35 replies to this topic

[ohtani's jacket]

Been listening to some blues and jazz from this year. These are genres I only really dabble in so I can only tell you what I like.

I Am the Blues, Willie Dixon
-- Willie Dixon is indeed the blues, but I think this demonstrates that prolific songwriters are often songwriters because they lack a singing voice. Dixon's voice isn't bad per se, it's just no match for the guys who sang the songs he wrote. Still, this is considered one of the heavyweight blues albums of the decade and features a lot of material that was covered by Led Zepplin, Cream, the Doors, the Stones and so on, which means that you should probably listen to it.

Spoiler

Indianola Mississippi Seeds, B.B. King
-- Solid blues by B.B. King. King isn't my favourite Blues musician by any stretch but I could imagine digging this if it was on in the background of a Blues bar or something.

Les stances a Sophie, Art Ensemble of Chicago
-- This was a film soundtrack that became a rather legendary piece of avant-garde jazz. The opening track is amazing and perhaps my favourite song of 1970. The rest of the album was far more challenging for a jazz dabbler such as myself.

Spoiler

Deaf Dumb Blind (Summun Bukmun Umyun), Pharoah Sanders
-- Probably my favourite jazz album so far. Only two tracks -- the first has a rhythm and R&B influence which obviously I dig and the second is an old spiritual. This poll is the first time for me to listen to free jazz so I don't know what's going on, but I liked this album.

Spoiler

[Televiper]

AMON DUUL II -- YETI


VASHTI BUNYAN -- JUST ANOTHER DIAMOND DAY


MILES DAVIS --BITCHES BREW


CAN --SOUNDTRACKS


ALICE COLTRANE -- JOURNEY IN SATCHIDANANDA

[ohtani's jacket]

Southside Blues Jam, Junior Wells & Buddy Guy
-- Fun jam session between two legendary performers. Nothing essential, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Spoiler

Etta James Sings Funk, Etta James
-- Not the hidden gem I was hoping for, but it's Etta James.

Spoiler

The Awakening, The Ahmad Jamal trio
-- Ahmad Jamal was an unsung but highly influential pianist who had a big influence on Miles Davis in particular. This isn't on the album, but it's a cool cover of Stevie Wonder's Superstition:

Spoiler

Ptah, the El Daoud, Alice Coltrane
-- Alice Coltrane was the wife of John Coltrane and a talent musician in her own right. This is a fantastic album.

Spoiler

Red Clay, Freddie Hubbard
-- Gave this another listen and this may be my favourite jazz album of the year (I need to listen to Bitches Brew again.) It's funk and soul influenced hard bop. Everything I like basically.

Spoiler

[caley]

caley, on Apr 17 2012, 05:31 AM, said:

Van Morrison - Moondance: Sweet, beautiful stuff from Morrison.  Everything on this sounds like a summer night, to me.

So, in my head, the mental review of this album I had made was "Starts off strong with lots of weaker stuff in the back half".  And after a re-listen, boy, was I ever wrong!  Listening to it tonight and was waiting for the weaker tracks to start and suddenly realized it was over.  Every single song is so good on here that it's hard to pick a highlight (Okay, 'Into the Music' and 'Crazy Love' are probably it)  but it's impossible to pick a lowlight.

[ohtani's jacket]

Branching out a bit...

Ritual, Nico Gomez And His Afro Percussion Inc.
-- Nico Gomez was actually a Belgian born in Amsterdam but that didn't stop him putting out Latin funk grooves. The up tempo numbers on this really blew me away on first listen.

Spoiler

Forca Bruta, Jorge Ben
-- The only time I really listen to samba is in Wired cafe, but this a nice, mellow album.

Spoiler

Fela's London Scene, Fela Kuti
-- One thing that's become apparent since I started listening to stuff for this poll is that I'm going to have to listen to Fela Kuti. A LOT of Fela Kuti. That's okay because this was a seriously great album.

Spoiler

[ohtani's jacket]

This is the last 1970 album I'm considering for now:

Everything Is Everything, Donny Hathaway
-- Hathaway had a great voice. I wasn't sold by everything on this album but I kept it playing in the background and gradually it grew on me. Closer to Marvin Gaye than the kind of stuff I like.

Spoiler

These albums have some decent stuff but aren't essential:

Free Your Mind... and Your Ass Will Follow, Funkadelic
Look-Ka Py Py, The Meters
Tell the Truth, Otis Redding
Soul on Top, James Brown
Struttin', The Meters
Soul Sugar, Jimmy McGriff
Muscle Shoals Nitty Gritty, Herbie Mann
Green is Beautiful, Grant Green

Tried getting into Tim Maia and Elis Regina, but samba's just not my thing. Couldn't get into the Issac Hayes albums as much as I wanted to either. Eugene McDaniels was kind of weird and interesting. I wonder if anyone around here digs his stuff.

Anyway, I've got to buy a new copy of Bitches Brew and then I'm putting this year to bed. 1971 here I come!

[ohtani's jacket]

Sex Machine, James Brown
-- I thought I had been sleeping on this since it was James Brown playing with the original J.B.'s (w/ Bootsy Collins and Catfish Collins), but this was... not very good... Only a third of the album is the original J.B.'s and it's produced as a fake live album. One of my favourite compilation albums is Funk Power 1970: A Brand New Thang which has previously unreleased James Brown & the original J.B.'s material from the year they spent together. I was expecting this would be more of the same, but it pales in comparison. Massive disappointment. Won't make my list.

[Death From Above]

ohtani, on Apr 19 2012, 06:30 PM, said:

Ptah, the El Daoud, Alice Coltrane
-- Alice Coltrane was the wife of John Coltrane and a talent musician in her own right. This is a fantastic album.

Spoiler

I'd like to second this. All new to me, and I still haven't really heard enough jazz to say where this really goes on the big ole' totem pole, but this was really good. Some cool main riffs they build around, great smooth long solo runs ranging from contained to a bit showy, and Blue Nile is honestly probably the first time I've ever thought harp playing sounded cool. Both of the long cuts, the title track and Mantra, are worth all the time they put into it. A definite keeper, stuff like this makes stretching out of my comfort zone worthwhile.

So far I've been stuck in 1970-73 a lot of the time. Seems like there were good albums coming out by the week at some points.

[Graham Crackers]

Third - Soft Machine
Inhabits an interesting space between prog rock and jazz fusion. I'm listening to this for the first time today thanks to someone uploading the whole album to youtube (here's a link). It has an interesting set of dynamics. The first song alone starts with a sort of drone and then kicks into high gear with a cacophony of horns and heavy percussion before settling into something much smoother.

[Brian Fowler]

Looking back over this thread, I realized I never pimped Plastic Ono Band.

So...


John Lennon - Plastic Ono Band

The end of the greatest band of all-time, for all intents and purposes.  At times, Lennon seems to be almost crushed under the very weight of who he is on this record.  It might literally be the most introspective and deeply personal record of all-time.  It has my own personal favorite Lennon solo track, Working Class Hero, which is just a stripped down, almost Dylan-esque man and guitar song about oppression.  Sure, it's a little hard to take Lennon seriously about being working class if you think about how rich he was, but the song itself never rings false.  Songs like Mother, Remember, and God...  All very straight forward titles, but managing to pretty much span the expanse of what could loosely be called rock music.  Just a spectacular record, and there is quite literally nothing else in the history of music that sounds quite like it.  Perhaps even more remarkably, it sounds little if anything like any of the 11 Beatles records.  John Lennon had already marked himself down as one of the towers of rock n roll before this record.  By the time "My Mummy's Dead" closes the record out, he had closed the deal and made it clear that he was THE greatest artist in the history of Rock N' Roll.

[Brian Fowler]

Other than Johnny mentioning it, how has nobody really pimped Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs?  I mean, Jesus Christ what a great fucking album that is.

[Johnny Sorrow]

Brian Fowler, on Jun 21 2012, 06:10 AM, said:

Other than Johnny mentioning it, how has nobody really pimped Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs?  I mean, Jesus Christ what a great fucking album that is.

The box set has a disc called "the Jams". Jam #5 is Derek and the Dominos with the Allman Bros. It's mind melting.

[Death From Above]

ohtani, on Apr 16 2012, 08:56 PM, said:

The Delfonics, The Delfonics
-- Smooth as shit. Go blow your girl's mind.

Spoiler

This album rules so much.

[ohtani's jacket]

Wrapped up my 1970 listening. There's a bunch of avant-garde, improv and free jazz I didn't get around too, but I don't have time and it's hard enough getting through the recordings of the jazz musicians I'm already familiar with.

These were the final albums I listened to for this year:

I'm a Loser, Doris Duke
Memphis High, Johnny Robinson
Margie Joseph Makes a New Impression, Margie Joseph
Psychedelic Shack, The Temptations
Extensions, McCoy Tyner
Mwandishi, Herbie Hancock
Ubiquity, Roy Ayers

I think the Doris Duke album is actually from '69 (had conflicting dates on that one.) That album and Memphis High were really solid, underrated soul albums. The Margie Joseph was okay, but there are better female soul artists from the same period. I liked half the cuts on the Temptations album and hated the rest. Will still keep a copy, though. Preferred the Tyner album over this period of Herbie Hancock. I'm a funk/soul tragic and love Head Hunters and Thrust no matter how impure they must sound to jazz hardcores. Speaking of jazz, I really wish every album by a jazz musician I like wasn't rated four stars or above. That really makes life tough with a deadline on your spare time. I went overboard listening to Roy Ayers the last week or so. What can I say? His stuff does it for me.

[Travis Sheldon]

These are my selections from 1970 (In no particular order!):

1970 Jethro Tull - Benefit
1970 Black Sabbath s/t
1970 Black Sabbath - Paranoid
1970 Deep Purple - In Rock
1970 Led Zeppelin - III
1970 The Beatles - Let It Be
1970 The Doors - Morrison Hotel
1970 Kraftwerk s/t
1970 Mountain - Climbing!
1970 Sir Lord Baltimore - Kingdom Come
1970 The Mothers of Invention - Weasels Ripped My Flesh
1970 Marty Robbins - El Paso
1970 Creedence Clearwater Revival - Cosmo's Factory
1970 MC5 - Back in the USA

[goodhelmet]

These are the albums from 1970 I was considering when I put together my initial list. Some are way up on the list and some are way down.

Simon & Garfunkel – Bridge Over Troubled Water

The Guess Who – American Woman

The Doors – Morrison Hotel

Paul McCartney - McCartney

The Beatles – Let It Be

Black Sabbath – Paranoid

Led Zeppelin III

George Harrison – All Things Must Pass

The Kinks – Lola versus Powerman and the Merry-go-Round

John Lennon – Plastic Ono Band

Donovan – Open Road