The Top 100 Albums of the 1960s E-Book

Jani Ojala

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 819

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

It was the decade my parents were born in. 1,700 albums I listened to, as research. 7 albums a day, with very few off-days, for roughly 1,5 years. Followed by spending a summer reading stories and backgrounds. 36 of these albums have a 10/10-rating from me; the other 64 sitting at 9.5/10. All in all this was way too selective. All in all I'm a little bit exhausted. Come over to the window, darling. I'd like to tell you about music.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Opening words

TOP HUNDRED

#100. Gil Evans –

The Individualism of Gil Evans

#99. Lee Morgan –

The Gigolo

#98. John Coltrane –

Expression

#97. The Rolling Stones –

Aftermath [U.S.]

#96. Duke Ellington –

Swinging Suites by Edward E. & Edward G.

#95. Pedro Iturralde –

Jazz Flamenco!

#94. Thelonious Monk –

Underground

#93. Led Zeppelin –

Led Zeppelin

#92. Dusty Springfield –

Ooooooweeee!!!

#91. The Beatles –

Revolver

#90. Grant Green –

Green Street

#89. Luiz Bonfá –

O violão e o samba

#88. The Ventures –

The Ventures

#87. Otis Redding –

The Soul Album

#86. Dionne Warwick –

Soulful

#85. Dusty Springfield –

A Girl Called Dusty

#84. The Chocolate Watchband –

No Way Out

#83. Big Brother and the Holding Company –

Cheap Thrills

#82. David Axelrod –

Song of Innocence

#81. Berliner Philharmoniker / Herbert von Karajan – Symphonie Nr. 4

#80. Gabór Szábo –

1969

#79. Oscar Brown Jr. –

Sin & Soul

#78. Glenn Gould –

Plays Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony…

#77. Lou Donaldson –

Musty Rusty

#76. Wayne Shorter –

Speak No Evil

#75. Henry Mancini –

Breakfast at Tiffany’s

#74. Vince Guaraldi –

A Charlie Brown Christmas

#73. Muddy Waters –

After the Rain

#72. Artur Rubinstein –

The Nocturnes

#71. The Doors –

Waiting for the Sun

#70. Townes Van Zandt –

Townes Van Zandt

#69. Thelonious Monk –

Monk’s Dream

#68. Glenn Gould –

The Well-Tempered Clavier: Book 1 – P&F1-8

#67. Don Gibson –

Sweet Dreams

#66. Maurice Jarre –

Lawrence of Arabia

#65. Duke Ellington –

The Nutcracker Suite

#64. John Fahey –

Requia

#63. Stan Getz & Luiz Bonfá –

Jazz Samba Encore!

#62. Aretha Franklin –

I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You

#61. Leo Diamond –

Subliminal Sounds

#60. Dexter Gordon –

Go!

#59. Marianne Faithfull –

Faithfull Forever

#58. Dinah Washington –

Unforgettable

#57. New Yorker Philharmoniker / Leonard Bernstein –

Eroica

#56. Donovan –

For Little Ones

#55. Sonny Stitt –

Primitivo Soul

#54. Glenn Gould –

Emperor Concerto

#53. Frank Zappa –

Hot Rats

#52. Roland Kirk –

I Talk with the Spirits

#51. Booker Ervin –

The Freedom Book

TOP FIFTY

#50. Isaac Hayes –

Hot Buttered Soul

#49. The Ronettes –

Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes Featuring Veronica

#48. McCoy Tyner –

The Real McCoy

#47. John Coltrane –

Giant Steps

#46. The Philadelphia Orchestra / Eugene Ormandy –

Symphony No. 10

#45. Gerry Mulligan –

Night Lights

#44. The Jimi Hendrix Experience –

Electric Ladyland

#43. Creedence Clearwater Revival –

Willy and the Poor Boys

#42. Eric Dolphy –

Out to Lunch!

#41. Thelonious Monk –

Straight, No Chaser

#40. Vince Guaraldi & Bola Sete –

Vince Guaraldi, Bola Sete and Friends

#39. The Lively Ones –

Surf City

#38. Berliner Philharmoniker / Herbert von Karajan –

Requiem KV 626

#37. Nat King Cole & George Shearing –

Sings / Plays

#36. Miles Davis –

In a Silent Way

#35. Nina Simone –

Wild Is the Wind

#34. Muddy Waters –

Fathers and Sons

#33. Berliner Philharmoniker / Herbert von Karajan –

Symphonie Nr. 5

#32. The Rolling Stones –

Beggars Banquet

#31. Count Basie –

The Count Basie Story

#30. Nick Drake –

Five Leaves Left

#29. Horace Silver –

Serenade to a Soul Sister

#28. The Chocolate Watchband –

The Inner Mystique

#27. Antônio Carlos Jobim –

The Composer of Desafinado, Plays

#26. The Beach Boys –

Pet Sounds

#25. Grant Green –

Idle Moments

#24. Piero Umiliani –

La Morte Bussa Due Volte

#23. The Ventures –

(The Ventures) In Space

#22. The Beatles –

Abbey Road

#21. Donovan –

Sunshine Superman

TOP TWENTY

#20. David Axelrod –

Songs of Experience

#19. The Doors –

Strange Days

#18. Bob Dylan –

Blonde on Blonde

#17. Dexter Gordon –

A Swingin’ Affair

#16. Otis Redding –

Complete & Unbelievable…

#15. Lou Donaldson –

Mr. Shin-A-Ling

#14. Charles Mingus –

The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady

#13. The Supremes –

Where Did Our Love Go

#12. Tim Buckley –

Happy Sad

#11. Bobby Hutcherson –

Total Eclipse

TOP TEN

#10.

#9.

#8.

#7.

#6.

TOP FIVE

#5.

#4.

TOP THREE

#3.

#2.

#1.

Closing Words:

Change and dreams

OPENING WORDS

It was the decade my parents were born in.

You're not doing anybody else but yourself a favor by exploring the 60s; no amount of said exploration is too much. If there ever was a definitive time of the Western world changing, re-evaluating the status quo and making social change, forward-thinking strides in art and entertainment, new art-forms and expansions on older templates that forever redefine the way we look at art itself, the sixties were it.

The sixties were it.

Take a look at some of the first albums coming out in 1960, now look at the latest album you know from 1969. No time in music has been so DEFINED BY CHANGE as this decade.

I took the research/roundup for this project, on a year-by-year basis. As that progress chugged along I realized I should post top-50s representing every year, as markers of my progress!

In my blog-post about the best albums of 1960 I said: ”These albums were particularly fun to check out in-service of the bigger goal here. […] 1960, man. The turn of the decade, a modest sixty years ago.

Good, mostly innocent music that comes in concise packaging and is easy to digest. Gotta love the early sixties.” (January 30, 2020)

When I wrote about 1961 I said: ”This was easily one of the best years of music I’ve ever experienced. There were points I couldn’t believe the pace this great music was hitting me with. Definitely blew 1960 out of the water, and made me distressedly curious and eager about seeing what’s still to come.” (January 31, 2020)

When I wrote about 1962 I said: ”There was what came before the late sixties, and there was what came after it. I’m still eagerly awaiting the time when I get to ’66-’69. […] But 1962 disproved the only negative inclination I had in my own mind about the early sixties. These were not simple times. This was a diverse year.” (March 8, 2020)

When I wrote about 1963: ”Whereas 1962’s lesson was the sealing of the fact that the early sixties were not a simplistic time… 1963 just kept on uppercutting me with incredible music, antagonizing and patronizing me for ever having doubted its all-powerfulness. […] ’63 isn’t only remembered for packing in huge amounts of Latin experiments and thousands of renditions of the song Desafinado. Surf Rock was also at its’ most active, and at its’ peak of quality. […] Blue Note Records stepped in kinda like the task force up in this bitch. […] Grant Green felt the spirit and soared right into my heart with his soulful manifesto and his Latin bit. Dinah Washington switched arrangers and revolutionized her whole sound. Sam Cooke found that rasp in his voice. Henry Mancini kept being great, the Berlin Philharmonic finished their cycle of Beethoven-symphonies, and The Beatles debuted.

And of course…

…Charles Mingus.” (April 17, 2020)

When I wrote about 1964: ”1964 expanded on everything. If 1962 proved to me that my suppositions of simplicity back in my ignorant days were entirely ill-informed, and if 1963 kept uppercutting me with that same realization, 1964 was an expansion of all the reasons why I turned around on this period, and brought new angles and dimension to that belief. […] 1964: the halfway point. The year Atlantic milked their previous Jazz rosters for that scrilla, the year The Kinks and The Rolling Stones debuted, the year the Motown Records-Sound was introduced to the masses, the year when originality was the rule, and pop-standards from the 1930s-40s were the exception, for the first time in known memory. Blue Note kept being dominant. […] And of course…

…Something came along, that finally got me into Blues.” (May 10, 2020)

About 1965: ”Some were on a come-up, some made their final marks. British Rhythm & Blues and Garage Rock were on the rise, and you could smell it in the air_.

You could smell it in the air.

Exotica and Space Age Pop didn’t die, but you could feel their influence start to wither as Bob Dylan paved some new artistic paths, going thoroughly misunderstood throughout the process […] That one little charming man from Georgia, had come out of the woodworks the previous year, too. But I wasn’t quite sure about him. I found an amazing amount of talent and quality in his 1964 debut, but wasn’t sure if his touch was gonna get more ”hands-on” in the future albums or not.

…

…My doubts were eradicated.” (August 14, 2020)

About 1966: ”It was still in the air.

Blue Note had the highest batting-average on the majority of my top fifties from this decade. What was left for the biggest powerhouse in music itself, to accomplish?

Well world-domination, of course!

Other things were happening too. Everybody from Brazil and their mother seemed to be making good music. For some reason, Modern Classical music of all streams and venues had a surprisingly vibrant go-around-the sun. The first incarnation of Psychedelic Rock was already making waves but the lumbering beast was still waiting patiently, for its’ time.” (October 26, 2020)

1967: ”Psychedelic Rock was already making waves but the lumbering beast was still waiting patiently, for its’ time.

What a thing to say. This year right after 1966, Jimi Hendrix and The Beatles and The Doors and all types of vibrant characters – who nowadays have their names echoing in the halls of the musical Infinite, in-large-part due to these very contributions to music – helped make Rock music a new, serious and somewhat competitive landscape that had formed as suddenly as night turns into morning.

I couldn’t have been more excited when I was done with 1966 and knew that what was ahead of me – all that’s left in my research-process – were the three years of music I’ve been most-eager to deeply explore, for a long time now.

None of this is said to de-value all my endeared takeaways about earlier years, all the music that found itself etched into my heart and my state-of-being, music I fell utterly in love with. But Jesus Christ. 1967.

A thing that could alone have made this year remarkable, was that ’67 is when Jimi Hendrix debuted, Al Green debuted, James Carr, Pink Floyd debuted, The Doors debuted, Sly & The Family Stone debuted, Leonard Cohen debuted, Van Morrison (unwillingly) debuted as a solo artist.

A thing that could alone have made this year remarkable, was how the persistent wind in Blue Note’s sails still managed to get that house in the top-tiers where it stood at the top, the last two years, towering over the crowd. This label could still do no wrong in 1967.

A thing that could alone have made this year remarkable, was how Antônio Carlos Jobimkept dominating. He had three albums out of ’67’s Top 50, which says much more than when John Coltrane did those numbers in my earlier yearly-lists because the competition, sadly, wasn’t as hardcore in '60-'61 as it is here. One thing you need to understand about Mr. Jobim, the singular individual embodiment of the sound of Brazil, is that this man already had more songs in the Great American Songbook of standards than probably anybody else – certainly more from the 50s and 60s. All of his famous songs came before this year. This year he just got a brand new bag, and still dominated a year the way he did.

A thing that could alone have made this year remarkable, was how much obscure releases of very regional music hit my radar and absolutely knocked my socks off, amidst all this other craziness goin’ on.

And what else… The Velvet Underground and Nico debuted. John Coltrane put his horn down for good. Numerous incredible soundtracks, creative energy blowin’ out of the Summer of Love’s collective wazoo.” (November 30, 2020)

1968: ”The famous Summer of Love was over but all things socially going on, despite taking darker turns on-occasion, yielded in largely expected new inspiration. Young people everywhere had gathered around the creative space that the turn into the late-sixties, had established and made impossible not to notice.

1968 came, and now it was time for artists to expand. Expand on their expression, expand on their output, the sound created by studio-manipulation which was starting to get looked at differently everywhere thanks to recent giant-releases like Pet Sounds and Strange Days.

There was no stopping 1968. Across all genres, it was a joyride of bright new talents and colorful new ideas. It was in the artwork, it was in the performance and in the execution. Despite being one of the most turmoil-fueled years of the mid-20th century, and all-around a time of uncertainty and change… maybe even because of it… 1968 was a year of giant creative steps.

Blue Note kept chugging along ahead of everybody else. Crazy Rock acts like The Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Doors, The Chocolate Watchband, Big Brother & The Holding Company, Pink Floyd, Crazy World of Arthur Brown, were laying down creative landmarks that would be looked at as representing the times just as much as their own definitive stages, as history looks back on them now. […] The greatest sci-fi film of all time got released. Starring a character named David Bowman on an incredible odyssey, it would set ever-the-memorable precedent for a coming year which everybody knew – it was in the air_ – would be colossal.

And of course…

…there was the decade’s best album.” (March 4, 2021)

1969: ”Nine 10/10 albums.

9.

Good years, incredible ones that I heard hundreds of records from, prior to this, at most have managed like five. 1969 managed NINE.

The free love-movement and the creative new waves surrounding it were at their peak. Hollywood had changed, music had gotten way more complex in the past two years, more mysterious, more inspired by the world around it. Woodstock (for better or for worse) happened in August. A man walked on the moon and David Bowie’s Space Oddity was playing from radios.

Progressive Rock as a standalone subgenre was basically created in England.

Miles Davis ushered in a whole new age of Jazz music – something the late sixties had been building towards with their under-hand, but needed somebody to really announce. Jazz Fusion was here. The old, acoustic way of doing things was going to be over for a time. The complete takeover of rich, electric textures and deep rhythms, is easily the biggest revolution Jazz experienced since the emergence of Modal Jazz a decade ago. Some could take that comparison even further back, to when the 1940s made it clear Bebop was the new thing.

King Crimson debuted. Nick Drake debuted. Led Zeppelin debuted. Frank Zappa (as a solo artist) debuted. The Meters debuted. Tony Williams debuted. Roberta Flack debuted. Jukka Tolonen debuted. 1969 is the greatest year of recorded music.” (April 13, 2021)

I had more and more to say, the more I heard. But truthfully… none of the things I’ll say about this decade, are gonna be more valuable to you than finding out things about the history and legacy of all of these albums, some of them celebrated and some forgotten, some boundary-pushing and some appeal-driven… some trendy, some influential… I forgot what I was saying.

Welcome to reading my top 100 albums of the 1960s.

TOP HUNDRED

#100.

Gil Evans

The Individualism of Gil Evans

(1964)

(Jazz; Post-Bop, Progressive Big Band)

Since this is the first writeup of my 60s-list, I'd like to open by mentioning something else.

This list will be different from My Top 100 Albums of the 2010s. That's it

Alright! so--

--no, I guess I gotta elaborate on that.

For the 60s I didn't go AS overboard with the extent of my research – listening to the albums of the era, throwing ish on the wall and seeing what sticks – as I did with what I dubbed "The most significant decade of my life". I remember having heard and rated 2,4k albums for that project – and it's not a number that you easily forget about – meanwhile, it says on my RYM-page that I've heard 1,7k albums from the 1960s as of today. Well Jani what's the deal? You're clearly unprepared!

Well thanks for that eloquent question, fella. I thought about the possibility of this being seen that way, too, but I don't really know. Is it all that unlikely for a thorough album-roundup, which covers a whole decade, to be bigger in numbers when you were alive that decade? When you were listening to 200-300 new albums per the last few years just as a way to have your finger on the pulse, of what’s going on?

So there you go.

All this history is unimportant though – actually it's tiresome to talk about it even; to go over the numbers again. What I meant to say by all this, is that I have different goals for my 60s-list than I did for my 2010s-list.

You don't need to know all of those goals yet, because we're just getting started and we got time to talk about them in more detail later! But one of those goals is to drop a lot of factoids on you too, because the 60s are a great thing to learn about! Like did you know that The Individualism of Gil Evans got 2 alternate cover-arts during its' time of reissues?

That was just the first fun fact of many, trust me there’s gonna be a lot.

The Individualism of Gil Evans (or just The Individualism, for short) is a record with stature to you if you're any degree of a Jazz-fan and therefore know who Gil Evans was. There's no ranking of Evans' albums where this and Out of the Cool (1961) don't get ranked in the top-tier positions, and that's not even to be hyperbole about it.

Out of the Cool won't be on this list by the way – disappointingly enough. It was the record that made me interested in Gil's output! ..but it got like maybe seven placements too low, and had to be cut. You'd think "top 100" doesn't feel exclusive, wouldn't you?

This is also something I’m gonna mention often in these reviews. How much I dislike the exclusivity.

There's good reason for the significant recognition of these two records, however. This really is something quite separate from the wider "market" there was out in '64. The Individualism sits in a peculiar place as just described, but just as much as that, it takes the listener to a place, that's been hard for me to decide whether it feels OBE-levels of comfortable, or... really kind of dangerous.

I trust you and everything, Gil, but... why are there grey clouds gathering above my house?

It's like these piano-embellishes that come on about a minute into The Individualism's runtime, really have a cinematic presentation. It's a patient moment with little peaks, adding a great deal to the combination of flavors that is the intro-- listen, there's rain coming in right now as I take notes of this album and even though I'm no kooky goofy looney gooney who thinks such a thing as music inviting thunder over, is real, this rain is really making me feel a-different-ways right now as I play The Individualism – different than I've felt about it before.

As these two things coincided on this late-June's day, it instantly registered as a natural pairing of moods. The sky, the...

...look, the human eyes are strange. They react to stark contrasts and moments like this, when I'm supposed to say something about a record I find a lot of great value in - value that has registered on all those previous listen-throughs as abstract but such an abstraction that I'm finding new meaning for it right now, as we speak, even.

There's red bricks on my apartment-complex's exterior walls. The most regular-colored red bricks, with the most cement-color cement. But just as this music speaks to me and I've at some point switched tracks, my perceptive system feels as though it is surrendering, in an odd way, to the observant side's work.

This is so natural, this music.

Listening to The Individualism, and knowing that a thunderstorm is coming any moment from now – it is such a riveting moment. A moment unlike any that you talk about in passing/passive social settings.

Fun fact: Miles Davis has co-writing credits on two of this album's compositions: Time of the Barracudas and Flute Song/Hotel Me.

Any moment from now will be different. Winds will blow, rain will hit the ground sideways and lightning will make the sky that I look at every day, appear as it never appears. In more concentrated a flash.

But this album is a time-capsule. This music is that feeling, stranded on an abstracted peak, that is only there because it is imagined.

What a great power it is, to manifest ideas into art.

This music is the moment just before a storm hits. It is, how singular that moment feels.

Not to mention the fuckin' winds near the-- man, this is such a standalone-opus. Anyway, the winds around my world just as something is about to change. The winds, that this long opening-epic's playful little elements embody... they are one. No matter how much of a winding nature, wailing tone The Individualism is recognized for having... it can counterbalance the minutia of a mood that you could have easily slipped into while listening to albums just like it... and the way it answers that minutia is by being the storm.

The Barbara Song has something understated but easily-digested about it; something that tells you that more is still yet to come, even though what you've just taken in, is so instinct-driven and full of flavor.

There is nothing else besides Gil's own brilliance in-arrangement, to credit when talking about how incredibly gloriously Las Vegas Tango works out a momentous introduction that just about overshadows other similar moments I've already praised. The piano-portions of the song are something I particularly love.

The song then proceeds to show an exercise in brilliant progressions which require actually some of your actual attention to experience in their full capacity.

Now, out of these four cuts, the longest one, Flute Song/Hotel Me – just two minutes longer than The Barbara Song – responds to what came before it in a way, by showing something that is really like seamlessness in huge big galavanting progressions. Progressions’re really a part of it that carry the emotion of it and really certify its effect as... either the storm or life post-storm, if I had to come up with a sudden nature-metaphor right here and now without any prep, ehe.

This track's got a way of always leaving me with a fresh feeling after it's over, and that is probably this album's whole biggest overall mystery. The transitions to other pieces (however distinguished among each other) are always seamless, and very many listens through The Individualism have left me feeling like less time had passed, than really did.

In 1964 came out something like a ”big 4” of this strange, winding seeking kind of Post-Bop with distinguished-enough avantgarde-aspirations not to even call it… well, for timeline-reasons you could call them all a Post-Bop record. But that term doesn't do the necessary work to describe, just how ambitious their sound is. Jackie McLean is the head performer of two of these albums, Destination Out! and One Step Beyond, and plays saxophone throughout Grachan Moncur III’s Evolution was well. Moncur appears on both McLean’s albums, too. See those other three that I put in the same pedestal as The Individualism Of…, were Blue Note-albums. Gil’s isn’t. What’s impressive about it is how much material of this kind – all distinguished from each other by the tones they go for, but connected with the same kind of ”aimlessly” experimental characteristics – Jazz-fans got that year, how much people seemed to arrive at it independently and how I’m sure Blue Note’s forward-looking record-executives heightened their standard after Moncur and McLean showed new dimensions of Post-Bop’s capacity – dipping into Modality whenever they could. …but Gil Evans was already here. His album from three years ago, Out of the Cool, was already sounding like this. I just find that inspiring, and I’m saddened I couldn’t put any of these other three 1964-albums into the countdown – Out of the Cooljust missed its’ placement, too – it’s just too selective. But, I knew that’s what would happen when I started this. I just think it’s amazing that groundbreaking music like this came out not one, two or three times but four, in one year that people still seem to think wasn’t that ”developed” a time for music. It was. You just gotta look for it.

The Individualism is an experience that I tend to leave with a feeling like every itch is scratched. Oddly descriptively said, maybe, yes, but it is such a complete feeling that it's close to being physical.

#99.

Lee Morgan

The Gigolo

(1968)

(Jazz; Hard Bop)

This is the first out of 13 albums in this Top 100, that were released by Blue Note Records. I did not exaggerate with all the high praise I gave to the label for its' high batting-average and domination, when I mentioned it a couple times in the first words.

13 entries out of just one label. That’s like, thirteen percent!

I must say, something that's an underrated quality of Lee Morgan albums – something that I started paying heavy attention to this summer as I finished listening to his discography – is that he always seems to pick just the perfect pianist. Like, seriously, it's incredible, the consistency in this department whether the album is a high flight of fancy or a less flavorful experience (not a lot of the latter ones in the discography, by the way; it comes highly recommended from me). It's hardly even the same guy on the keys of each album. Herbie Hancock, Wynton Kelly and in this album's case, Harold Mabern Jr. have left behind scorching performances on Lee's records, even as counterparts to his charge over the session.

Seriously, go check out a Lee Morgan album – I'm not even gonna say which specific one, because it's pretty much always there – and discover this for yourself. As stated above, the most impressive aspect of that to me is how the pianist changes so often – session-to-session, it seems – and the same flame just reignites.

I thought of all of that because the piano is a great big part of the first, Morgan-penned cut Yes I Can, No You Can't. Widely considered the choice cut from this album, it's certainly the one that sets the tone with standout-performances across the board, some more pronounced than others.

Trapped has a nice solo/portion of trumpet right before the halfway-mark which I'm really gonna do no favors by describing. It should merely be observed and admired.

The third track, Speedball is something special. It really comes in and works out in this wonderful way, to being a showcase of why this album – the details of its execution, the sheer command over each and every given note – should be rightfully-considered a celebration of Lee's talents not just as a trumpeter, that much is very explicitly stated. Further revisiting of this album as well as other Lee's albums, have just lead me further and further down the rabbithole, in my listening-experience, of just trying to find out how he does such an effortlessly magical job of leading a band. Instruments and players, as words in a riddle might have understated parts and a given track's "division of labor" does usually make it clear that this is Lee Morgan's album, through-and-throughbut, yeah it just keeps working out that way.

I hope some of that description made sense. It's a strong feeling I get. Speedball is this album's individual players' capabilities, all somehow simultaneously peaking before it's over. It represents fulfillment~

Shit, the drums alone! They're so true to the title Speedball and while a good capper for the composition, it also leaves one feeling like more was coming. It built up that much tension while constantly peaking. Pretty amazing honestly.

Lee carries with his trumpet, in this title-track, the main tune in a way that... is something that every player should aspire to achieve. Y'know, trumpeters never were the most famous playas in Jazz, maybe besides Miles Davis who's the most famous out of the whole genre's most-current zeitgeist. But that's enough of excessive wordiness from me, what I'm meaning to say is, in anybody's first phases of discovering Jazz, trumpet-players aren't gonna be at the top of artist-lists that peers recommend you. Great pianists are gonna be listed in those forum-posts or MusicBook-group-chats, great drummers yes, great saxophonist you best believe it! But trumpet-players… There can come to be a disconnect. The saxophonists are the show-stealers, the loudest and most brazenly performative. Still, just as much as in my earlier stages of Jazz-discovery, as now as a pretty seasoned listener/collector... Lee Morgan always makes the trumpet sound like an instrument that no man can play quite like him. He doesn't need to claim that. He states it.

And listen, I'm aware that what I'm listening to – as I stream this record from YouTube, whilst writing this – is a later remastering of The Gigolo. Probably by Rudy Van Gelder (whaddup Rudieh). But I gotta say, there was a little bit of a pause at the end of this album's longest – titular – track and the way it comes on in-conjunction with the amount of electricity radiating from every moving part of the epic piece... almost like a break for catching your breath.

Immediately following said break, Lee and his band's take on the standard You Go to My Head, follows along in that same vein. It is such a cool breeze of a song. The amazing contrasts from the high pressure going on a moment ago, into this cool late-50s nightclub scene that only Lee Morgan's tradition-appreciating approach can rightfully transition to. This is like the last secret ingredient. Wonderful, amazingly well-done, and I hope it was sequenced like this across issues of The Gigolo, because the contrast of it, really makes a difference in how the last track's first moments land.

#98.

John Coltrane

Expression

(1967)

(Jazz; Free Jazz, Avant-Garde Jazz)

September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967John Coltrane put down his horn for good.

This is the first posthumously-released John Coltrane-recording. The majority of its' completion and general oversight of the music, is considered to be by John, in that this was the last thing he worked on during his lifetime.

The first and last regular thing about Expression is that Ogunde – the shortest track here, and introductory piece – is the length of a traditional song. There's some real snake-charming shit going on in the saxophone-side of the track. It's an inviting precursor for an inviting full-body experience of an album. Coltrane-band's dynamics once again, even after his death, promise an excitement and curiosity in the seeking nature with which we've come acquainted, throughout the spiritual sixties.

Going quickly forward from that, To Be starts off remarkably subdued, almost lingering, with Coltrane switching to flute in a switch that... was more unexpected, than the familiarity it quickly achieves in my experience, would allow me to suspect.

Such a great movement, fulfilling the promise of Ogunde's warm invitation which characterized the opener. To Be goes to such a wild variety of places in tone and momentum, it's full of intrigue but a moment of high catharsis at the same time, as it chugs along.

I don't wanna get controversial, but it's inevitable: A Love Supreme (1965) won't be on this list. John Coltrane will appear two more times after this, and after the usual suspect was just declared not to be in the running, it's probably easy to guess what the other two are – which is fine.

The reason mentioned that now, is that in a way, I think Expression also fulfills the promise of A Love Supreme. There's actual climax, instead of rampant, intense buildup mostly taking over the record's runtime. The '65 signature-Coltrane-album goes to a lot of places, covers a lot of ground but really spends more time building towards something than arriving at said something. In my six years of listening to it, that has been my experience at least.

That's probably an opinion that some people will disagree with. That's alright. Things like that are gonna happen.

This album – but this composition in-particular – is full of intrigue but an achievement in climax at the same time. "You see, everything's not always about what you listen to, do, or see. Often how is the key word. Two men could be on top of the world, or at the bottom of a pit – still falling down – while both of them stare at the same wall." A doctor in a dream-sequence of Ice Road said that.

It should be no secret that To Be is my choice for this album's best track. It cements it. It cements everything, legitimizing the tracks before and after it just a twinge more just by appearing in-conjunction.

I've also never been a full-on denier of a posthumous music. I think Infinity (1972) is another legitimate gem from Coltrane, with a unique tonality to it and just the right touches from Alice Coltrane creatively overseeing the release. His wife who outlived him, really blessed the (incredible) scraps of material with her own immaculate harp-accompaniment and oversight as a producer, and it's definitely not an experience you should brush over just on the count of it being released after John's death.

If anything you'll read here about Expression makes you wanna listen to it despite it being a posthumous release, I recommend Infinity just as much as that.

But I'm still not done with To Be. This thing makes me feel so much as it ventures into those strange places. With the winds flowing so without-apparent-control, almost like they're mimicking the free nature of the element they themselves are named after.

What a thing to say... what a thing to breathe in. I remember those times from when I was a child and pedaling on my way home, in a direction that just happened on that day to be against the wind. Sometimes when it blew really hard against my face, I would just get caught up in a moment when it was hard to inhale. To Be, and all it encompasses, all it expresses, woes out a different kind of breathlessness. Definitely one more fulfilling than that, but still one that made me think of that anyway.

It's palpably inviting. It's... not far unlike I'm a snake being charmed. Have you ever considered all the things a snake thinks of, all the things a snake goes through internally when music is too much for him to respond to, in any way other than moving its whole physical body in-accordance? Damn, man, this is strong stuff. This is... expression, innit?

Offering is an understated piece, in most ways, but so fucking essential to the overall flow of things. It in a way, has Coltrane the individual playing, saying the most even though it isn't as huge and palpable as the epic composition it had to follow up.

'Cause also at the same time as To Be is far-and-away the centerpiece of Expression – its' solar highlight – Offering draws a great majority of the focus to Coltrane's musical voice and showcases the directions he can still take things such as momentum – and we're talking about a moment in the track-listing where that very thing has been taken to tremendous places as is. Rashied Ali's drums here are an impressive accompaniment, but they're still an accompaniment and as leader, John seems to know – or someone putting this album together, knew – when it was time for the tenor-legend to just take over and show, in his space-appreciatin' way how to hone in just the appropriate emotion. It takes the experience, the ride, away from To Be and it's still clear it's moving us forward.

Toward something.

"This album is worth it alone for the middle section of Offeringwhere John sounds like an 80s Nintendo game on meth." —RateYourMusic-user kepp

Offering really is the densest, most in-the-moment part of this journey. It's less theatrical, tries more to be a showcase and pulls all the focus in, back home. I think this laser-focus on momentum alone makes it worth highlighting.

Then...

The title-track is brought in with some of the most gorgeous piano-melodies from Coltrane's wife. Just the right thing to kick off this song – which later turns out to be quite the condensation of all these ideas. Alice's piano enjoys such fulfilling segments in the titular capper of Expression that you kind of notice, the secret is in how she does not hit "just the right notes".

What are "right notes"?

The piano just knows, here, what the saxophone needs to feel elevated down to that last bit of satisfaction. The last longer piano-portion of Expression gives way wonderfully to one last saxophone-solo from John, and it really is the thesis-statement. But both Coltranes are strong enough here to leave a memory.

To leave a memory.

Expression.

To be.

With the memory being established, cemented, uh... I'm not even talking about the piano-saxophone interplay here, am I?

Hah.

With the memory cemented, all the great things established standing so freshly as feelings in our miind... We'll be excused to feel that there simply has to be meaning to it. With such obvious meaning to the earnestness of the experience... well this is what expression is all about. Living within us, as this feeling. As meaning.

#97.

The Rolling Stones

Aftermath [U.S.]

(1966)

(Rock; Blues Rock, British Rhythm & Blues)

This entry is specifically about the U.S. issue of this album (which was released in July) and not the original issue (which was released in April).

OK, besides Paint It, Black there's another reason I think these are two different – quality-wise distinct – album-experiences. This tracklist's succession just seems to make way more sense than what the original succession was. It's a much more fluid movement from songs that can be very different from one another. How much the inclusion of The Stones' most famous song, factored into that, it's hard to judge. To me it was quite the anchor.

The first Stones-record to have all-original material written and performed by the band and nobody else. This album was meant to be titled Could You Walk on Water? for a time, and a cover was going to be used that depicts Jesus walking on water. Both ideas were rejected by Decca Records.

What easily distinguishes the U.S. and U.K. versions from one another – literally on first glance – is that the people behind the decision to split it into such wildly different issues, also had the good mind to have different cover-photograph for both first-year-issues.

Per the website pophistorydig, Paint It, Black is about the funeral of a girl from her lover's viewpoint, and he wants the color of everything to match his mood.

”I see a red door and I want it painted black.”

Knowing the story that this album’s first song – and the faraway-favorite with the most storied legacy – is, helps you make sense of a lot of the narration, place it within a setting and a feeling, y'know.

Technically speaking, however, there's only one line throughout the whole course of the song that states it plainly that there is grieving for another person, going on.

"I could not foresee this thing happening to you."

That line itself... if it was never explained, never had been given a concrete meaning to by the writer in retrospective interviews, there would never be an official answer to the question of this line – there suddenly being a you in this story.

There would, however, be an emotional answer. Emotionally, this song flowed for me just the same before I heard what the narrative specifically depicts, as it did after. The whole thing is just such an instinctual thingamagoocus that I've always admired, as a writer, about songwriters. How things are inherently true, maybe even "artistically true", without needing to "report" settings and feelings. They words themselves are vehicles for feelings.

Keith Richards explained how Paint It Black came together: "We were in Fiji for about three days. They make sitars and all sorts of Indian stuff. Sitars are made out of watermelons or pumpkins or something smashed so they go hard. They’re very brittle and you have to be careful how you handle them. We had the sitars, we thought we’d try them out in the studio To get the right sound on Paint It Black we found the sitar fitted perfectly. We tried a guitar but you can’t bend it enough."

Not that I would ever glamorize such a thing, but Brian Jones the founder of the Stones, is also a famous member of the 27 club. If you're reading this, a blog-series about the best albums of the 1960s, I know you already know what that club is. So I'm not gonna waste your time by throwing the definition of the term here now. I just gotta say, the name of that figurative "club" is mystified to a degree by music/pop-culture historians.

This intruge, with artists that have troubled lives… That's just something our sensation-seeking minds collectively conjure up, I suppose, and that's what it is.

Anyway, due to this intrigue I looked up Brian Jones and his contributions to Aftermath – whichever region's iteration – and going deeper into it, it was quite amazing to find out just how much he made this album sound the way it did. Brian basically was the psychedelic direction, and after his departure from the Stones, there were second thoughts about the whole trippy incentive.

The opening-song's sitars are just the touch it needed. It would've never been the same whole coverage of an emotion without Brian's great outside-the-box thinking for acquired instruments. And yeah I know things like marimbas and sitars aren't that uncommon, but they were classified as a creative solution to make you Rock song sound different in the mid-60s, definitely.

This was 1966. There were these two giant bands, the Bri'ish Bad Boys and the Fab Five who seemed to be setting trends with experiences they, as young artists, went through on their travels, and it all seemed to happen seemingly in a vacuum. Or at least that's how it must've felt to the population, with how seamlessly each act – in a playful competition with one another – kept re-setting the stage for what's a cool new thing to do in Rock music – constantly, year after year.

Brian Jones was a big part in Rolling Stones going more psychedelic in the years after their first couple outings, their initial hit-records. Brian's departure lead to the Stones going for a more Roots-oriented sound, but that's not here is it? This album is Brian Jones' vision come-to-life, and Paint It, Black by sound alone is the first invitation to this.

Mick Jagger said about Lady Jane: "Lady Jane is a complete sort of very weird song. I don't really know what that's all about myself. All the names are historical but it was really unconscious that they should fit together from the same period."

Under My Thumb was also a hit, and it's easy to see why. Effortless. Such a landmark-song to pinpoint the midway-point of your album with – maybe not technically, but in the abstract arc of its' momentum I see/experience when I listen to this diverse ol' collection. The song also has a – I tried to resist saying this, I swear – big thumbprint of Brian's. His barimba-riffs really drive the thing in a clear way. Against the lightly-sinister meaning that could be detected, this light sound is such a lifelike contrast.

Lifelike. Yes, that's just how it feels. No, I won't elaborate.

Marianne Faithfull said in her 1994 autobiography, Faithfull, that Under My Thumb was loosely inspired by Mick Jagger’ dysfunctional relationship with his previous lover before Marianne, Chrissia Shrimpton.

Doncha Bother Me has a sound like it had come to me straight off a Scorsese-movie from somewhere in the 80s, 90s or 2000s. What a versatile guy, that man. "There is a deep, intrinsic and gratifying relationship between esteemed director Martin Scorsese and the iconic rock 'n' roll band", said Far Out Magazine in a March 2021 article of theirs.

Alright, the question is still bound to be on somebody's mind. Why did I choose specifically the U.S. version; effectively make this the weirdest entry here? Was one song really enough to do that?

Yes, and no. That's kind of the wrong way to think about it. I just see... see this album as something that needs an anchor for how much of a variety there is in-between songs. I think all the other songs – the changes in tracklist weren't even to a quarter of each issue's songs – make more sense as a full body of work, with an anchor. You don't listen to full albums just to hear a given number of songs (in most cases for the 60s, twelve). You kinda want the whole of those songs, to be something on its' own too. Something that you can't get from just one song.

That's what Paint It, Black helps this album's experience, achieve for me. In artistic direction and narrative-content and just how gratifying the then-unlikely instrument choices were. Other songs embody that as well, but the flow of the tracklist needed a strong precedent to be set.

Think about a great episode of your favorite TV show that just leaves you feeling – in different ways from the other episodes around it – like you just went through a lot of action vicariously.

What characterizes those episodes is that their scenes are usually short and they start with something that establishes stakes or an aesthetic that's hittin' different.

There's one more Rolling Stones-album coming on later in this list. I gotta say, for everything

[I took a pause for breath at this point of taking notes]

For how much of a less-than song in this tracklist it's considered to be, High and Dry is actually the one closest to that second Stones-entry, in indicating what 60s-sound of the Stones I found to be their best combination.

Lastly, I really gotta love how straight-forward It's Not Easy Is.

"It's so HURHD!" Jagger sings in the chorus, and in come the backing vocals with a reaffirmation: "It's not eeaseh ...."

Sometimes it's best just to just put it bluntly like that! Make sure the people hear ya! Even at the back!

ADDITIONAL NOTES

A friend of mine had

Paint It, Black

as his ringtone for as many years as I remember him having that old Nokia. Prior to me ever learning to love the album the song was on, I obviously knew

Paint It, Black

from various places – for how big it was on its’ own, but the only real-world application of the song for me, was ”oh yeah that was Joonas’ ringtone”. I always thought it said a lot about his person, that he would never through all those years want to change that tone into anything else. He wanted it just the way it was.

Black

.

#96.

Duke Ellington

Swinging Suites by Edward E. & Edward G.: Duke Ellington and His Orchestra Play Interpretations of Peer Gynt Suites Nos. 1 and 2 / Suite Thursday(1961)

(Jazz; Swing, Progressive Big Band)

Name rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?

So let's start this review by talking about how well Ellington did, covering the immortal Peer Gynt by Edward Grieg.

He did good. That's why you're reading about it in my 60s-list. Alright, good night, see y'again soon!

Jk jk haha just jokes ha.

It's quite amazing how you don't have to look far at all into the music to see this album's pure sentiment of taking something that is truly classic, truly cemented as a bit of music-history; music-history from my region of the world nonetheless! Something that lives through time as a masterpiece, and interpreting it in Duke's own familiar accent so well the "personal take" on the material is extremely easy to see the charm of. Shit, Morning Mood might even feel a bit confusing until the flutes come in and state the main melody of the iconic opening-piece. The work to get to that melody… was just a moment I adore.

The added layer of the easy-going percussion... it feels almost like something the original composition was lacking in some distant way, that's how good it is. Really, if there ever was a stand-up, genre-crossing cover-effort between Classical and Jazz... you know the rest.

Fun fact(oid): The Philadelphia Orchestra/Eugene Ormandy's 1948 orchestrated rendition of Peer Gynt is my AOTD of the whole 1940s-decade! A list that I worked out and put up at RateYourMusic (@DukeOjala) at the same time as I was ranking this one.

You know... anybody who's listened to Peer Gynt in their lives... come across it, or listened to it for... for fun, let's say... will have their whole listening-history of the work consist of mainly orchestral renditions bookended with the beginning-movement Morning Wood and the timeless closer In the Hall of the Crimson King. Duke plays them in-succession to one another, doing away with the bookending-aspect entirely.

Why?

Because he can; because he knows the material just as he knows his band, to be capable of turning out good, no matter the twitch in usual tracklist-sequencing. Come to think of it, Duke actually made the right decision in that because now his Big Band-Jazz rendition of the legendary material, stands out just that much more on its own because of the risk.

Evaporating the doubt that such a (perceived) risk wouldn't pay off.

Oh, and not-so-fun fact: This album has been banned from ever being reissued actually. That, or the tongue-twisting title might be the biggest reasons you haven't heard about Swinging Suites before right now.

In 1961, the Royal Swedish Academy of Music made a statement, referring to a Swedish law paragraph called "Klassikerskyddet" ("Protection of Classics") in the copyright legislation, that Duke Elllington's jazz versions on the album were "offending of the Nordic music culture". Swinging Suites was withdrawn to avoid an international trial – it has never been reissued after 1961, and for that is still one of the hidden gems of Duke's catalogue. One of those albums you've got to search for, to even find.

And personally...

As Duke's own accentation of the evergreen material goes on, it starts to tell an emotional narrative, which is really dependent on a unifying musical mood; likes of which have never been heard quite like this before. This is a recurring thing throughout this monstrously titled record, buried in time. It bares no explanations why, but everything works out on Swinging Suites beyond my expectation.

Three Suites is a Duke Ellington compilation album released in 1990 which includes this album and The Nutcracker Suite (1960) – also on this list. Technically, this is the first time since the withdrawal, that Swinging Suites was ever available again.

And even with that, this was kinda "on the low-low" as it was.

Ase's Death is like a... like rolling thunder, once again. That percussion, that deep deep sound of the kick-drum underscores the rest of the movement's momentum not unlike the low wind that's faster yet less biting than a usually windy day. Like low wind, the wind-instrumentation announces the imminent arrival of a thumping storm... man, there is just so much momentum with the way this thing takes the stage. It is such a highlight and I'm talking about a song that has to fuckin' follow up Morning Mood and In the Hall of the Mountain King!

WHICH makes me realize that Duke Ellington – to put it really short and frank – Duke is someone I really heard a lot of material from during my research for the 60s. Two albums of his are here on this countdown.

Where was I... Oh, right, to put it frank, Duke Ellington as a bandleader and a musician just embodies the magic of music. All the appeal here driving this record's risks, movements and lapses in momentum, is naturally warranted by his style and a little bit by his personality.

It's simple. It really comes across as the fully realized version of clear ideas. Now, of course, when I say all these high things about him as a bandleader that is not to undersell the accomplishments of the whole ensemble. Chemistry is abound in Swinging Suites!

Alright, next up the swinging suites by Edward E!

Suite Thursday is original material by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn thru-and-thru.

This wouldn't be the magical combo that it is – of different styles, of old and new (relatively) – if it wasn't for the contrast-move it makes halfway-through the tracklist. When we get done with Grieg's material and shift to Thursday Suite we get material that Duke and his band could interpret a lot more loosely. And the orchestra took righteous advantage of that opportunity; going from a more well-known composition into a lesser-known one (created in-house), somehow seemed to mobilize the band's swingin' sections even more!

The suite is from its' opening moments, all the way to the end, a righteous counterbalance to the more serious, more lauded and more pressure-characterized compositions in the opening. It highlights, in its' swingin'ness, just how serious the first half – Peer Gynt – was. How earned the drama of it, was. So to say.

Simple things like this... simple things are what make Duke indeed The Dukester.

IN MEDIA

In the Hall of the Mountain King

lends its' name to the penultimate episode of Season 2 of

Mad Men

. There's a short scene in the episode

The Mountain King

(S2E12), in which Don overhears one of Anna's piano-students playing the iconic melody, to which he remarks that "it's scary". He does it in his Don-way, but with how much vulnerability

of him

is revealed through this particular episode, you gotta wonder if that was a genuine comment. Anyway, near the end of the hour, Don's escapade to California (where he's visiting Anna) seems to be working out. He seems to find some peace at the beach. That episode was my second-most memorable encounter with the

Peer Gynt

-composition in 2021.

#95.

Pedro Iturralde

Jazz Flamenco!

(1967)

(Jazz; Flamenco Jazz)

This is kinda exciting, the first album of real regional music – as you call it – to appear on this list.

Something I've noticed happening as almost like a trend is list, that Jazz Flamenco absolutely continues, is a short-n-sweet introduction with real urgency! The pick for opener out of these four epic Spanish Jazz outbursts, wastes no time in welcoming you to the cozy local environment that is going to ride out as a constant throughout them all.

Throughout my individual year-lists, I talked a big game – or, well, at least remember mentioning on couple occasions – how one of the things making me most happy about this level of discovery that was achieved along with taking in so much new music... was how much regional stuff I was able to find out because I set up huge to-do-lists of albums that needed to be heard before ranking each year's music in any way I could proudly call credible.

With that, there certainly was less traditional music from other countries than the two English-speaking megaforces, but I don't get discouraged by that! It's one of those things I knew could happen, when I listened to 1,700 albums for a top 100-list. Shit was gonna get exclusive. Which is cool, I anticipate that 100 is gonna feel like plenty once this project is over. ...And... well, I got less regional delights here on the final list than I'd have hoped back then, but frankly, it just makes the material that is here, feel all the more crucial, to address.

Jazz Flamenco is the defining work of one of Flamenco Jazz' actual pioneers.

Iturralde and Paco de Lucía idealized Flamenco Jazz in the 60s, as the fully fleshed-out sound combining (most famously Modal) American Jazz with style and stanzas of Flamenco music (Flamenco Nuevo, as it's known in Spain...)

It's got the rhythm, the high-end sound taking percussion to places where it is so wonderfully open to interplay with other pieces of the small ensemble of musical moving parts. It is wonderfully authentic, Spanish music that can't be denied but on top of that works like a wonderful experience of sights in audio-form.

The very-much-live pulse of music teacher Pedro Iturralde's most-important work is the first part of the charm but the second one is the pacing of movements. The first track's solo comes in at such a timely fashion, that... Ah. You know what, this is-- I listen to so much music in-preparation for this countdown and just on a daily basis, and the ones that do stand out – on the level of ones that did get included – really have to stand out; really have to take it there where they're self-explanatory, where they themselves announce their own appeal. Little things and the big picture of Jazz Flamenco do that in unison!

A weird equation, really. Music plays itself, and I do the best I can in order to maybe latch on to why it is that this feeling bounces off of it... You can kinda see from reading this, that I don't feel so heavily that I'm just commodifying my thoughts here and whatnot? (for context: that's something I complained about to a friend and had a minor complex over right before I started writing this book.)