The album for August I received today (actually 2 days ago now) from my Rough Trade Subscription is Blume by Nérija. I’m on my fourth listen and I absolutely bloody love it.
To my thoroughly untrained ear I hear a strong, resounding in fact, echo from the days of the Jazz greats intermingled with everything that has happened since then, with occasional seventies TV themes and a sprinkling of Afrobeat. It is a delicious cocktail.
Nérija were winners of the Jazz Newcomer Parliamentary Jazz Award 2017 and Jazz FM Breakthrough Act of the Year 2016 nominees, Nerija are are a collective of London-based musicians playing exciting and original music inspired by Jazz, Hip Hop, Afrobeat and South African Township. Featuring a line-up truly representative of the up-coming London jazz scene, the seven-piece band features rising players such as tenor saxophonist Nubya Garcia (Polar Bear, Outlook Orchestra, Steve Reid InNOVAtion Award Winner), trumpeter Sheila Maurice-Grey (KANO, Little Simz, KOKOROKO) and guitarist Shirley Tetteh (Maisha, Gary Crosby’s Groundation).
After the release of an EP in 2016, their eclectic repertoire has appealed to the UK jazz scene as well as giving them a presence at rap and pop-focused festivals. They have toured across Europe and the UK and performed alongside top UK jazz musicians such as Nathaniel Facey of Empirical, pianist Zoe Rahman, and supporting Jazz Jamaica at the renowned Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club. Recently signed to Domino records and having performed at Ronnie Scott’s, the Barbican and jazz fetivals in the UK and Europe, Nérija are truly part of the buzz.
SXSW Band Write UP
My copy is three sided orange vinyl with the fourth side etched, which is sort of nice as it means it hasn’t had the crap compressed out of it to get it onto 2 sides, even though etched sides are a little pointless, it’s better than blank I guess. Oh and it’s limited to 1200 copies.
I watched a brilliant live broadcast by the BBC from the Cheltenham Jazz Festival celebrating the now defunct TV show Jazz 625 called Jazz 625 Live: For One Night Only. It was broadcast in black and white and, though the show was originally broadcast in the 1960’s it inspired me to randomly take a look at 1959.
My number 1 album from this year is pretty obvious when you get to it but there are some really interesting albums along the way, and there are literally hundreds more that could have made it in quite easily, but what I found interesting, looking back on this year from 60 years in the future, is the albums that were dominating the charts when held up against what is now considered the best of that year. Below are the top 10 albums from the middle of this year, and it’s reflective of the whole year:
South Pacific dominated the album charts (these are for the UK) for the whole year and there are so many soundtracks, well, without giving anything much away, none of these appear in my top 30. Speaking of which, I have actually done some research and listened to all of these and more to end up with the chart below, I know I’ve missed some great albums out but this is my considered best guess! Oh, and finally, some are marked with an *, which means I have a copy already, more on this at the end.
30 – Marty Robbins – Ballads And Trail Songs by Marty Robbins
To be absolutely honest I find the voice of Marty Robbins a little too polished for these songs, but they are good songs of their type and opening track Big Iron has been covered by Johnny Cash, and it sounds better to me when Cash sings it. Interesting fact is that the song was used in the console game Fallout: New Vegas and is known by a lot of the younger generation as a result.
29 – Shirley Bassey – The Bewitching Miss Bassey
I have an incredible amount of respect for Shirley Bassey having watched a documentary on Tiger Bay, the area of Cardiff where she grew up. To survive that and do everything she went on to do really is quite remarkable. This is an album of standards which includes what, to my ears, is a quite bizarre version of the Banana Boat song!
28 – Peggy Lee with George Shearing – Beauty & the Beat! *
I picked up a copy of this album for £0.50p from a charity shop I think. As far as I can see this is about the correct price, which is extraordinary for such a fine album.
27 – Leonard Bernstein / Columbia Symphony Orchestra / New York Philharmonic – Rhapsody In Blue / An American In Paris
Rightly or wrongly I’m just going to assume that everybody knows this.
26 – Blossom Deary – My Gentleman Friend
Until very recently I had absolutely no idea who this woman was, and I probabaly would never have known if I hadn’t stumbled accross her absolutely stunning version of Someone to Watch Over Me.
25 – Chet Baker – Chet
Baker specialised in ballads, mostly straight-ahead renditions of evergreen tunes by the likes of Tin Pan Alley writers Rodgers/Hart and Cole Porter. His renditions were somewhat linear, without any improvisational flourish but he was, of course a very capable trumpet player, on this set accompanied by Pepper Adams on baritone saxophone, Herbie Mann on flute and Bill Evans on piano.
Baker was a heavy drugs user and by this point his voice couldn’t be trusted to deliver and so the album doesn’t feature his singing at all.
24 – Jimmy Smith – The Sermon *
The Hammond organ, is, in my view a shitty instrument that makes a shitty sound and they should all be collected in a big pile and burned. One notable exception is the one played by Jimmy Smith who somehow makes it sound so damn cool.
23 – Frank Sinatra – Come Dance With Me
Despite the extremely creepy cover the songs within are not.
22 – Gene Vincent – Sounds Like Gene Vincent
The mighty Gene Vincent with an album I never listened to until now, and it is incredibly good. As far as Rock and Roll is concerned it’s grittier, perhaps darker than many of the other albums in the same genre, at least to my ears.
21 – Miles Davis – Porgy and Bess
In case you didn’t know, Porgy and Bess is an opera by the American composer George Gershwin, with a libretto written by author DuBose Heyward and lyricist Ira Gershwin. It was adapted from Dorothy Heyward and DuBose Heyward’s play Porgy, itself an adaptation of DuBose Heyward’s 1925 novel of the same name. There are loads of versions of it on record and this one by Miles Davis has no words of course but it is a wonderful album and has been on my wanted list for some time, I’ll get it eventually.
20 – Ella Fitzgerald – Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Song Book
More Gershwin, they were quite the thing back then, this time with Ella Fitzgerald singing some of their best known numbers. I’m somewhat confused by which album is the right one as there seem to be lots of versions with different covers, so as long as it is with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra, then it is the right one.
19 – João Gilberto – Chega de saudade
This really was a groundbreaking 12 track bossa-nova album, half of which was originally released on three 10″ 78rpm shellac discs. It is just a lovely sound, cool, laid back and it makes me want a tall gin and tonic over ice in the sunshine, which is always a good thing.
18 – Billie Holiday – Billie Holiday with Ray Ellis and His Orchestra *
I bought a copy of this at a record fair a few years ago, it was £5, quite possibly the best £5 I’ve spent on a record. The songs are great, the performance is great and the sound quality is wonderful. It is probably my favourite album of hers even though it doesn’t really contain any of the songs she is most well known for. If I remember correctly, these are the last songs she ever recorded.
17 – Odetta – My Eyes Have Seen
I listened to this for the first time this week, although I have heard the odd track here and there over the years. It’s brilliant. I’ve started looking for a copy to buy but it is proving quite difficult as it may well have not been released over here in the UK with most of the available copies being in the US.
16 – Bill Evans Trio – Everybody Digs Bill Evans
There was some old footage of Bill Evans on the BBC from Cheltenham show, man can he play piano. The backing band, well it’s drums and bass, are amazing as well.
15 – Julie London – London By Night
Let’s never forget Julie, she doesn’t seem to get enough mentions in music documentaries and books etc. but Julie London had a beautiful, smokey, voice, and really knew how to present a song. Discount here later TV appearances and concentrate on the 50’s albums and they are full of quality.
14 – Duke Ellington – Anatomy of a Murder *
I bought a re-issue of this several years ago. This was one of the first films to extensively feature jazz in the musical score with the entire musical soundtrack composed by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn and played by Ellington’s orchestra. Ellington and members of the orchestra pop up here and there in the film.
13 – Thelonius Monk Quintet – 5 by Monk 5
This album was recorded over three sessions in June 1959. In addition to Monk on piano, the musicians were Thad Jones (cornet), Charlie Rouse (tenor saxophone), Sam Jones (bass), and Art Taylor (drums). The title of the album comes from the quintet playing five of Monk’s compositions. These included the new “Jackie-Ing”, which Monk hummed to the others to help them learn it.
12 – Ray Charles – What’d I Say *
I’ve had this album since I started buying vinyl again a few years ago and I love the title track, which was essentially a studio jam, more and more every time I play it.
11 – Nina Simone – The Amazing Nina Simone
In just a couple of entries I make a startling confession! Until then, it’s Nina Simone, she was utterly brilliant and I still find myself listening to this today.
10 – Ornette Coleman – The Shape of Jazz to Come
Coleman’s 1959 Atlantic recording, The Shape Of Jazz To Come, brought his unique vision into focus for a wide audience. Most of them hated it at first. He ignored so much of what had gone before and forged his own path across different keys and chord progressions, but his vision from childhood, as he expressed it to Jez Nelson on Jazz on 3, was that “music was just something human beings done naturally, like eating”.
His influence is still felt as he was the template for so much of what was to come.
9 – Nina Simone – Little Girl Blue *
Well I can honestly state that I had never heard of Nina Simone until 2003, when she died and My Baby Just Cares for Me was released as a single and made the charts, resulting in hearing it on the radio. Quite how somebody so brilliant had failed to shine their light in my direction is a mystery to me, and entirely my own doing, but I’ve tried to make up for that gap in the intervening years starting with this album, a work of genius for which, if my understanding is correct, she never received a penny for.
8 – John Lee Hooker – House of the Blues
This album sounds as though it really was recorded in the building on the cover, it has atmosphere and authenticity by the lorry load and the vocal has that worn, knowing tone that tells you that this guy has lived. It has, for me, everything many people claim Clapton has, but really doesn’t, there’s no comparison.
7 – Howlin Woolf – Moanin’ in the Moonlight
Moanin’ in the Moonlight was the debut album by Howlin’ Wolf. The album was a compilation of previously issued singles by Chess Records and it is a stone cold classic. Smokestack Lightin’ is just about as close to a perfect blues song that it is possible to get.
6 – Chuck Berry – Chuck Berry is on Top
This is the third studio album from Chuck Berry and the appalling cover is not a fair indication of what’s included inside. There are so many great tracks included that it’s difficult now to understand the impact this would have had upon its release. They are so well known now but back in 1959 they were all new and influenced so many musicians that there are too many to list.
5 – Ray Charles – The Genius of Ray Charles
Ray again, and the album title says it all. Again, it is hard to see now, all these years later, but this was a groundbreaking release at the time and caused a stir, particularly in the English music press with one reviewer writing “the mixture of gospel-style vocal phrasing with banal blues lyrics is most unsatisfactory, if not positively objectionable.” What a fool.
4 – Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers – Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers *
If you press play on any video here, go for this one every time, not just for the great quote of “We sincerely hope you buy our record. God knows we need the money” but for the performance, the sheer joy of it written all over Art Blakey’s face (he’ the drummer in case you weren’t aware). They made an amazing record, one of the most loved Jazz albums ever pressed to vinyl.
3 – The Dave Brubeck Quartet – Time Out *
I feel like everybody knows this one, I seem to have seen it popping up all over the place for a large part of my life, usually the track ‘Take Five”. The album was an experiment in unusual time signatures, particulalry those not usually heard in western music at the time, such as 9/8, heard by Brubeck on a trip to Turkey. The album received negative reviews upon its release, and the reviewers where all wrong.
2 – Charles Mingus – Mingus Ah Um
I’ve only ever had this on CD, which is a situation I really must rectify. Mingus’s musical forebears figure largely throughout this album, “Better Git It In Your Soul” is inspired by gospel singing and preaching of his childhood, “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” is a reference (by way of his favoured headgear) to saxophonist Lester Young (who had died shortly before the album was recorded). “Open Letter to Duke” is a tribute to Duke Ellington, and draws on three of Mingus’s earlier pieces (“Nouroog”, “Duke’s Choice”, and “Slippers”). “Jelly Roll” is a reference to jazz pioneer and pianist Jelly Roll Morton and features a quote of Sonny Rollins’ “Sonnymoon for Two” during Horace Parlan’s piano solo. “Fables of Faubus” is named after Orval E. Faubus (1910–1994), the Governor of Arkansas infamous for his 1957 stand against integration of Little Rock, Arkansas schools in defiance of U.S. Supreme Court rulings (forcing President Eisenhower to send in the National Guard).
1 – Miles Davis – Kind of Blue *
Kind of Blue has been regarded by many critics as the greatest jazz record, Davis’s masterpiece, and one of the best albums of all time. Its influence on music, including jazz, rock, and classical genres, has led writers to also deem it one of the most influential albums ever recorded. Those writers got it right for once, and it could be nowhere else but number 1.
So you may have noticed that I have 9 of these 30 albums already, which is coincidence, I just happened to have them and didn’t check when they were released when I decided on 1959, however, having listened to all 30 of these and more to compile this list I now feel like I’d like to collect them all, which won’t be easy but I think it’s a nice little project.
I have a few Miles Davis albums, and a few years ago I was given 350 of them as MP3’s, though I only listened to a few, 350 albums is a stupid number and I’d never have been able to get through all of them and give them the listening time they deserved. Though it was one of the 350, I have never listened to In A Silent Way before, even though it was released in 1969 and is now approaching 50 years old.
My copy, that’s it up there, is not in perfect condition, although it is a 1969 European pressing, which is why it isn’t in perfect condition I should think. There are crackly bits here and there and the cover has a bit of a crease in it, however, I still love it.
As I enjoy ambient music, film scores and instrumental post rock this album sits really well with me, it is not inaccessible as some Jazz can be, I’m not sure it is even Jazz at all to be honest. I don’t find it jarring or particularly dissonant, it is intricate but, as the title suggest, in a silent way.
By 1969 jazz music was widely regarded as largely irrelevant and Miles Davis had become one of yesterdays men having once been one of the coolest men on planet earth. The release of In A Silent Way changed all that and established Davis as the first major jazz artist to crossover to a more rock orientated audience. The album was recorded in a single session on February 18th 1969 and is considered by some to be a blueprint for ambient music that later followed.
Better writers than me have written pages and pages about this album, one of which was Lester Bangs, writing for Rolling Stone: “the kind of album that gives you faith in the future of music. It is not rock and roll, but it’s nothing stereotyped as jazz either. All at once, it owes almost as much to the techniques developed by rock improvisors in the last four years as to Davis’ jazz background. It is part of a transcendental new music which flushes categories away and, while using musical devices from all styles and cultures, is defined mainly by its deep emotion and unaffected originality”
He’s not wrong. It is an extraordinary piece of music and I find myself getting lost in it, in a good way. I don’t even think of it as an album primarily by a jazz trumpeter, so full is it of great musicianship that all the instruments are balanced and shift from background to foreground quite effortlessly. Who were these musicians?
Bass – Dave Holland
Drums – Tony Williams
Electric Piano – Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock
Engineer – Russ Payne, Stan Tonkel
Guitar – John McLaughlin
Organ, Electric Piano – Josef Zawinul
Producer – Teo Macero
Tenor Saxophone – Wayne Shorter
Trumpet – Miles Davis
I have been listening to the album a lot over the last week, including on the drive to work the other morning, which is potentially dangerous as I found myself sinking into my own thoughts and driving several miles without quite knowing how I got to where I was. This is something that can happen with reasonable frequency for people who do a lot of driving, but it seems much more likely to occur with this album playing on the journey.
I may be caught up in the joy of discovery, so I will give my rating for this album with a side note that it may be reviewed at a later date, but for me, right now?
Years ago I had a cassette tape of Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster that I played a lot, loved that cassette, and I think it may still be up in the loft somewhere, though I have nothing to play it on at the moment. So when I saw this Blue Note re-issue by one of them I bought it. This shows my complete lack of Jazz knowledge of course as it is Ornette Coleman and not Coleman Hawkins, still, a happy mistake.
I then had to go and read up about it a bit and discovered that At the “Golden Circle” Stockholm is a two-volume album, which means I am one short, documenting concerts on the nights of December 3rd and 4th, 1965, in the Gyllene Cirkeln club in Stockholm. It marked the beginning of Coleman’s contract with Blue Note.
The trio are:
Ornette Coleman — alto saxophone, violin, trumpet
David Izenzon — double bass
Charles Moffett — drums
Here is a video of the trio performing, it’s a year later but still a good film.
Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman (March 9, 1930 – June 11, 2015)[1] was an American jazz saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter, and composer. He was one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960s, a term he invented with the name of his 1961 album. His “Broadway Blues” has become a standard and has been cited as a key work in the free jazz movement.[2] He was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1994. His album Sound Grammar received the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for music.
So he is generally regarded as quite important and I have to say, I enjoyed this album. Not that many years ago this sort of jazz would have left me cold and a little confused, but I’ve opened myself up to a lot of new genres over the years and now find myself finding music in just about everything and some merit in just about everything as well. This may all just be part of getting old of course, or, let’s say more experienced.
Here is the opening cut from the album, so you can judge for yourself:
Tracklist
A1 Faces And Places
A2 European Echoes
B1 Dee Dee
B2 Dawn
Rating: 8.4 (I know how highly this is rated elsewhere but this is mine)
If you’ve been listening to the radio show at all then you’d have heard my take on the Mercury Music Prize and how much I liked the album by Dinosaur, well, proving that wasn’t just bullshit words I bought a copy of the album today. At £17 it was pretty reasonable for a new record in a gatefold sleeve, although it came with no extras, which is fine as I never use the download cards anyway, I much prefer a CD tucked in the sleeve.
It is a brilliant debut album and they really are exceptional musicians, as can be seen from their performance at the MMP awards the other week:
I’ve listened to the album several times now and it just keeps getting better and better.
Tracklist
A1
Awakening
8:33
A2
Robin
6:50
A3
Living, Breathing
6:37
B1
Underdog
2:50
B2
Extinct
9:29
B3
Primordial
7:46
B4
Interlude
2:56
I actually think the right person won the award itself, but for a band like Dinosaur the exposure it has provided them has been invaluable, not only for them but for myself as they wouldn’t have even been on my radar without being nominated. I really do love this album.
Laura Jurd – still in her mid-20s – is already on her third album. Both Human Spirit(2015) and her 2012 debut Landing Ground foregrounded Jurd’s ambitious compositions, drawing on a repertory company of young musicians. Together, As One presents a unified front from Jurd’s regular working quartet, now called Dinosaur. The Dinosaur sound and feel is perhaps best represented by the first track Awakening. This has a superb asymmetric (5/8) pulse out of which Jurd’s trumpet floats across echoplexed synthesizer washes before a fragile theme emerges from the sonic haze. Not an unusual way to begin a jazz fusion track, but Dinosaur make it feel authentic and fresh. After the long intro Conor Chaplin’s bass installs a long 5/4 riff into the piece followed by plangent electric piano by Elliot Galvin. This was not the only time during this album that I was reminded of Ian Carr’s Nucleus and Herbie Hancock’s ‘Mwandishi’ band (featuring Eddie Henderson), but that’s more because of mood and style than compositional and improvisational content. Dinosaur’s music sounds young and defiantly European – there’s a hint of Acoustic Ladyland – and its best moments stick in the mind with an easy grace. The nine-and-a-half-minute Extinct has a cunning groove that emerges slowly from the primordial audio swirl of its intro. A plainly stated middle section theme changes the mood for a while before the Sly-like groove returns for the remainder of the song. Primordial has a hammering, antsy fanfare that morphs into a triple-time lope for an eloquent solo by Jurd. I liked Galvin’s keyboard sounds best when they were idiomatic (electric piano, Rose Stone-like organ in Extinct) or heading for outer space (the twangling synths and electronic washes of Interlude). In Corrie Dick, Jurd has the empathetic, endlessly inventive drummer that every jazz composer dreams of, and occasionally deserves. Bassist Chaplin is a star. There’s a close empathy (which is not always reflected in the mix). Although it may win awards, Together, As One doesn’t come across as a self-consciously ‘award winning album’: the production is understated, the performances are straightforwardly good and no-one is trying too hard to impress, which makes it all the more impressive.
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