Two Steps from the Blues, Free Jazz, West Side Story

Bobby Bland - Two Steps from the Blues
Year Rank: 1
Overall Rank: 420

Bobby Bland must have read the How Stuff Works article on the blues. Each song on this album sounds exactly like the blues, but inauthentic. The lyrics all sound like somebody took a fishbowl, filled it with sad couplets, pulled them out randomly and set them all to music. The melodies are very predictable - standard progressions, standard beats - it's all very standard. If Bobby Bland couldn't sing, this record would be utterly unlistenable.

The album's not bad - it's just not good. Certainly not the best record of 1961. To paraphrase my wife's review of a Smiths mix tape once given to her by a guy who used to work for the Simpsons, each song sounds exactly the same, if in fact there are separate songs on this album and not just one long boring mess. Oh also, I hate the Smiths.

Yeah it's acclaimed, but is it good?

Not really? There are a couple of good songs, but they all sound like each other so it's tough to tell. I suppose the best way to listen to this album is by taking all of the individual songs, putting them on your iPod, and then putting the whole business on shuffle so you can hear one track at a time, interspersed between songs that don't sound as similar. As an album though, it sucks.

Worth listening to for: “Two Steps from the Blues” and “St. James Infirmary”

Overall grade: D+. I never need to listen to this album again, and you probably don't need to listen to it in the first place. Avoid.



Ornette Coleman - Free Jazz
Year Rank: 5
Overall Rank: 537

Before listening to this album I hoped the “free” in “Free Jazz” meant “gratis.” Turns out it means “awful.” So the way this album was recorded is Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy got together one day with a bunch of other musicians. I imagine it was like a game of pick-up basketball, where each dude got to draft his own band from a line of six or seven guys. They made teams of four, sat down in a studio and jazzed at each other for 37 straight minutes. No breaks. One band in the left speaker, one in the right.

I'm sure that the people responsible for this album had an awesome time recording it. It must have been incredibly impressive to watch, and loads of fun to play. To listen to the album, however, requires a herculean effort. To call my listening experience a chore would be an insult to doing the dishes (RICK REILLY JOKE). In the 37 minutes of alleged music, some really cool stuff does happen. When the two bands sync up, it's incredible. This happens five or six times throughout the album, and lasts for about 50 seconds each time. It's not worth slogging through the cacophonous tangle of sonic pubic hair just for that, though. This album, in a word, blows ass.

Yeah it's acclaimed, but is it good?

There's a story about the Parisian debut of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. When the audience was first subjected to the ballet, there were riots. Things were quite literally set on fire. Their small French minds couldn't wrap themselves around the very difficult piece that Stravinsky had put together. A year later, the ballet returned to France, and was met with rave reviews. The lesson? French people are stupid. (PS I like Igor Stravinsky, but I prefer Petroushka to The Rite of Spring. Also, I'm a snob and a prick.)

Does this mean that in a year, I'll relisten to this album in the hopes that my brain has matured to the point that I'll enjoy this album? No. No no no. Not even a little. It's an amazing accomplishment. It's technically quite impressive. I never want to listen to this again.

Worth listening to for: Uhhhhh...

Overall grade: F. This is as bad as Scrappy Doo.



West Side Story - Original Film Soundtrack
Year Rank: 14
Overall Rank: 1504

Let me tell you, I've never been so excited to listen to “Cool” in my entire life. After 40 minutes of boring and 40 minutes of screeching madness, West Side Story felt like the scene in Shawshank when the guy gets out of the sewers. I hadn't seen the film version in about 12 years, and I hadn't listened to any of the music in about ten, so I had forgotten exactly how spectacular this record is. It's touching, it's funny, it's intelligent. With the exception of Marni Nixon's insane-o over the top fakey Puerto Rican accent, this really is a perfect musical experience.

The only problem I really have is that it's a lot tougher to write a positive review than a negative one. I guess I can complain about how much “Cool” sucks, and I could make hack jokes about how gay it is to be in a gang that sings and dances, but where's the fun in that?

Yeah it's acclaimed, but is it good?

Yes. I think I just made that abundantly clear. I should have thought the format of this blog out better before I committed to it. Sheesh.

Worth listening to for: “America” and “Quintet”

Overall grade: A+. Possibly the greatest film musical ever made. All praise is due to the Bernstein/Sondheim combo for rhyming “Puerto Rican” with “chicken.”

1960 - Giant Steps, Live at Newport, Blues and Roots

John Coltrane - Giant Steps
Year Rank: 1
Overall Rank: 334

The impression that a lot of people have about jazz from the late 50's and early 60's is that it's just a bunch of guys getting high and making their saxophones go “squeedy-dee-doo-squee” for five minutes. They then take a break and make a different set of “squeedy-dee-doo-squee” noises for another five minutes, and so on. Oh, and don't forget the one where the guy plays the high hat all day while the pianist just kinda goes at it.

This impression, while not wholly correct, is based on truth. Giant Steps by John Coltrane starts off with three songs that follow the “squeedy-dee-doo-squee” trajectory. I understand why people like this, but I really can't get into it. I like mostly like jazz, and without sounding too square (daddy-o), I prefer my jazz to be smooth. Not 94.7 KTWV The Wa-ee-ave smooth, but I guess just more... downbeat. Luckily for the second half of this album, Coltrane tones down the melodic spikes, making the the whole experience a lot more pleasant.

Yeah, it's acclaimed, but is it good?

Eh, yeah, after a while, I guess. Paul F. Tompkins defines a “jazz joke” as a note that is played in a place where it shouldn't be, to an allegedly humorous end. Everybody playing the instruments laughs, and then all the phonies in the audience chuckle along with them. The first half of this album feels like one big old jazz joke, which eventually settles into a pretty good and pleasant record. I just wish they'd gotten around to it sooner.

Worth listening to for: “Spiral” and “Naima”

Overall grade: B-. I'm willing to give this one the benefit of the doubt, because while I can't say it was life-changing in any way, I have listened to it three times in the past three days - twice volitionally. Could be worse.

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Muddy Waters - Live at Newport 1960
Year Rank: 3
Overall Rank: 501

For most of my life I've lived with depression, though sadly I've never had the blues. You'd think I'd have at least gotten small outbreaks of the blues - I love cigarettes, whiskey, harmonicas, old cheap suits, warm beer, cold women - it all should add up to having the blues. The only problem I can see is that I'm not an old black dude with giant hands, which every great blues singer seems to be. Muddy Waters, being the Father of Chicago Blues, was no exception to this rule.

Waters' first live album, recorded at the 1960 Newport Jazz Festival, is exactly what you think of when you think of “the blues.” Muddy Waters' deep, resonant voice belting out songs about women leaving him over the crying harmonica and the thunderous rhythm section. It's truly fantastic. It used to be that if you released a live album, you'd just record one concert and just let that be your album, warts and all. I'm not sure when bands started cherry picking tracks from every stop on their tour and releasing what essentially becomes a live “best of” album. I'm much more interested in hearing a whole concert, or at least one contiguous chunk of a concert released as a record. It feels more natural. One of the highlights for this album is the encore of “Got My Mojo Workin',” a rolling call and response song that, once it ends, the crowd demands to hear it again.

Yeah, it's acclaimed, but is it good?

My God, yes. High energy and incredible musicianship make this album stand out as a shining star in a genre that can, at times, feel very derivative and repetitive. Even when the band plays the same song twice in a row, it feels less like repetition and more like an extended run of a successful play. The only problem I have with this album is that when Chess re-released it in 2001, they included bonus tracks from a different concert. The album is called Live in Newport, not Live in Newport and a Couple of Tracks in Chicago. Whatever.

Worth listening to for: “Got My Mojo Workin'” and “(I'm Your) Hoochie Coochie Man”

Overall grade: A+. This album is an especially impressive accomplishment considering that this is a soundboard recording from 50 years ago, and it sounds crystal clear.

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Charles Mingus - Blues and Roots
Year Rank: 6
Overall Rank: 824

Blues and Roots suffers less from jazz jokes than its alleged better, Giant Steps. It is, however, not without its faults. One of the first (only) things I learned about musical theory is that theme and variation can be used to create pleasant solos for all your band members. The problem with this - and most - jazz recordings is that the band seems to veer a little too far away from the theme in their attempts to vary it, alienating the listener (me). Mingus' band is much better at reeling it in than the Coltrane crew, however, and the experience is a lot more satisfying.

This album has a good, swinging, almost spiritual feel. The first track, “Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting,” sounds like the musical sermon. One thing that Mingus does on this album that I appreciate is yell. He yells all the time. Sometimes they're musical cues, sometimes they're just yelling for the sake of yelling. A good, old-fashioned shout never hurt anybody. It rather helps here.

Yeah, it's acclaimed, but is it good?

I'll say yes, but it's not a home run or anything. Stand-up triple, I guess. Just as exciting as a home run, but not as good. Of the two jazz albums I've listened to this week, this is far and away the better one, so there's that.

Worth listening to for: “Moanin'” and “Tensions.”

Overall grade: B+. Whenever I listen to jazz and don't like it, I feel like I'm missing something. Maybe I'm missing something in the music, maybe I'm missing something inside of me. Either way, something's missing. The real problem comes when I listen to jazz and I do like it - I'm never sure why. It's pleasant, I guess. Good album, not the best. (What a glowing recommendation, right?)

Tinnitus, an Introduction

It's 2010. For those of you who are counting, it's the 50th anniversary of the 1960's. The 60's was a decade of great, sweeping social change, or so I have been told. It was also a decade of men looking good in suits and women looking good in everything, if Mad Men is to be believed. People smoked indoors, people littered. It was pretty sweet. They even drank at work. What a lifestyle!

The lasting cultural output of the 1960's was the music. Ask anybody younger than 40 what the most significant aspect of the 60's was - most of them will tell you the music. They'll identify the great artists and albums of the 60's. The Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones. Pet Sounds, “Live” at the Apollo, the soundtrack to West Side Story. In an effort to put things into perspective, I checked Acclaimed Music, a site that has collected music reviews from the past century, aggregated them and used advanced - possibly boolean - math to scientifically prove who the greatest artists and albums of all time are. The overall list isn't very surprising. Beatles, Stones, Dylan. Pet Sounds, Revolver, Nevermind. Not exactly a shock.

I then checked the list for 1960. John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Muddy Waters - three artists with whom I wasn't very familiar. Obviously I know the names, but I had never sat down and listened to an entire John Coltrane album, and I couldn't name you a single Muddy Waters song if my life depended on it. Same thing with 1961. In fact, I hadn't listened to a single top-five album from any year until 1963, which gives me Beatles For Sale and The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. (In my defense, the top two albums of 1959, Miles Davis' Kind of Blue and Dave Brubeck's Time Out are two of my all-time favorite albums. I'm not a total philistine.)

In light of this discovery, I have made it my mission to listen to three of the most acclaimed albums of each year every week, starting with 1960 and making my way to the present. I figure if nothing else, it ought to give me another year's worth of writing material, and I'll finally have an excuse to write about music. My goal for each year is to listen to the number one album, another album in the top five, and one outside the top five. I will do my best to listen to at least one album that I've never heard before in an effort to broaden my horizons. Looking ahead, I'm going to have to listen to at least two Prince albums. I'm not thrilled about this.

On a personal and related note, I've developed tinnitus over the past few years. For the uninformed, tinnitus is an incurable chronic condition that causes a ringing sensation in your ears. Forever. It really sucks. I think I've always had it, but it has been particularly bad over the past four or five months. A sure sign that things aren't going great: The best Christmas present I got this year was a white noise maker from my wife's mother.

Long story short, I'm going to listen to (at least) three albums per week and write a review of about 500 words for each one, as well as a letter grade. I may end up going totally deaf. I'd like to hear as much important music as I possibly can before that happens.