1959 is often known as the jazz LP’s annus mirabilis, largely on account of these four records which appeared within four months of each other during the second half of the year. Each is a cornerstone of any jazz collection. In Jazzwise magazine’s 100 Jazz Albums That Shook the World published in 2022 they were placed at no.1 (Miles), no.3 (Ornette), no.7 (Mingus), and no.18 (Brubeck). Only Time Out was a bestseller at the time. Kind of Blue didn’t hit the Billboard 200 until 1997, and the others never charted at all, but all have been steady sellers for more than sixty years. Other classic jazz albums released during 1959 include two takes on George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess by Miles Davis, and Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong (both Columbia), Art Blakey’s Moanin’ and Sonny Rollins’ Newk’s Time (both Blue Note), and Everybody Digs Bill Evans (Riverside).

Howlin’ Wolf – Moanin’ in the Moonlight (Chess January) / I’m John Lee Hooker (Vee Jay August).

Most fifties rhythm ‘n’ blues albums were merely collections of previously issued material. Unlike jazz, it was very much a singles-oriented music. These albums are no exception. Wolf’s contains material recorded as far back as 1951. On the plus side though, this means that there is no fat and no filler, just twelve cuts of his trademark growling, spooked blues such as “Smokestack Lightnin'”, “Moanin’ At Midnight” and “Evil”. As such its one of the greatest statements of r ‘n’ b released during the decade. Vee Jay’s I’m John Lee Hooker is a similar collection, although it included five newly taped versions of songs like “Crawlin’ King Snake” and “Boogie Chillun'” as well as recent singles like “Dimples”.

Marty Robbins – Gunfighter Ballads And Trail Songs (Columbia August).

Remarkably all twelve of these tunes were taped in a single session in April 1959. Robbins’ collection of songs about the myths of the old west is still the definitive look at the world of cowboys and gunfighters. “El Paso” was a remarkable hit when most pop 45s were just two minutes long, it stretched out for twice that length and tells the tale of a man who shot a stranger who was seducing his woman, went on the run, and was eventually shot dead by the law, dying in his lover’s arms. Big Iron is about a stranger who comes into a lawless town and takes on an outlaw who has killed the last twenty to try. They draw at forty paces….. (I won’t reveal the end).

The Fabulous Wailers (Golden Crest December).

Unusually for a rock and roll album of its time, all twelve tunes on The Fabulous Wailers were written by the band. It is ten instrumentals and two vocal tracks of high octane rock including “Tall Cool One”, “Dirty Robber” and “Road Runner”. From Tacoma, Washington, the Wailers are the missing link between the rock & roll combos of the fifties and the garage bands of the mid sixties. If you love the Sonics you’ll love this lot too. A few other of my favourites from ’59 included a swing Sinatra (Come Dance with Me) and a sad Sinatra (No One Cares), and a pair of Tom Lehrer albums that feature the same songs live (An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer) and in the studio (More Of Tom Lehrer) of which the former is the pick.

75 Years of the Album: 10. 1958

Another small selection of favourite long players.

Buddy Holly (Coral February).

This album cover has always looked a little odd to me, just because everybody is so used to seeing Holly with his trademark thick-rimmed specs. Also odd was Holly’s set up with record companies. The Crickets were signed to Brunswick, and Holly to Coral. Both acts’ first albums featured the same musicians (although Crickets rhythm guitarist Niki Sullivan only appears on one track here), and Holly gets more writing credits (five) on the Crickets album than he does on his own (three). Norman Petty gets seven, but that’s just the way things were with managers getting a slice of publishing in those days (see also the charming Morris Levy). The dozen songs are brief and to the point, and the pick are the ones written by Holly or his fellow Crickets such as “I’m Gonna Love You Too”, “Peggy Sue”, “Everyday” and “Words of Love”. Holly’s potential is one of the great what-ifs of popular music.

John Coltrane – Blue Train (Blue Note February).

In some ways Blue Train is Coltrane’s most conventional album. It doesn’t sound a great deal different than many other hard bop albums of its day, but it swings, and the self-penned title track in particular is outstanding. The session was recorded in mid-September 1957 with Lee Morgan (trumpet), Curtis Fuller (trombone), Kenny Drew (piano), and Miles Davis’s rhythm section of Paul Chambers (bass) and Philly Joe Jones (drums). Talking of Davis, his album Milestones and French soundtrack Ascenseur pour l’échafaud [Lift to the scaffold] both came out in 1958, the former on Columbia, and the latter as a ten inch LP on Fontana in France. Miles also appeared as a sideman (something he almost never did) on Cannonball Adderley’s fantastic Somethin’ Else. He also wrote its title track.

Frank Sinatra Sings For Only The Lonely (Capitol September).

Artist Nicholas Volpe won a Grammy for his cover portrait of Sinatra as sad clown. Sinatra once claimed this to be his favourite of his own albums, and its not hard to see why. Like In The Wee Small Hours, it’s a torch song collection. The main difference is that these arrangements are allowed to stretch out – only two songs are under four minutes, a rare thing in 1958. Sinatra’s performance is masterful. Nelson Riddle conducted and provided the arrangements, and Bill Miller was responsible for the unforgettable piano accompaniment to album closer “One for My Baby”. Stereo recording was in its infancy in 1958, and it was impossible at the time to press a 54 minute stereo album, so only the mono issue had all twelve songs. The stereo version had only ten. Sinatra also released the breezy Come Fly With Me in January. Both records were nominated for Grammys.

Three other records I should also mention are Count Basie’s Basie, aka The Atomic Mr Basie (Roulette), Bo Diddley (Chess), and Billie Holiday’s harrowing late career classic Lady in Satin (Columbia).

75 Years of the Album: 9. 1957

1957 saw a further expansion of the LP market. Ten inchers were virtually unknown now in the US and UK. Rock and roll, primarily a singles medium until the second half of the sixties, was making a tentative appearance on LP. Some fine albums not covered below include Thelonious Monk’s Brilliant Corners (Riverside), Sonny Rollins’ Saxophone Colossus (Prestige), Charles Mingus’s The Clown (Atlantic), Ella and Louis Again (Verve) and a couple of minor classics by Frank Sinatra: A Swingin’ Affair and Where Are You? (both Capitol).

The Hoffnung Music Festival Concert, Royal Festival Hall 1956 (Columbia UK January) / Michael Flanders and Donald Swann – At the drop of a Hat (Parlophone UK May).

Gerard Hoffnung was German-born cartoonist, broadcaster and amateur tuba player whose satirical drawings gently mocked the classical music world. His popularity amongst the doyens of that scene was vital to the success of his 1956 concert at the Royal Festival Hall which endeavoured to turn the humour of his cartoons into a musical performance. Malcolm Arnold, Gordon Jacob and Norman Del Mar were just a few of many involved performing such eccentricities as grand overture for three vaccuum cleaners and orchestra (by Arnold), a version of Haydn’s ‘Surprise Symphony’ with additional surprises, and virtuoso horn player Dennis Brain performing a concerto for hosepipe and orchestra. A second concert was given in 1958. Hoffnung died the following year, aged just 34. One of the performers at the 1956 concert was Donald Swann. His two man show with his school friend Michael Flanders was an enormous success, and ran for more than 800 performances before they took it to Broadway. The album was recorded live at the Fortune Theatre in London in February 1957 and is a cornerstone of the English satirical music tradition.

Here’s Little Richard (Specialty March).

Nine of the twelve cuts here appeared on singles between 1955 and 1958, so it’s more of a compilation than a bona fide studio album, but it’s a 28 minute blast of high energy. Half of these songs were covered to death by the Merseybeat generation, but no one can touch originals like “Tutti Frutti”, “Long Tall Sally”, “She’s Got It”, “Rip It Up” and the rest. Awesome stuff. There were other LPs similarly constructed of singles, B sides and new tracks that work perfectly as rock and roll albums issued in 1957. Chuck Berry’s After School Sessions (Chess), The Chirping Crickets (Brunswick), The Everly Brothers (Cadence), and Johnny Cash With His Hot and Blue Guitar (Sun) are four of the best.

Count Basie and his Orchestra – April In Paris (Verve April).

Big band music’s heyday was the late thirties and wartime. Its decline in the late forties was swift, and most of the bands were no more by 1950. Some struggled on. Both Basie’s and Ellington’s groups had had a lean time in the early fifties, but by 1957 Ellington had a resurgence of fortune with his 1956 Newport album, and Basie followed suit with this exuberant, swinging set recorded in New York in the summer of ’55 and January ’56. He suits a beret.

Miles Davis +19 – Miles Ahead (Columbia October).

Miles Davis and arranger Gil Evans had worked together in 1949-50 on sessions for Capitol that were issued as the Birth of the Cool album in February 1957. These tracks featured a nonet that included, unusually at the time, French horn and tuba, in addition to more familiar bop instrumentation. Its title is no misnomer. By 1957 this kind of cool bop was commonplace. Davis and Evans took it to the next level with Miles Ahead which featured sixteen other brass and wind players as well as piano, bass and drums. Miles was the only soloist on a set that runs like a continuous suite. This was his second record for Columbia. The first, Round Midnight, was issued in March. Both are classics.

Cult Albums: #4 MILES DAVIS – Quiet Nights (1964)

Barring the stage play soundtrack “The Time Of The Barracudas” (available on the CD reissue of this album), Quiet Nights marked the last collaboration between Miles Davis and Gil Evans. It was thoroughly panned on its release, and at less than 25 minutes long, it’s barely an album at all. Its reputation has never really grown, and it’s never mentioned in the same breath as the great collaborations between the two like Sketches of Spain, Porgy and Bess and Miles Ahead. Which is a shame, because it’s a sweet, and very listenable, record.

At the time of Quiet Nights‘ conception, bossa nova was very much a new thing. By the time it came out in March 1964, it was mainstream, thanks to acts like Stan Getz and João Gilberto. It probably seemed to contemporary critics like an ill-advised attempt to jump on a bandwagon. The tempos are laid back, and some of the orchestrations seem a bit off-key, but Miles’ playing is relaxed and clear. Five of the tunes are covers – only “Song No.1” and “Song No.2” are Evans / Davis originals, and the latter runs to a decidedly trim 96 seconds.

The tracks were recorded in dribs and drabs between July ’62 and April ’63. The last to be laid down, “Summer Night”, was taped without the orchestration as a quintet, and is a cool, stripped down ballad that has little in common with the other tracks. It’s a lovely tune, but feels like it was tacked on the end to boost the running time. Evans and Davis both considered the album unfinished, but Columbia went ahead and released it anyway. Personally, I’m glad they did. While Quiet Nights is hardly up there with the likes of Kind of Blue and Bitches Brew, I think it’s an under-rated record which is probably looked down upon due more to its length than the quality of the music it contains.

Tracks
A1 Song No. 2 (1:36)
A2 Once Upon A Summertime (3:24)
A3 Aos Pes Da Cruz (4:15)
A4 Song No. 1 (4:33)
B1 Wait Till You See Her (4:03)
B2 Corcovado (2:42)
B3 Summer Night (3:19)

CD Bonus Track
The Time Of The Barracudas (12:45)

Originally released on Columbia in March 1964.