Essential Studio Albums

[VinylGuy]

i see you already covered Miles´s Birth Of The Cool, dude what a fucking album really. It gets super interesting when you realized the career he was forging and what was coming next.

[liebzz]

i see you already covered Miles´s Birth Of The Cool, dude what a fucking album really. It gets super interesting when you realized the career he was forging and what was coming next.

Absolutely, lots of Miles Davis on deck.

[liebzz]

Louis Armstrong & Ella Fitzgerald - Porgy & Bess

Jazz does an opera here, as this primarily vocal album with an orchestra finds Armstrong and Fitzgerald’s chemistry that much better than even the last one covered here. Armstrong plays trumpet on a few tunes but given their dedication to the Porgy & Bess opera and story, the vocals are the point, with Armstrong singing as Porgy and Fitzgerald as Bess. My favorite Armstrong track is A Woman Is A Sometime Thing, while Fitzgerald shines the whole off the album, Buzzard Song being the most dramatic, Bess You Is My Woman Now a great duet where you can really get into their characters. This is quite fantastic.

The Essential Track: Bess You Is My Woman Now

Up Next: Miles Davis - Miles Ahead

[liebzz]

Miles is working with Gil Evans here directing a large orchestra. There’s a lot of fun moments here where Miles and the orchestra interchange passages back and forth, yet there’s also a few moments they might be blasting over him, but his smooth playing is in great form here. My favorites here were Miles Ahead, Blues for Pablo, New Rhumba, and I Don’t Want to Be Kissed By Anyone But You, which shows off a bit of Miles’ lighter side. Another very strong album here.

The Essential Track: I Don’t Want to Be Kissed (By Anyone But You)

Up Next: John Coltrane - Blue Train

[liebzz]

John Coltrane - Blue Train

It’s pretty incredible to put this on now after listening to nearly 30 Jazz albums in the past two weeks and Coltrane starts playing and it’s like watching Jordan highlights slack jawed. I mean, this guy is simply other worldly from the moment he starts to play on the title track pretty much all the way until the end. Hard bop, ballads, still sounds great. The first three songs on this, Blue Train, Moment’s Notice, and Locomotion, are crazy great. I’m Old Fashioned works as a nice ballad to break things up before Lazy Bird closes it in all sorts of directions. This album is just phenomenal.

The Essential Track: Blue Train

Up Next: Sonny Rollins - Saxophone Colossus

[VinylGuy]

Haa yes blue train dude what an experience

I listened as a kid and really pushed me towards more experimental and loose music from what I was listening in those days

[liebzz]

Sonny Rollins - Saxophone Colossus

Given that in the many contributions to albums and the live album earlier, I might have expected more of a rapid fire approach from Sonny Rollins. This is a bit smoother than that, like a compromise to some level of cool jazz, and it still sounds pretty great, even coming off the heels of Blue Train (which I have heard before, though not within a litany of jazz albums). St. Thomas, Strode Rode, and Moritat really stuck out on first listen - even not at top speed, Rollins is a stunning sax player, no way around it. Feels like I am being spoiled banging through this many epic jazz albums in a row. Note that Mac Roach is exceptional on this album.

The Essential Track: Strode Rode

Up Next: Count Basie - The Atomic Count Basie

[liebzz]

Count Basie - The Atomic Mr. Basie

Damn this album is fun! This bursts with energy from the opening notes, his orchestra on point from the outset. The Kid From Red Bank, After Supper, Flight of the Foo Birds, and Fantail jumped out as must hears on this. I don’t know that I would quite put it up with some of the other recent albums, but a nice rapid paced blast was more than welcome.

The Essential Track: The Kid From Red Bank

Up Next: B.B. King - Wails

[liebzz]

B.B. King Wails

Another killer blues album with orchestra from King. This seems like King’s secret sauce recipe of orchestral explosion with that characteristic guitar riffing that made him a legend. The closer Time to Say Goodbye is such a great example of this dynamism working in spades. There’s some deep soul music hanging out on this one too.

The Essential Track: Time to Say Goodbye

Up Next: Little Richard - Here’s Little Richard

[liebzz]

Little Richard - Here’s Little Richard

Little Richard is a fire ball of energy, absolutely attacking these songs like a bull in a china shop. The ferocity he approaches these songs, to me, contrasts with some of the same songs that Elvis Presley included in his first albums, and Little Richard makes Elvis sound like dinner music in comparison. It’s not perfect but it’s not meant to be. The kind of show of force that could push back against rock n roll’s moments of staleness (which happened time and time again in the genre).

The Essential Track: Rip It Up

Up Next: Chuck Berry - After School Session

[liebzz]

Chuck Berry - After School Session

Lead by School Day, Berry’s debut album is actually quite a bit more varied than you normally associate with the Chuck Berry sound. There’s the early rock and roll sound he’s known for, but blues and folk in between. But you can’t beat that Chuck Berry signature on School Day, Too Much Monkey Business and Brown Eyed Handsome Man, as much as I do enjoy Havana Moon and Downbound Train.

The Essential Track: Brown Eyed Handsome Man

Up Next: Buddy Holly and the Crickets - The “Chirping” Crickets

[liebzz]

Buddy Holly and the Crickets - The “Chirping” Crickets

This is debut album by Buddy Holly, with the Crickets, and it includes quite a few of the most recognizable and covered songs of the early rock n’ roll era. That’ll Be the Day, Not Fade Away, Maybe Baby, Lookin’ For Someone to Love, and Oh Boy! come to mind immediately as pure classics. Buddy Holly’s influences of blues and rockabilly are on full display here, and the songs seem so easy here, maybe because of their familiarity, but he always seemed like a songwriting genius amongst his peers to me.

The Essential Track: Not Fade Away

Up Next: Miles Davis - Milestones

[liebzz]

Miles Davis - Milestones

This is one of those jazz albums I have long been drawn to. Most of this has a bluesy swing to it, cool and smooth while simultaneously showing off some serious chops in what is an amazing band. And having Davis and Coltrane together is an unmatchable duo. Dr. Jekyll and Sid’s Ahead are early great examples of these guys working together, and Straight No Chaser sounds great in their hands. But the genius of this record is Milestones, which is a brilliant composition that really plays on their strengths. Birth of the Cool’s genius aside, this one feels like Miles entering his prime as a player and as a visionary. Great stuff.

The Essential Track: Milestones

Up Next: The Dave Brubek Quartet - Time Out

[liebzz]

Dave Brubek Quartet - Time Out

This is another I have heard before, an album I think is really fit for a drum and bass fan. That said, the whole band has a bunch of moments where the chemistry and fluidity are in pretty great order. The opening track feels both familiar and unsettling at the same time - in fact I think Blue Rondo a la Turk is the best track on here, even if Take Five is one of those songs you have to have been exposed to in the course of your lifetime by at least osmosis. The drum solo on Take Five is also pretty cool. This is overall a very pleasant listen over top some really phenomenal rhythm and beat changes.

The Essential Track: Blue Rondo a la Turk

Up Next: Duke Ellington - Ellington Indigos

[liebzz]

Duke Ellington and his Orchestra - Ellington Indigos

Particularly on Solitude, Mood Indigo, The Sky Fell Down, Cop Out, and Coloratura, it seems like Ellington is trying to marry his romanticism and prior output with the more modern jazz sounds of the recent albums I covered from Miles Davis and John Coltrane. And frankly, these are the best songs on the album that otherwise seems like a less energetic version of that great compilation we nearly started off with. The songs not mentioned here fell into the background for me, which is a shame, but the highlights here I thought were pretty cool.

The Essential Track: Coloratura

Up Next: Billie Holiday - Lady in Satin

[liebzz]

Billie Holiday - Lady in Satin

Billie Holiday’s voice has a smoky, lived-in quality to it at this later age. It lends well to the more somber tone of this album, lamenting love gone wrong. The moodier pieces, like The End of a Love Affair are really nice, though for an album nearly an hour long, it doesn’t quite shift or move around enough - but that’s a very minor criticism. Really, I don’t know that these vocal jazz albums full of ballads are so much my thing, and that’s okay. I am glad that I listened really because there are always things to learn and take away from these classic albums.

The Essential Track: The End of a Love Affair

Up Next: B.B. King - Sings Spirituals

[liebzz]

B.B. King Sings Spirituals

This is really a pure gospel album from the blues legend. King doesn’t really insert his blues or really anything other than his singing voice on to this, making it a slight disappointment in that regard, but it does show off his singing voice, often not really regarded as compared to his guitar playing and blues composition.

The Essential Track: I’m Working on the Building

Up Next: Ray Charles - The Genius of Ray Charles

[liebzz]

Ray Charles - The Genius of Ray Charles

This one evokes big band and vocal jazz, about half ballads with some more uptempo moments in spots. The best ballad in my view was Just For a Thrill, which had a bluesy aspect to it. Alexander’s Rag Time Band was really good fun, as was my favorite off this, Let the Good Times Roll. Another that doesn’t necessarily seem like it will pull me back, but pleasant listening.

The Essential Track: Let the Good Times Roll

Up Next: Buddy Holly

[doug rr]

good stuff as always liebzz..I grew up with my dad always playing Ray Charles' modern country album for a a year or two..

[liebzz]

Buddy Holly

On Holly’s debut solo album there’s no shortage of ideas, and no time to waste. 17 songs in 35 minutes, and one after the next seems like a classic. The ones I was most familiar with were I’m Gonna Love You Too, Peggy Sue, Ready Teddy, Everyday, Words of Love, Rave On, Think It Over, and Fool’s Paradise. That’s a lot of key early rock n’ roll songs stuffed into one album. You can nearly hear the Beatles, Stones, and countless other bands in this thing.

The Essential Track: Peggy Sue

Up Next: Chuck Berry - One Dozen Berries