Charles Mingus "The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady" (1963)

The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady
release date: Jul. 1963
format: cd (1995 remaster)
[album rate: 4 / 5]
producer: Bob Thiele
label: Impulse! - nationality: USA

[ full album ]

Studio album by Charles Mingus originally released on Impulse!
This is a great album of highly original jazz by one of the most significant composers of the genre. The style here is avant-garde jazz with big band elements. The original vinyl version contains three tracks on the vinyl A-side and one track (in three parts) with the title(s): "Trio and Group Dancers (Stop! Look! And Sing Songs of Revolutions!) / Single Solos and Group Dance (Saint and Sinner Join in Merriment on Battle Front) / Group and Solo Dance (Of Love, Pain, and Passioned Revolt, Then Farewell, My Beloved, 'Til It's Freedom Day)" on the B-side.
The album is the only Mingus album to be enlisted in "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die".

1963 Favourite releases: 1. The Beatles Please Please Me - 2. Charles Mingus The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady - 3. Martha Reeves and the Vandellas Heat Wave

BEST OF 1960:Miles Davis "Sketches of Spain" (1960)

Sketches of Spain
release date: Jul. 18, 1960
format: digital
[album rate: 4 / 5]

Tracklist: A) 1. "Concierto de Aranjuez" (Adagio) (Joaquín Rodrigo) - 2. "Will o' the Wisp" (Manuel de Falla) - - B) "The Pan Piper" (aka 'Alborada de Vigo') (traditional) - 2. "Saeta" (Gil Evans) - 3. "Solea" (Gil Evans)

Studio album by Miles Davis released on Columbia Records and produced by Teo Macero and Irving Townsend. Initially, Davis went to the studio to do his and Gil Evans' version of "Concierto de Aranjuez" (classical concert by Joaquín Rodrigo), but in the rehearsal process the idea to make a Spanish album came up. This is great, beautiful, and really cool jazz with much Spanish tone to it.
[ allmusic.com, Q Magazine, Rolling Stone Album Guide 5 / 5 stars ]

Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons / The Four Seasons "Sherry" (1962)

Sherry & 11 Others [debut]
release date: Oct. 1962
format: cd
[album rate: 3 / 5]

Tracklist: 1. "Big Girls Don't Cry" - 2. "Yes Sir, That's My Baby" - 3. "Peanuts" - 4. "La Dee Dah" - 5. "Teardrops" - 6. "Apple of My Eye" - 7. "Never on Sunday" - 8. "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" - 9. "The Girl in My Dreams" - 10. "Oh Carol" - 11. "Lost Lullabye" - 12. "Sherry" (5 / 5)

The debut album released as The 4 Seasons. At this point of their early career they were also known as The Four Seasons, but from early 1970s they became known as Frankie Valli and The 4 Seasons due to their eminent lead vocalist, Frankie Valli, who released his first solo album titled The Four Seasons Present (1967). From then on, he concentrated on his solo career, which had a boost in 1978 with his vocal appearance on the soundtrack album Grease with the homonymous song written by Barry Gibb. After the release of this debut album, the band shortly became the most popular vocal pop band, at least until The Beatles' debut in 1963.

John Coltrane "Ballads" (1963)

Ballads
release date: 1963
format: digital
[album rate: 4 / 5]

Studio album by John Coltrane Quartet released on Impulse! Records and produced by Bob Thiele. This is a fine melancholic cool jazz album by one of jazz' biggest icons.

BEST OF 1966:Otis Redding "Complete & Unbelievable: The Otis Redding Dictionary of Soul" (1966)

Complete & Unbelievable: The Otis Redding Dictionary of Soul
release date: Oct. 15, 1966
format: cd
[album rate: 5 / 5]

Tracklist: 1. "Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)" (5 / 5) - 2. "I'm Sick Y'All" - 3. "Tennessee Waltz" - 4. "Sweet Lorene" - 5. "Try a Little Tenderness" (5 / 5) - 6. "Day Tripper" - 7. "My Lover's Prayer" - 8. "She Put the Hurt on Me" - 9. "Ton of Joy" - 10. "You're Still My Baby" - 11. "Hawg for You" - 12. "Love Have Mercy"

5th studio album by Otis Redding. This was to be his last studio album release before his untimely death (Dec. 10, 1967) at the age of 26, and the second studio album in '66. This is his studio album with the highest percentage of his own songs (tracks #1, #2, #4, #7, #8, #9, #11), and the album is like his '65 album, enlisted on several 'All times best albums'.
[ allmusic.com 5 / 5 stars ]

1966 Favourite releases: 1. Otis Redding Complete & Unbelievable: The Otis Redding Dictionary of Soul - 2. Dexter Gordon Gettin' Around' - 3. Astrud Gilberto Look to the Rainbow

Jacques Brel "La valse à mille temps" (1959)

La valse à mille temps
release date: 1959
format: cd
[album rate: 4 / 5]

Track highlights: 1. "La valse à mille temps" (5 / 5) live - 4. "Je t'aime" - 5. "Ne me quitte pas" (4 / 5) - 6. "Les flamandes" (4 / 5) - 10. "La colombe"

4th full-length studio album by Jacques Brel aka "Jacques Brel 4". Like many of his early albums this release is just a self-titled album but is also known as "La valse à mille temps" (taken from the first track). I also enjoy his three earlier albums from the '50s but this particular album is considered one of his best ever original releases, and his first big hit album. It's his second release featuring the great French conductor François Rauber with whom Brel wrote two of the original 10 songs, although, the album's strongest tracks are written by Brel only.

Dexter Gordon "Gettin' Around" (1966)

Gettin' Around
release date: 1966
format: cd
[album rate: 4 / 5]

Tracklist: 1. "Manhã de Carnaval" - 2. "Who Can I Turn To (When Nobody Needs Me)" - 3. "Heartaches" - 4. "Shiny Stockings" - 5. "Everybody's Somebody's Fool" - 6. "Le coiffeur" - 7. "Very Saxily Yours" (Bonus track) - 8. "Flick of a Trick" (Bonus track)

A studio album by Dexter Gordon. It was recorded in 1965 at the lengendary Van Gelder Studio and released in 1966. The 1987 remastered cd version contains two extra tracks from the same recording session. It's not my first Dexter Gordon album but it really falls in the great ones' category. He is one of my absolute favourite jazz artists, and perhaps the first I adored of the genre. The album is recorded and released in his home country but at this point he lived almost permanently, either in Paris or Copenhagen. It contains the type of music, I guess, people in Europe loved him for - cool, emotional, laid back, and... passionate. Absolutely wonderful.

1966 Favourite releases: 1. Otis Redding Complete & Unbelievable: The Otis Redding Dictionary of Soul - 2. Dexter Gordon Gettin' Around - 3. Astrud Gilberto Look to the Rainbow

Otis Redding "The Soul Album" (1966)

The Soul Album
release date: Apr. 1, 1966
format: cd
[album rate: 4 / 5]

Tracklist: 1. "Just One More Day" - 2. "It's Growing" - 3. "Cigarettes & Coffee" (4 / 5) - 4. "Chain Gang" - 5. "Nobody Knows You (When Your Down & Out)" - 6. "Good to Me" (4 / 5) - 7. "Scratch My Back" - 8. "Treat Her Right" - 9. "Everybody Makes a Mistake" - 10. "Any Ole Way" (4 / 5) (tv performance) - "634-5789"

4th studio album by Otis Redding is almost as great as his 1965 album. The style is the same and Redding interprets soul and r&b tracks including three of his own songs (tracks #1, #6, and #10). Only six months later he would do even better.
[ allmusic.com 4 / 5 stars ]

BEST OF 1961:Ray Charles "The Genius Sings the Blues" (1961)

The Genius Sings the Blues
release date: 1961
format: digital
[album rate: 4 / 5] [4,28]
producer: Ahmet Ertegün, Jerry Wexler
label: Atlantic Records - nationality: USA

Studio album by Ray Charles produced by Ahmet Ertegün and Jerry Wexler. The album was his last on Atlantic Records.

1961 Favourite releases: 1. Ray Charles The Genius Sings the Blues - 2. Dexter Gordon Dexter Calling... - 3. Elvis Presley Something for Everybody

Ella Fitzgerald "Hello, Love" (1959)

Hello, Love
release date: 1959
format: digital
[album rate: 3,5 / 5]

A 1950s studio album with Ella Fitzgerald with recordings made between 1957-1959. My cd edition is the 2004 remastered edition on the original label, Verve Records. I enjoy most albums with this great singer, although, I like her most when she sings vocal jazz only. But there's absolutely nothing wrong about her versions of the 'Great American Songbook' of standards, it's just that so many other good and great artists have made their versions, and it's sometimes hard to tell the big differences. And then again: singing the standards was what brought her fame! Several of the songs here, appear (in different versions) on previous albums including her two albums with Louis Armstrong, Ella & Louis (1956) and Ella & Louis Again (1957).

BEST OF 1965:Otis Redding "Otis Blue: Otis Redding Sings Soul" (1965)

Otis Blue: Otis Redding Sings Soul
release date: Sep. 15, 1965
format: cd
[album rate: 5 / 5]

Tracklist: 1. "Ole Man Trouble" - 2. "Respect" (5 / 5) - 3. "A Change Is Gonna Come" - 4. "Down in the Valley" - 5. "I've Been Loving You Too Long" (5 / 5) - 6. "Shake" (5 / 5) - 7. "My Girl" (5 / 5) - 8. "Wonderful World" (5 / 5) - 9. "Rock Me Baby" - 10. "Satisfaction" (5 / 5) - 11. "You Don't Miss Your Water"

3rd studio album by Otis Redding. Most of the songs here are cover-versions of famous r&b songs but here personalized into soul. Redding wrote three songs for the album himself (tracks #1, #2, and #5) and it soon became his best selling album reaching number #6 on the UK album charts. The album "is included in a number of best album lists, including Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, Time magazine's list of the "All-Time 100 Greatest Albums", and Robert Dimery's "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die". (from wikipedia). Another great soul singer, Sam Cooke, wrote three of the songs (tracks #3, #6, and #8), but as it is with all tracks on this album, Redding has a different approach, giving each song an emotional depth and feel that the original songs didn't have. Otis Redding is my all-time favourite soul artist and this album is one of his best.
[ allmusic.com, Rolling Stone, Record Collector, Virgin Encyclopedia 5 / 5 stars ]

1965 Favourite releases: 1. Otis Redding Otis Blue: Otis Redding Sings Soul - 2. The Beatles Help! - 3. Frank Sinatra September of My Years

Dexter Gordon "Go!" (1962)

Go!

release date: Aug. 27, 1962

format: digital (1999 remaster) / vinyl (2021 reissue)

[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,88]

producer: Alfred Lion

label: Blue Note / Ermitage (vinyl) - nationality: USA

Studio album by Dexter Gordon recorded by Rudy Van Gelder featuring Gordon on tenor sax with Sonny Clark on piano, Butch Warren on bass, and Billy Higgins on drums. The album is one of Gordon's most acclaimed albums.

2021 vinyl reissue

The Maytals "The Sensational Maytals" (1965)

org. vinyl release

The Sensational Maytals
release date: 1965
format: digital (1999 reissue)
[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,78]
producer: unknown
label: Jamaican Gold - nationality: Jamaica

Track highlights: 1. "It's You" (4 / 5) - 2. "Daddy" (4 / 5) - 7. "What's On Your Mind" (4 / 5)

2nd studio album by The Maytals originally released on BMN in Jamaica only and later that year in the UK by Doctor Bird Records, reissued by Jamaican Gold on extended cd edition as Sensational Ska Explosion in 1999.
The Maytals were formed in 1962 as a trio consisting of Nathaniel 'Jerry' Matthias, Henry 'Raleigh' Gordon, and Frederick Nathaniel 'Toots' Hibbert. All tracks here are credited the trio, but the band soon became famous as 'Toots & The Maytals' for his lead in the band, and he also wrote many of the trio's songs - later almost everything - and they then became Toots & The Maytals. In the early aftermath of this album, Hibbert spent 18 months in jail from '66 to '67, which explains an unwanted hiatus at a time when the band really was on top of music charts in Jamaica.
The production sound miss much in comparison with American and European releases from that time, but the music is simply golden. At this point reggae was not an "invented" genre but the music by Toots & The Maytals together with The Wailers and Peter Tosh, who all played Jaimaican ska in a combo with soul and r&b was fused into rocksteady, and later became known as reggae [from the 1968 single "Do the Reggay" by Toots and the Maytals].
'Toots' Hibbert has been compared to Otis Redding and this album really proves that analogy quite well. Hibbert doesn't have the same strength of vocal range but listening to this makes you wonder if Redding also listened to this and the debut by The Maytals to find inspiration. The album is stuffed with great tunes, and I have also found this much more inspiring than Bob Marley & The Wailers who experienced international fame in the 1970s when Toots & The Maytals were seen as 'just another' Jamaican band also playing reggae, when in fact they were among THE most important figures in shaping the genre.

1999 reissue

Jacques Brel "Au printemps" (1958)

Au printemps
release date: 1958
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5]

Track highlights: 2. "Au printemps" - 3. "Je ne sais pas" - 4. "Le colonel" - 8. "L'homme dans la cité?" - 9. "Litanies pour un retour"

3rd studio album by Jacques Brel originally released on Philips aka "Jacques Brel 3". This is another great album by Brel mostly consisting of his own compositions but also introducing 5 songs co-written with François Rauber who is also credited as orchestral conductor (tracks #2–3, #8–9, and #11–12) alongside André Popp (tracks #1, #4, #7, #10, and #13). The original lp contains tracks #1-10, with tracks #11-13 being bonus tracks on the 2003 remaster issued on Barclay Records as part of the 16-disc box set Boîte à Bonbons.

Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong "Ella and Louis" (1956)

Ella and Louis [debut]
release date: Oct. 1956
format: digital (2007 remaster)
[album rate: 4 / 5]

Tracklist: 1. "Can't We Be Friends?" - 2. "Isn't This a Lovely Day?" - 3. "Moonlight in Vermont" - 4. "They Can't Take That Away From Me" - 5. "Under a Blanket of Blue" - 6. "Tenderly" - 7. "A Foggy Day" - 8. "Stars Fell on Alabama" - 9. "Cheek to Cheek" - 10. "The Nearness of You" - 11. "April in Paris"

First collaboration album featuring Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong. My cd edition was remastered in 2007. This album is simply wonderful. I don't own a lot of music from the '50s but this is definitely one of the best of a decade. It's such a warm and positive album, and it just makes you wanna smile. I have several albums with Ella 'cause I simply love her fantastic voice but this is one of a few ones with Louis.

Ella Fitzgerald "Lullabies of Birdland" (1955)

Lullabies of Birdland

release date: 1955

format: vinyl (1960 reissue, DL 8149)

[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,92]

producer: various

label: Decca - nationality: USA

Early compilation album by Ella Fitzgerald with eleven tracks stemming from older recordings, which have all been previously issued for 78rpm singles during the late 1940s and early 1950s (track #11 is recorded in 1945, tracks #5 & #8 are from 1947, track #9 from 1949, tracks #2-4 & #10 from 1952, tracks #1 & #6 from 1954, and track #7 from 1955).

These recordings are a fine treat and despite some missing dynamics, mostly issues with vocal range, this compilation is remarkably good.

Chet Baker "Chet Is Back!" (1962)

Chet Is Back!
release date: Jan. 1962
format: digital
[album rate: 4 / 5]

Studio album by Chet Baker. It's one of his most well-renowned albums, and I think it's more than good, only, it's not the style that first comes to my mind when I'm thinking of Chet Baker. This is great jazz bop, which is a style much more in a field of John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Stan Getz, and Charlie Mingus. Here, Chet shows how he's more than capable of that style as well. And well, I guess all great jazz artists just had to play music according to that style at some point from the mid 50s to mid 60s. It also contains one or two tracks in his real trademark: cool jazz but no vocal jazz or that fine combo of easy listening and standards that I love when played by Chet. The album's title refers to the fact that Chet had spent almost a year and a half in prison in Italy because of possession of drugs.

Chet Baker

~ ~ ~

Chet Baker (birth name: Chesney Henry Baker; Dec. 23, 1929 - May 13, 1988), was born in Yale, Oklahoma, USA, and died in Amsterdam, The Netherlands some 58 years later. He's one of my absolute favorite jazz artists alongside Ella Fitzgerald, Etta James, Billie Holiday, Dexter Gordon, and Stan Getz. He had a highly original style, which was expressed in his brilliant soft and fragile singing voice and the tender melancholic beauty of his horn. Chet lived a hard life with alcohol and drug addiction which considerably shortened his life. He is a one the biggest jazz artists of the 1950s and 1960s, and is perhaps mostly known for his restrained playing style and influence on the foundation of cool jazz, as well as his fragile singing voice. In the 50s and 60s he was a male icon due to his photogenic looks. His trumpet career was boosted when he played with The Gerry Mulligan Quartet feat. Gerry Mulligan (baritone sax), Chet Baker (trumpet), Larry Bunker (drums), Carson Smith (bass). In the mid-50s he was promoted alongside Frank Sinatra and also had a film role in 1955 but refused to go further in an acting career. He spent many years travelling and playing in Europe in the '60s. In 1966 he was brutally beaten up in a drug related incident in San Francisco, and from the early 1970s he mostly played and lived in Europe. He ended his life after a fall from a window in Amsterdam - presumably as a result from taking both heroin and cocaine.

Chet Baker at the end of his career, and as a young photogenic star

~ ~ ~

Charles Mingus "Mingus Ah Um" (1959)

Mingus Ah Um
release date: Sep. 14, 1959
format: vinyl (1987 remaster) / digital (2009 reissue)
[album rate: 4 / 5]
producer: Teo Macero
label: CBS Records - nationality: USA

Studio album by Charles Mingus originally released on Columbia - here in the digitally remastered series 'CBS Jazz Masterpieces'.
The album is an essential part of any jazz collection.

[ allmusic.com, Rolling Stone 5 / 5, Popmatters 4,5 / 5 stars ]

Jacques Brel "Quand on n'a que l'amour" (1957)

Quand on n'a que l'amour
release date: 1957
format: cd (2003 remaster)
[album rate: 3,5 / 5]

Track highlights: 1. "Quand on n'a que l'amour" - 2. "Qu'avons-nous fait, bonnes gens?" - 3. "Les pieds dans le ruisseau" - 5. "La bourrée du célibataire" - 7. "Saint-Pierre" - 8. "J'en appelle"

2nd studio album by Jacques Brel originally released on Philips aka 'Jacques Brel 2'. As the debut, this consists of compositions written by Brel (except track #4 co-written with Jacques Vigouroux). And much like the debut, this hardly contains superfluous songs - and the album itself is quite remarkable. Orchestra conductors here are: André Popp on tracks #1 and #4-10, Michel Legrand on #2-3, and François Rauber is credited on track #11 (which is an alternate recording of track #1) on the 2003 remaster cd edition.