The Top 70 Albums of the Early Sixties [1960-1964]

I made a decision last summer.

That since going through the years I wasn’t that privy to, from the 2010s, in the time-span of the last two years of the decade, in order to get as complete a decade-end list done as possible… I’ll start doing it for different decades as well.

I wanted to start with the decade of music that has always interested me the most, ever since I got hip to all genres of music and became the music nerd I am these days.

That decade was the sixties. The rest of 2019 was such a busy time for me, that I couldn’t even imagine committing to a listening-project of this scope on top of all the other projects I was in a (controlled) rush to complete, before the most significant decade of my life concluded. In December, as the biggest burden of hurry started getting lifted off, I got properly started.

Here we are at the halfway-point. I’ve now gone through the first five years, and including my occasional weeks off, six months is how long it took.

 

Here are my top 70 records from the first five years of the sixties!

 

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#70. Glenn Gould – The Well-Tempered Clavier: Book I – Preludes and Fugues 9-16 (1964)

 

Strange to start off a half-decade list with an album that’s a direct continuation of the same theme, pretty much same tonal stanza and most famously, the same original composition, as an album that’s gonna come up a lot later in the countdown. You’ll need to trust me on this; this is worth the trip to check out.

It’s just as contemplative, the piano is just as conversational yet dramatically scene-evoking as Preludes and Fugues 1-8

 

 

 

#69. The Impressions – Keep on Pushing (1964)

 

The Impressions’ emergence into the scene was also Curtis Mayfield‘s emergence. This shouldn’t be thought-of as just Mayfield’s debut — as the record shows, his early solo albums actually had a lot more to say in the way of subject-matter. But his heavy hand in this pinnacle of smoothness being achieved, can’t be ignored.

All of this might lend the Impression that I’m under-selling this album, but that’s because an album this stellar, this consistent, can take that. It’s so good it can take a little jab-o

 

 

 

#68. The Ventures – Walk, Don’t Run, Vol. 2 (1964)

 

Surf Rock is a genre that’s gonna come up on this list a sus amount, to some more skeptical folk. It really boils down to preference, but I can take some rehashings-of-ideas, repetition of standards… and lack of sonic progression carrying over from one part of a catalog, to another. I can take all that, in favor of some music that just sounds good. That’s what people forget about me. It just needs to sound good to me, to be considered good.

The Ventures have locked in that special tone. If I’m not wrong — this is my first day making writeups, and I’m just doing five a day — they’re gonna have two more entries on this list, I assume. Both pretty high.

Funny as it is to say — knowing that this album exists as a re-recording of an earlier album — Walk, Don’t Run, Vol. 2 brings together and centralizes all the great things The Ventures had going for them. The original material still remained their most famous, and the album most attached to their name, so coming back from great experiments and learning a bunch of tricks up ‘n’ da stu’, all-throughout the early sixties, this band returned to the source and updated it. A worthy endeavor.

It made it to this list, after all.

 

 

 

#67. Arthur Lyman – Taboo Vol. 2 (1960)

 

This was one of the very first fruits of my labor, in that it was an album I checked off the to-listen shortlist — A-G section circa 1960 — that I really loved, and simultaneously knew I wouldn’t have found out about, had it not been for this list. Ever since finding this album, Arthur Lyman’s albums in the following years’ A-G sections, were among my priorities.

Of course, reading about Lyman and the great things he did to push the Exotica movement forward, were a neat bit of added context — something that made albums such as Blowin’ in the Wind all the more touching to me as a historian — but back when I heard this, the enjoyment was rooted in light, blissful cluelessness. There was nothing else coming at me, than this neat package of diverse sounds that worked itself out to a super easy listening experience.

 

 

 

#66. Chico Hamilton – Man From Two Worlds (1964)

 

Chico swings like no one’s lis’nin’!

But really, there’s so little in the way of complaints here, and things are brought together by production and arrangement in such a by-the-book flawless way that it in itself doesn’t lend much memorability to itself. What makes this album pure memorabilia, however, is how rich it all manages to even in places that seem transitional to steps that each song — long or short — is taking toward a climax. Gábor Szabó‘s guitar is understated on the initial playthrough, but vital to what Chico’s adventurous rhythm-sections, and Charles Lloyd‘s wind-instruments’ narration, are bringing together.

 

 

 

#65. Jimmy Hughes – Steal Away (1964)

 

Such an early showcasing of Soul/R&B showmanship AND the degree of substance that would become required of an artist in the genre that wanted to be taken seriously; unfortunately from an artist who’s not among the most well-known. Jimmy actually has a more famous cousin, Percy Sledge.

The first phrase of this description is really the core value of Steal Away, which all good hypothesis’ of the album are gonna boil down to. To me, the most commendable feat from this album was how well it held its own against the IMMENSE competition it would have in Soul music, in 1964. And I was getting introduced to Hughes as I was hearing this album for the first time.

 

 

 

#64. Lee Morgan – Expoobident (1961)

 

Lee Morgan and Clifford Jordan go on a wacky adventure.
Which is not to make them or their music here seem less serious. I understand that this is a less-known and more undersold album.
It is also not meant to make wacky adventures sound serious. They are not.

The trumpet/tenor saxophone interplay here is immaculate, and if this wasn’t already good enough on its own merits as a showcasing of how good such intercourse can be… it’s also incredibly dynamic. Solos take off and land so effortlessly. You’re just with this album the whole time you’re listening to it.

 

 

 

#63. Jackie McLean – Destination Out! (1964)

 

With the prior year’s Let Freedom Ring almost reaching top 10 for its respective year — and trust me, on just a moderately good year it would’ve, but this was 1963 we’re talkin’ ’bout ‘ere — it registered for em that Jackie McLean is the shit.
What wasn’t as crystal-clear back then, was how instrumental Grachan Moncur III‘s involvement was in that development that was taking place. Not only is his interplay with McLean’s alto sax-playing immersive and captivating and relaxing, all three at the same time; he’s also very largely responsible for this more meditative, drifting-between-scales approach that Jackie McLean took part in and mastered, setting a standard with his two outings in ’64 for what a good Blue Note Records album was supposed to feel like.

Grachan composed two of the four cuts here, and formed the modest 5-piece band together with the guy whose name is on the tagline, an emerging vibraphonist (you might’a heard of him, goes by Bobby Hutcherson), and a strong rhythm-section of Larry Ridley on bass and Roy Haynes on drums.

There’s a lot of interesting tidbits and well-documented story beats that this album captures, but what is most exciting about it is the music. I don’t know if you thought much of when I said, earlier, that this album — specifically the wind-instrument interplay — makes me feel “immersive and captivating and relaxing, all three at the same time”. That is a complex set of feelings to take away from something like a Jazz album. All that, paired with how inescapably cool the exterior of Destination Out! is, just makes it its own enigma and I love it for that.

 

 

 

#62. Barbra Streisand – People (1964)

 

I was just as surprised as anyone when I found out Barbra Streisand actually held a top 10 album from 1964 for me, for a good time as I was going through the A-G and H-N sections of that year’s shortlists.
An explicit “WTF” is actually one of the reactions I got from my friends when I revealed this fact.

But the truth of it is, Barbra is a performance-driven artist in all of these Standards-albums of the early stages of her music career. This selection of songs is nothing short of perfect for what her skillset is. And despite veering very well off of the trapping of choosing the same old, tired tunes — the majority of these Vocal Jazz tunes here I actually wasn’t introduced to when I first heard People — the only trapping of the genre she falls into here, is that at points there is a lack of variety in vocal inflection, and tricks seem predictable.
While all this can be held as a valid criticism of the record, Barbra’s selection of tunes is still strong enough, and hiccups such as predictability are so sparse, that these songs bring out the best of her and she brings out the best of these songs, ten times out of nine.

This brings out the best of Barbra’s skillset. And I wasn’t sure what her skillset was before hearing this album. This was just the second Streisand album I evver listened to. But this album let me know what her skillset was. That’s how far sincere conviction and love for your material, can go.

 

 

 

#61. Les Baxter – The Primitive and the Passionate (1962)

 

Former and latter Les Baxter albums haven’t convinced me quite as much as this although I’ve seen the potential and the musical drive in each of them. But this one just has the whole package. It’s got a forward-thinking way of selling its aesthetics, never to hinder the easy, light music experience it knows you want to partake in.

Just a classy album, whether it wants to take the more Jazzy or the more true-to-Exotica route, at various points of itself.

 

 

 

#60. Sérgio Mendes – Bossa Nova York (1964)

 

For being the artist that took my favorite Hip Hop producer’s world by storm during the time his debut album was being made… it certainly took me a while to get really invested in the work of Sergio Mendes

There really is a Brazilian Classical Music’s grace to this compositional direction, how takeoffs might be delayed and arranged in the obvious Jazz-nodding way. Something about Bossa Nova York (also known as Swinger from Rio) is so delicate that it fades into such an ambiance you hardly even remember what you’re doing. It’s utterly entrancing.

The acoustics as well as the Mono sound complement the authentic, in-the-moment freshness. Mendes’ piano in particular is in such an expressive tone, is so lyrical in bringing out these Bossa Nova visits to the extreme of their ability and effect.

My favorite Hip Hop producer is J Dilla, by the way. Welcome 2 Detroit being his debut album.

 

 

 

#59. Charles Mingus – Blues & Rots (1960)

 

Retrospective memory makes me often recall this album as just a previous chapter to The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady. While similarities to the higher-on-this-list-ranking Mingus album are there in just the driving tonality of lead wind-instruments, what Mingus does here is just as worthy of applause as any best-of-its-year Jazz effort. These big band-arrangements fill all the space that could possibly be left and then a little bit.
All this, while being a love letter to the Blues.

Mingus the young & ambitious composer/bandleader made perhaps his biggest strides at the turn of the decade, and in that discussion, Blues & Roots should never be ignored for the sake of other world-acclaimed albums.

 

 

 

#58. Dinah Washington – Dinah ’63 (1963)

 

Dinah the absolute queen, is without a doubt the most precious discovery I made during this whole adventure. With the most entries on this very list (4), she proved her status which was already gonna be pretty clear to me, after the discovery of that ever-so-precious string of great outings of Standards-renditions in ’61.

Dinah passed away in 1963, the year this album was made. aside from that, fans remember 1963 being a special year for her in the other respect, that there was a change of staff and switch in general direction, where arrangements “matured” from the syrupy peak they had at the turn of the decade. While this was a fulfilling new side for me to hear, following the story of her late-career music slowly and methodically, album-by-album… what used to be, holds as much of a special place.

The best way to put Dinah ’63 into context in the confines of Washington’s discography, is to look at it as a sequel to 1962’s Dinah ’62. It’s not a continuation that repeats the same tricks, but rather showcases well, the changes this last year has bestowed upon her personally, all shining through this warm voice covering — just as brilliantly as before, but in a performance that feels more lived-in — readings of a stunning list of ballads again.

 

 

 

#57. Art Blakey Quartet – A Jazz Message (1964)

 

No “Jazz Messengers” in the title? You noticed that as well?
Yeah, I had to double-check too, the first time I laid eyes upon this album’s profile over here on RateYourMusic.

I don’t know the full story of how A Jazz Message came to be. What is known, is that this is the second and last album Blakey ever had released from Impulse!. Might be a label thing, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s just something Impulse released to rake in that Jazz Messenger money. Shit like that wasn’t uncommon in this time.

Nevertheless.
Art Blakey is a name that can never be ignored, whenever seriously discussing the folks that made Jazz a more credible genre, serious way of expression in the movements that followed Bebop taking over for the majority of the 1950s. The list of people that “came up in da world” due to their involvement with Art Blakey and the Messengers, is amazing. Just a quick brush-up on the credits-list of any classic-era Messengers-album, will tell anyone that knows their Jazz, that every member is a legend in their field.

The lineup here only slightly recalls those famous ensembles. Sonny Stitt is still doing a spectacular job on tenor sax. But this isn’t one of those innovative Art Blakey albums. This isn’t even one of those well-remembered, well-documented pieces of work by Blakey.
What it is, however, is enjoyable.

I had just such a good time listening to this album. It’s melodically rich, everyone is at the peak of their performance, and despite fragments of backstory existing for it and the possibility of it being a mere cash-grab from a label that saw an opportunity with whatever kind of deal they had with Blakey back then… the music is just undeniable, once you put it on.

 

 

 

#56. Sam Cooke – Ain’t That Good News (1964)

 

1963 was easy for me to pinpoint as the point in time when Sam Cooke found that rasp in his voice. That culmination of his performance-style.

Here, on the first collection of songs Sam recorded after the passing of his son, and the last bits he wrote before his own untimely death, Sam Cooke expanded on the incredible Mr. Soul from last year.

And of course we have A Change Is Gonna Come here, which is just a timeless stamp of great writing and performance, that has in every sense of the word, become historic.

Sam Cooke’s label granted him some unforeseen creative freedom because of how much of a staple he’d become for them in is relatively short time, and all that just shows, in how full of life and spirit Ain’t That Good News is.

 

 

 

#55. Gene Rains – Rains in the Tropics (1963)

 

A recurring music-listening project that I do time to time, is checking out discographies or favorite artists, or just finishing those for artists I’ve heard a lot from.  July is usually the time of the year that this happens, and has been since 2017. For some reason, I’ve had time for each three previous months of July, to make out such a time-consuming project.
This year, I did a discography-roundup as early as in March. The reason for that was, at the time i was coming offa three of the first years of the sixties-project I’ve had going on since December. That’s four months of dedicating my music-discovery time to oldies, as one might say.
Gene Rains, an artist I’d only heard one full-length outing on at the time, was one of the discographies I completed. “Oh, lookie here, his last album was in the next year I was gonna do anyway. Let’s check that album ou before time LoL xD.”

And what a treat. It turned out to me that Gene Rains — for the three albums he did manage to put out, at least according to what we know — has an amazing discography. And this is his crown jewel. Gene is an Exotica-artist, leads a small band who all come from Jazz, and who all make it known. On their third and last outing, the Group got their name on the cover as well, and boy, does every member shine.
This album has less to do with that Jazz business, and everything to do with showcasing the virtue of their Exotica approach. These luscious musical landscapes — 12 of them, as is the standard for the times to have per one album — are the musical manifestation of a gorgeous tropical sunset. That lasts thirty minutes of when you mind to drift off somewhere else. It’s sometimes better than a sunset. It’s oftentimes just what you need. To breathe.

It’s a breather, boyos.

 

 

 

#54. Nino Rota – 8½  (1963)

 

“Wait Nino Rota was behind this weird melody that I whistled to myself as a kid when I was doing something that required concentration?”
“He made this timeless composition, this funny ditty that rings in my head as if it was drilled into there as I my Mamma Mia was giving birth to moi?”

Yeah, he did all that. Crazy how long I’ve been aware of this soundtrack-album’s existence, and how the trip of discovering it only came to me as as a part of a project. This has always been on-par with The Godfather soundtracks as Nino’s most well-known one, but I’ve still not heard it until this year?!

And still, it already feels like I’ve lived some life with it.

 

 

 

#53. The Three Suns – One Enchanted Evening (1964)

 

“The last hurrah of Space Age Pop” was a label I unconsciously wished I’d be able to give at least one album from 1964, when I went over that year. After all this would be the last year before Bob Dylan‘s infamous ’65 Newport concert, and the idealism and bravery of that singular event — while maybe not carrying over to the Pop landscape in that much of a revolutionary way (although that would come in just a jiffy from that point) — started the snowball effect of change in music, that is more easy to just call “The late sixties”.

This album is the last hurrah of Space Age Pop. It’s cover art is a perfect, self-encapsulating portrait of how all-class it is. It’s made by one of the longest-running musical acts working within the genre. It does old classic tunes, the Jazz sensibilities of the early 60s, and the whole delicate approach of Space Age Pop, all the possible favors and then more. It’s amazing for what it stands for, but you replay it because of how well it is made.

 

 

 

#52. New York Philharmonic / Leonard Bernstein / Gary Graffman – Second Piano Concerto; Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (1964)

 

What an uplifting and just deliberately composed, deliberately arranged, deliberately performed piece of music that piano concerto was. And only for then to move onto an extended, rapid-fire piano expression that still maintains that great lush nature of it all?! Pffft

Never have I before heard a two-track album — ignoring genre and other boxes like that — that was this masterful at creating two opposites that attract, but still, despite being no-related (the pieces were actually composed 34 years apart from one another), come together through a common thread, that can’t be called anything else than love for the source-material, from the parties interpreting it in a modern, album-size package.

 

 

 

#51. Baden Powell – Á Vontade (1964)

 

Just like the simple black-and-white layout of the cover art that appears pretty uncommon to you, the album itself, and it’s contents, tend to fool you with the straightforward expression and bare-bones layout of it, that the experience would be simple. After all most of the well-known cuts here are Jobim-standards.

But the acoustics of this album are a str8 blast. It never does too much in any front, sound-wise, because that might lead to sacrificing the serenity of the sound. There’s hardly ever two things going on at the same time, which is uncommonly little, but I’m there for every moment of it. After all is said ‘n’ dunn, Á vontade is an experience that is synonymous only with itself. There are few albums this pure.

 

 

 

#50. Freddie Hubbard – Hub-Tones (1963)

 

Freddie makes an ultimate statement, worthy of eponymousity as it works, in a vacuum, as a perfect exemplary piece for what Freddie’s all about, to anyone new to the man.
And this is someone to know when you think about wanting to get more familiar with Jazz music of the era. He’s clearly not an under-documented tenor saxophonist, as record shows on sites like RateYourMusic, but the consistency of his discography deserves all that recognition and then some.

Guys that are this good, this expressive with their chosen instruments and lanes in their musical movements, are one of the bitter parts of making a list this selective. Because there were at least three more Hubbard albums deep into the running for this top seventy.
This, however, is chief among them. If you do enjoy this and find merit in my pointing out Freddie’s magnificence — he’s impossible to miss on this album as driving its’ overall momentum — Open Sesame, Goin’ Up, and The Body & the Soul are prime examples of what I mentioned, about a consistent discography showcasing itself during this high time for Blue Note Records albums in-general.

 

 

 

#49. Ben E. King – Don’t Play That Song! (1962)

 

That Pop Soul bug is mean when it bites.
Sweet, sunny May’s mornings after a night full of light are an apt time to listen to albums such as this one and really take it all in, along with the bright moments.

I figure the thought-process of my RateYourMusic-dweller friends, as they saw me rate this album as high as I did, was something similar to mines. This was an album that took me a looong time to check out, only finally happening when I was going through 1962. It’s strange. It’s a familiar name, it’s home to a very familiar song. But you kinda still brush by it when you’re looking for what thing to check out next.

None of that mattered a bit when I first played Don’t Play That Song! in its entirety.
All that came to me, and has come to  me in subsequent revisits, has been an innocent atmosphere that manages to be uplifting, not revolve too strongly around its’ best track — there’s still no denying Stand by Me is that — where that steals the spotlight from other great outings like The Hermit of Misty Mountain, Ecstasy or especially On the Horizon.

Altogether an innocent experience, full of romance delivered by a delightfully warm voice with some abstract age to it.

 

 

 

#48. Philharmonia Orchestra / Philharmonia Chorus / Otto Klemperer / Elisabeth Schwarzkopf / Hilde Rössel-Majdan – Symphony No 2 ‘Resurrection’ (1963)

 

Green as I am to romanticism, Gustav Mahler certainly has, through my adventures in the early sixties, emerged as a favorite composer.

The flavors, the subtle workouts through movements, one more gratifying than the previous. It’s honestly packaged in a way that is different from what my musical taste-buds are used to. But it finds a sweet spot for me without exception. I wish I’d have more things to say about a work as soaringly magnificent as this, but I think I’ll be cutting myself as big of a favor as anyone that might be reading this, when I don’t try to trouble myself with understanding the nitty-gritty of how all this works.

All I know is what I’m hearin’. And it’s some truly gripping material.

 

 

 

#47. Chet Baker Sextet – Chet Is Back! (1962)

 

So Chet went to jail a little bit ’cause he liked to dabble into narcotics, and the Italian law enforcement wasn’t too with it.
After his year in prison, though, he made the ultimate tribute to Europe that a man of his profession, a man of his habits would. He hired a band of exceptional, locally recognized players and put his vocal exercises to the back-burner for a fine ol’ showcasing of enticing trumpet á la Baker.
And just in case the central message, of Chet being, indeed, Back, was unclear to anyone, he went and chopped up Thelonious Monk‘s most famous 32-bar standard something vicious, as the very opener of this album. He let the band play, you can hear everyone was having a swell time, and  in the process he might have gotten one-up on the Monk himself, in terms of who made the best rendition of that tune.

That was the crown jewel. It continues to excitedly make me declare itself the greatest cut from this album. But what most impressed me, was how the band-dynamics — only merely introduced back there — carried over an album that deterred from being front-loaded, despite opening so heavily.

A test of consistency was met, conquered with ease, and the new Chet Baker Sextet made their mark.

 

 

 

#46. Sérgio Mendes – Quiet Nights (1963)

 

There is a certain difficulty, about finding the right things to say about someone whose music is so all-in-execution, creates such a strong atmosphere and welcomes in the spring’s morning like it was tailor-made for it. Yes, Sergio liked to cover Jobim-songs but who didn’t?

I had a Sergio Mendes album as an earlier entry to this list, where I went into my high praise-mode. But this album edged that out, by doing all that just like a half-measure better. Not meaning that when you read this list, and see two albums by the same guy, you should only hear the one that’s ranked higher. It’s just a distinction based upon feeling.

Quiet Nights spells it out right from the title. It’s a mood-piece. Desafinado has gotten a slight bit of slack from me for being the go-to song for artists that “go Latin” in this time. But this album’s rendition of the Jobim-cut really is the cream of the crop.

 

 

 

#45. Jackie McLean – Let Freedom Ring (1963)

 

Jackie’s second album to come up in the list, and perhaps the most swingin’ one he made in the era.

I won’t lie, I got introduced to the man because of this project. But I’m glad I did. Rarely has a musician rose so quickly up on my ranks of favorite artists. Here things might be going a little bit more due-to-pattern than the following year when Grachan Moncur III came along to play a big hand in composition and arrangement of the dealings, but on the same note I think it’s a more expressive event for McLean himself. A certain lyricism is in the tonality, easy to follow and not buried under any crazy steps latter album would — successfully — take towards more Avant-Garde ambitions.

In the confines of recorded music, I don’t know what freedom sounds like. But I still know Jackie Let it Ring ova’ere.

 

 

 

#44. Ravi Shankar – Portrait of Genius (1964)

 

Hindustani Classical Music is probably a genre-tag many people will see in the profile for this album, and kind of scoff at. Not because it sounds ultra-obscure, just like an adventure of sorts. Something that should be taken at a time and setting that welcomes it.
But when you put any of Ravi’s albums from his early years on — especially this one — you’ll be welcomed into its atmosphere right away. There’s no Western, modern, whitewashed rag that any of these authentic Eastern soundscapes get filtered through. It’s the real deal. We’re talking about a regionally particular album, that came out almost 60 years ago. You’ll have to look for it to find it.

You might have read through the lines of what I just said, and guessed that this is the only album representing its’ genre here. And you’re right. What you probably didn’t guess when you read the 1964 list, and saw this rank impressively high upon that, that this has already been a favorite album of mine for years, now.
Good chance of fortune has allowed me to befriend a couple of really interesting, intelligent individuals that live in India, that hear artists the likes of Sharan Rani or Ravi Shankar in perhaps their music-classes, or in their parents’ house. The music here wears that authenticity, that regional classicism on itself. It comes from a real place, which is half of the picture of me appreciating it when I get to know it. But what keeps me wanting to hear this album, holding it in high regard despite now having heard 100 of its’ competitors for top-spot in its’ year… begins at it feeling and sounding welcoming, but these abstract pieces really have a way of speaking to you that is refreshing, even from someone who’s not as regionally, culturally familiar where the importance of artists such as Shankar, would bare a significant importance to my cultural upbringing.

 

 

 

#43. Bill Evans & Jim Hall – Undercurrent (1962)

 

Fun fact: me and the boys held a tournament this spring — in my music group To Be a Music Fan …. — where we chose collectively 160 album covers to compete for the title of greatest of all time. I won’t go into detail about the whole process of it, as that’s not important, but this album — bare in mind, many voters had not heard the actual music on the actual album, so there wasn’t that subconscious connection to it — placed at #2. It lost the final match barely to the cover art of Bitches Brew by Miles Davis; by the great Mati Klarwein, of course.

Bill Evans is one of my favorite Jazz pianists, although I yet again won’t go to much detail about that personal list, as something like that is subject to change and there are so so many things to consider for it, besides personal feeling. Out of all the yearly lists I made, leading up to this 5-year list, there was Bill Evans-representation on three of them. And on the ones there weren’t, he came really close. This being the only album of his on this particular, selective list, doesn’t represent how much of an utter delight it has been to go over his albums that I hadn’t heard before.

I’ve mentioned two things in this brief writeup about already, that I’ll refuse to go into detail much. What does go into detail, however, is Undercurrent ! The marriage of Jimm Hall’s emotive guitar and Bill Evans’ smooth spacious and deliberate piano-playing, is so rich in rewarding interplay that results in such contemplative, immersive atmospheres… there’s a reason this still lives on as one of the key works of each artist, neither of which are with us anymore. Both did great things, conquered notable achievements before and after this record, but this really contains their individual and collaborative magics tightly. It caught lighting in a bottle.

 

 

 

#42. Henry Mancini – Combo! (1961)

 

Aside from being the greatest film score-composer of all time in my opinion, Henry Mancini operates in Lounge Music and really, truly is the name to know in that genre. Whether you have questions of where to start when wanting to get introduced to the genre, or whether you want to learn where a whole bunch of iconic theme songs and other compositions have come from. Henry Mancini is the name to know.

Combo! is more of an outing of that strength of Mancini’s, rather than a work that follows any narratives beset upon it by itself or a piece of multimedia it would accompany. It’s strictly just Mancini loungifying some of the great tunes of the times, offering a fun, compact listen that’s not without its’ tender moments.

You get the idea of every short track by their first 16 measures. It’s simple, and isn’t enjoyable in spite of that but because of that. It goes beyond fun, doesn’t present itself as silly but rather a piece of mood-music to accompany any good ol’ day when you have some things to do and want some music playing right there in the background, and give you rhythm to your routine.

 

 

 

#41. Dinah Washington – In Love (1962)

 

The second of four Dinah Washington-entries in the list, the Queen goes over some of the most buzzin’ Standards of the times and makes timeless pieces like Fly Me to the Moon and I’ll Close My Eyes her own with the barest supply of tools; just her voice. The warmth, the depth and the care she handles every word with… it’s a magic that explains itself while introducing itself. It’s a combination that doesn’t fail.
It’s like falling Dinah Washington – In Love (1962).

 

 

 

#40. Ron Carter – Where? (1961)

 

So I was thinking about Jazz just this morning.
Funny, how a list from a time period as specific as the first five years of the nineteen-sixties, contains Jazz way more than anything else.

You can’t really say Jazz was the most developed genre. I mean out of the popular genres it was, but still, Classical and Romanticism had been there making strides for ages before Jazz. Would we like classical more if recorded music was a thing back in the 1800s when Romanticism was being discovered? Or even before that, with the Baroque movements and such historic shenanigans.

I really have no lead-up here, it’s just early in the morning.

Still, funny to think that really, really few of the Jazz albums that I do have in here, are this bass-driven. I think this is actually the only one by a bassist. I don’t have any bias against Jazz arrangements lead by upright bass — at least that I’m conscious of — but it just, happens more rarely. On the other hand I kind of understand it though. Where? stands head and shoulders above all other bass-driven records of its time, that I’ve heard.

 

 

 

#39. Dinah Washington – For Lonely Lovers (1961)

 

I’ve been writing reviews for years, and a thing that’s on top of my list of annoyances about other reviewers, as well as a thing I’m most critical of myself about, is when a reviewer tries to go into the furthest depth of explanation to explain just how fun an album is, just how immersive its atmospheres. The way I see it, in the end you leave a reader with a conclusion that they could’ve gotten from just hearing a couple tracks from the album. I guess it just makes a low assumption of the target-audience’s capacity of understanding music and the way it’s enjoyed. It’s usually inadvertent. No one that’s not getting paid to write about music, does it with bad intentions. That just argues against itself, nevermind being worthless.

With that being said, Dinah Washington is the artist with most entries on this list of mine. She’s the greatest discovery, as far as artists I wasn’t formerly aware of, from this listening-project. This is her third entry on the list, and she still has one more to come. What makes this album special, is that this was my introduction to Dinah. The first album of hers that I heard. And I heard it on a train, of all places. I was going on a train from Oulu to Helsinki, early in the morning after a night of unfortunately few hours of sleep. That fatigue, that slowly-passing moment and a little full moon to look at from a train’s window as it’s picking up its’ tired morning-passengers… something about it makes you think about the things Dinah’s invitingly, enticingly warm voice is narrating through Standards, through a Vocal Jazz interpretation that you still know, transcends even this moment on a train. There was something special about Dinah, and I discovered it with For Lonely Lovers.

 

 

 

#38. Eumir Deodato – Inútil Paisagem (1964)

 

Deodato was the best thing I discovered for my 1964 roundup. And the way to discovering his work was a little bit crazy, too. I was just feeling extra-curious one night about a classical composition, and found out if there had been any Jazz revisionings of it. Turns out there were. By the man himself. That, however, was him into the 1970s. Seeing his catalogue and looking at it, I saw that the guy bursted into the Bossa Nova scene initially, before eventually joining the Fusion movement that swept through Jazz in the later decade. I saw that the guy had four albums out on his first year, one of them stating itself to be an album of Jobim-covers.

And what do you know, it’s a great album. It turned out to be the best of the bunch. I still swing with this the heaviest on those occasions where the sun shines, mornings are rolling out slowly and there are things to do. Just great, piano-driven readings of already-established compositions, that come together into their own form and function, on this beautiful work of Samba-Jazz that passes you by like the breeze.

 

 

 

#37. Otis Redding – Pain in My Heart (1964)

 

Glorious horn-accompaniments to a voice and performance-presence that feels lived-in despite the artist being  years old.

Otis died three years after this album, his debut full-length, leaving behind a tragically short career with a lot of promise.
The only thing that’s satisfying to take away from it, was that all the music he did release, while alivve, attests to every grand statements, that fans make about him.

His presence just takes over everything. He could really be the greatest vocalist to have ever been heard on a record.

 

 

 

#36. Gerry Mulligan – Night Lights (1963)

 

“Peak of Cool Jazz” is a sell I made of this album to some friends of mine. And that’s really all that needs to be said. It’s so cool it warms up a cold January’s day for you. Every moment, every sight that passes, just gets a little more full when this absolute delight is playing. That’s the best this album has to offer. It’s quite beautiful.

A noteworthy thing about the credits of this album, is that Mulligan chose the baritone saxophone- and piano-duties of the record. So whatever was inspiring him to select just these songs… it was strong. There’s a love to every tune Jeru interprets here. Their utmost soft qualities are at the forefront of the mix, and the arrangement is so rich it’s just an ideal bunch of songs to get completely lost into.

 

 

 

#35. Gil Evans – The Individualism of Gil Evans (1964)

 

Gil has made himself known as a great arranger, even for the audience that Jazz music has these days. A lot of high-profile collaborations with Miles Davis being the biggest factor in his posthumous fame, or at least the extent to which a Jazz artist can have these days.

He’s mostly known as that, but known a little less as a great artist himself. All that creativity, that forward-thinking style infects the composition-side of things as well, and as a result, Gil Evans’ progressive Big Band-records of the times are not quite like anything else that came out in the early sixties.

So they’re unique. The only thing left to ask is, are they as good?
Oh boyo!:! So adventurous, so true to their roots, commendably precise for the heights it wants to accomplish, and with rhythm-sections that you can’t ever call anything less than stellar, despite them taking so much room for themselves. I guess that’s the beauty of Gil’s work from this era, starting with Out of the Cool which ranked higher than this album. The ideas seem too big to interplay off each other, but they work due to some impeccable arrangement-work. I think that culminates in this album.

 

 

#34. The Beatles – With the Beatles (1963)

 

With With the Beatles, you’re with The Beatles as they perform the Beatles’ sophomore album, With the Beatles.

This is an early-career album by the biggest band ever to be a band. A common trait among these early-career albums, is that they’re considered not to even be in the same discussion of quality, as the Fab Four’s later albums, the Rolling Stone Magazine top 5 albums of all time.

Strange as it was for me to find a new-perfect album among that grouping, it was even more weird that I still kinda fundamentally agree with the assumption that most fans have, that I had. This far surpasses the overrated jumbled mess that is Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, it’s in contention with Rubber Soul, but White Album, Abbey Road and Revolver definitely surpass it…

At least that’s the opinion that I hold right now. This isn’t a band with whom I want to lock myself into a firm opinion that won’t shift and won’t bend. The under-estimations of the internet music-fan culture, and the over-estimation of any- and all major music publications… I’d rather just listen to amazing albums like this and spend a good thirty minutes listening to music that melodically hits all marks while sounding like four ambitious artist’s personal expression, which due to some magic, worked for as long as it did.

 

 

 

#33. Elmer Bernstein – The Great Escape (1963)

 

I’m not sure if this entry or the one before it is gonna be dubbed the weirdest thing for me to include on this list. But friends of mine who have read my lists for a while, know that those are usually abound in lists I make.
I get strangely attracted to strange things.

No but really, all joking aside, if there is one iconic movie theme tune, one that is ingrained in the psyche’s of people, inspiring a whistle at the idle moments of your life and a cheerfulness to come along with it… if there’s a tune like that, it’s the theme tune of The Great Escape.

Part of the reasoning, part of the things I look at, with a list whose subject-matter goes this far back in history, is historical significance. It’s not a big part of what goes into my decision. It’s what breaks some ties in the ranking when I’m doing it. There’s no doubt that this is one of the most iconic soundtracks of the early ixties, of the entire sixties.
And that is not owed to how iconic the theme tune is. It’s owed to the fact that all the tracks that are either built on variations of the theme’s notes, or expansions of the main theme’s emotional, uplifting nature. Yes, the main title track is the main attraction and the best track, but no song is worth a skip ‘ere.

 

 

 

#32. Gil Evans – Out of the Cool (1961)

 

Contained, sophisticated, but never compromising a half-inch of its’ adventurous drive. I talked about The Individualism of Gil Evans a few entries ago, so won’t spend too much breath on this, but what made the distinction between the two — and makes this the slightly better album in my eyes — is that it has stayed a personal favorite for years, it edges out Individualism in just the small area, of making its’ ideas more full realized and sound more controlled.

A minor nitpick if there ever was one, but since I gotta rank these two incredible pieces of Progressive Big Band music, that’s what it’s got 2 B.

 

 

 

#31. Grant Green – Green Street (1961)

 

There was a time for me when I didn’t really see what the big deal was about Jazz guitar. There was a time when I didn’t even see what the big deal was about Grant Green — having given Idle Moments the odd spin or two back then, finding it pretty slow and front-loaded with the most melodic cut coming before a string of more underwhelming ones.

With time, I changed my perception of Idle Moments, the album that is widely considered to be Grant’s magnum opus. That album won’t be on this list because it was released in 1965, but there is actually another Grant Green album coming later on this very list.
I mention all this, because Green Street was the turning point for me. Green made some absolute strides with his soloing, he packs in a bunch of flavors, given how limiting guitar in Jazz can be in terms of things like variety in tone and stuff like that. Green Street is a perfect showcasing of the great things you can do with Jazz guitar as a solo-instrument as well supporting the occasional basic tune, how the two aspects of Grant’s music, and their coexistence, made him the most well-known and acclaimed guitarist in the genre.
Showcasing the sheer ability of Jazz guitar is a great accomplishment for this 5-track selection, but what deepens the experience even more is that the rest of the band, the rhythm-instrumentalists, aren’t too far off to the background. The chemistry of Grant at the forefront, with Ben Tucker on bass and Dave Bailey on drums, at-interplay, also makes this an nice bit of background-atmosphere.

I’ve listened to a lot of albums in my life, and the best ones work as an artistic achievement as well good stuff to just put on when you’re doin’ somethin’.

 

 

 

#30. Nina Simone – Forbidden Fruit (1961)

 

Nina vocalizes like no-one’s business, balls to the wall, standards and modern hits, in a reading that sounds vulnerable and powerful at the same time, both to their opposite extremes, relentlessly. Delicate fragility and confidence only age and experience should bring.

Nina released her most famous and acclaimed works later, but this album is an encapsulation of the time she stayed more understated in a music-scene that didn’t care for Vocal Jazz much, but her expressions were nevertheless just as precious as they would be later on.

 

 

 

#29. Sonny Stitt – Primitivo Soul ! (1964)

 

I liken this album to Reel Life, the Sonny Rollins album from 1982. In some ways I have to. Rollins was a tenor saxophonist I was super interested in, someone I wanted to find some new stuff by. Reel Life was an album that had barely any ratings on this site, and no full information about its’ cover photos either.

I put on Reel Life, and for however long it wanted to entertain me, I didn’t hear anything else but dynamic tenor saxophone in forward-motion visa vie soloing an carrying tunes. Warm rhythms on the lower register, and a warm Latin invitation on the upper register.
And whoosh! A piano solo, of the most warm and uplifting degree, just walked in.

At some point I stopped talking about Reel Life and started talking about Primitivo Soul!. I’m not sure.
A lot of people wanted to “go Latin” to the extent of one album dabbling into the sound, or at least record a cover-version of Desafinado in the years ’63-’64, but Sonny Stitt — the glorious tenor saxophonist who was said to have all his noteworthy work out already by the end of the fifties, but who stayed active and kept all his fuel through this time nonetheless — …Sonny Stitt was one of the best to do so.

 

 

 

#28. Don Gibson – Sweet Dreams (1960)

 

This is a country album.

Good, now that half of the people that read this list, have skipped over it, now we can talk about it in peace.
In terms of personal expression, there’s a lot in this album, and it can all be found just from the readings of these Oldies-tunes. The year 1960 (this album and Look Who’s Blue, which was released the spring of that year) captured lightning in a bottle for Don Gibson — whom I’ve gone on to hear multiple subsequent records from — and he really had a way to make these songs his own, in more cases than not. The sheer conviction here is enough to elevate the album to true high art status.

The conceptual side of the album is of course not much beyond an emotional outlining in the lyrics and performance of the album, but it’s an easy 28-minute jog to get through, with a grand-standing vocalization, and with renditions of What’s the Reason I’m Not Pleasing You, Far Far Away and (I’d Be a) Legend in My Time that rise to icon-level. You cannot hear better versions of these songs on anything else you might listen to, on that funny occasion you’d go through some more forgotten early-sixties records.

 

 

 

#27. Thelonious Monk – Monk’s Dream (1963)

 

Thelonious Monk was someone who used his name on his album titles a lot of times, but I think this album and Monk’s Music share a common thread in their themes. The names give a strong allusion to that. I think both this and the ’59 album, were albums made with the purpose of Monk showing himself, vague as that sounds.

Monk’s Music has compositions strictly by Monk — with some assisted composition by frequent collaborators — and some of its’ tunes went on to become standards. Here, however, this minor saga concludes in an album that covers a variety of songs that already were standards, and the majority of these 8 tracks have appeared on previous Thelonious Monk albums. So why cover them again? Why the idea, of bringing them together into a record that ties itself together by unbelievably good pacing in-rhythm, allowing room for soloing and verses to breath and come into an entity of its’ own — an entity that lasts 46 minutes and 32 seconds.
This all is vague. Of course the official story isn’t out there, as the artist himself is not here to give it, but what has stayed behind of this decision to cover so many old tunes which had been previously handled — Bright Mississippi is the only song not to appear on any previous Monk album — but it’s just… all vague. It’s all the more intriguing, in how vague it is.

Much like a dream.

Of course I have no idea of what the man’s own intentions were when setting up for the sessions, but this story is what makes these two albums work together for me, to an intriguing degree. Whether I’m right or wrong, Monk did everything with a purpose, and a mere listen of this album’s maneuvers through warm and enticing tonality and spacious arrangement, and incredible atmospheres, is enough to notify you of that.

 

 

 

#26. Henry Mancini – Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)

 

This is Mancini at his absolute best, and as it stands, the best album of his there is.
I’ll be happy if anything that came in the late sixties would debunk the latter claim, but if I were to sometime have the entire studio album-catalog of Henry Mancini covered, and this was standing at the top as the definitive magnum opus in my opinion, it would be a great album to take that spot.

I’ve seen Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I saw it, inspired by this movie and the fact of its’ huge critical acclaim that lasts till this day. I’m far from being one of those people that are educated on films predating the New Hollywood-era, but I do find the atmosphere of oldie-movies (can you call them that?) to be some of the most charming stuff ever.
And that’s just the thing. That charm was expressed sum’n’ different on this movie. But the more I look at key montages, important slow buildup-scenes from the film, the credit keeps coming back to Henry Mancini’s immaculate score.

It’s a cliche thing to say when reviewing the soundtrack of a movie, but the soundtrack should stand alone as a listening experience, as well as heighten the experience of the film it accompanies. I only spun that cliche back at you now, because when it comes to Breakfast at Tiffany’s, that goal could NOT have been any better achieved.

You see this album, and you see Audrey Hepburn looking as gorgeous as she ever did on it, eating breakfast, and you hear these delicate, sophisticated and immersive Lounge music-sounds, and you don’t even realize that the story of Breakfast at Tiffany’s is about something quite else. That is, if you didn’t see the movie before listening to the soundtrack, like myself.
But it is all the image you need to see. Because that image is heightened to a separated life of its’ own with this brilliant, exquisite, comfortable musical soundscape that is home to some infectious, and utterly timeless compositions.

The best of which is Moon River.
Oh my God what a song.

 

 

 

#25. Eric Dolphy – Out to Lunch! (1964)

 

A few months after recroding the album, Dolphy completed a European tour with Charles Mingus, that would turn out to be his last. He died of diabetic shock, and his death is a whole tragic story in itself. One that could have easily been avoided, had there not been apparent racist attitudes in the two police officers, who just passed Eric off as “another black musician who’s just sleeping off a heroin high”. Trumpeter Ted Curson and his quartet made a tribute album for Dolphy late this year, called Tears for Dolphy. It is also well-reported that Eric’s death launched Mingus into a huge depressive episode, and he stopped making music for the following seven years.

This was Eric Dolphy’s first album where he was in charge of every single composition. It was all new, all fresh, and it took the world of Jazz — which Blue Note Records was at the center of, during this time — by a typhoon. Up-and-coming vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson left a splash of presence all over the album, showcasing his versatility as well as that of the rest of the small-band ensemble, all of whom must have been shocked by the progressive new direction Eric was taking things. The Avant-Garde was there. He was truly emerging as an Avant-Garde composer.

These two things make the story of everything that happened with Eric Dolphy in 1964, both sad and sort of amazing.
His is a legend that should never be forgotten. A legend too short-lived, and yet a legend that resulted in the most celebrated album from the most celebrated label working in the whole entire genre of Jazz.

 

 

 

#24. Glenn Gould – The Well-Tempered Clavier: Book I – Preludes and Fugues 1-8 (1963)

 

I told you it’d be back, didn’t I?

Look, I’m not one of these people that know a lot about the techniques that go into Baroque Music, the commonality of the arsenal Bach had when he came up with Fugas Nos. 1, 8, & 21 From Well-Tempered Clavier (arr. Villa-Lobos) & Prelúdios Nos. 8, 14, and 22 From Well-Tempered Clavier (arr. Villa-Lobos) or how groundbreaking it might have been. I know from the mere sound of it alone, that this was something that definitely took the expressionist side of things to a new extreme — as no movement, minor or major, long or short, is without a huge palette — but I’d be wasting my time and yours by trying to digest every bit of it slowly and methodically.

It’d all lead me to the same conclusion:
This is some of the most amazingly uplifting music I’ve ever come across.

 

 

 

#23. Stan Getz & Luiz Bonfá – Jazz Smaba Encore! (1963)

 

Well this is a prickly 2-part segment of this list. This is actually the first time this has ever happened in any of my lists ever. I actually do keep count of silly stuff like this, and never have two albums by the same artist, ever in my lists come in immediate succession together in the ranking.

When I was debating these spots, and the Jazz Samba-series came in — as I knew it would, knowing that both installments were top 10-material of their respective years — the last conclusion I could really draw, having listened to them both in-succession, is that their level of quality is exactly the same. Jazz Samba edges out the comfort-factor with soothing tones accompanied by more multi-faceted rhythm-sections, while this one is much more adventurous and shows Getz’ range off a little bit better — even if it wasn’t the point these two albums were trying to get across, to still do it is commendable. The albums are also equal in how exciting a factor their collaboration is for them. Getz collaborated with Charlie Byrd on the first record, and while the two of them had incredible chemistry, and that album, due to Byrd’s fame at the time, gave Bossa Nova more attention in the mainstream… Jazz Samba Encore! featured an actual Brazilian guitarist in Luiz Bonfá, covering a music style that is Brazilian, along with Stan.

[To Be Continued…]

 

 

 

#22. Stan Getz & Charlie Byrd – Jazz Samba! (1962)

 

[Part 2]

The music was equal. It had finally happened, and two albums by the same artist — not to mention two albums from the same series — are directly in-succession in an album-list of mine. And I still had to make a distinction. You know what made me make it?

The fact that this album started it.
Really, the difference would’ve been that small that if I went through the songs more in-detail and find which album had more technical blink-and-you-miss-t flaws… it just wouldn’t have been a fun experience for me, and I wouldn’t have liked it.

I just thought, Jazz Samba the original, is the original. No matter what an argument people can make for this album (these are valid) starting the popularization of Bossa Nova, or for the sequel to be more authentic and daring in its overall arrangement of things (valid)… the fact is still, that I was sitting there making a list, of a bunch of records that were top ten material in their own year, and a thought passed by me, of whether or not the second would exist without the first.

The spirit of my 60s-listening project is appreciating what came before, so that what comes after can be better. Although I’m putting that whole motto in a bit of an unnecessary vacuum by pitting two albums that came out in the following years, against each other… I’m just here to say, that that was the only reason this album ranks higher than Jazz Samba Encore!. The music on these is equal.

 

 

 

#21. Maurice Jarre – Lawrence of Arabia(1962)

 

This is the highest-ranking Soundtrack on this list.
I won’t lie and tell you it’s the biggest personal favorite, that it’s the one out of the bunch that I’ve gone on to make a lot of cherished memories with it.

It’s still #1. What’s unique about this album, this soundtrack, is how seamlessly it mixes its calm portions to its’ bigger ones. Epicness is easy for Maurice Jarre’s most memorable soundtrack. There’s soaring strings, drums that beat so deep their pounding takes over your heart. And then we get back to that main refrain… Oh, how that little segment just throws you in the middle of the desert.

Lawrence of Arabia doesn’t settle for being mere background music.
It doesn’t demand your attention. It already has it.

What’s unique about this album, is not how much life I’ve lived with it, but how it makes it clear that it’s the best out there, just by being as good as it is, at what it does. It sets itself up as undeniable, and lives up to every bit of it. It doesn’t have to blow its nose. It’ll blow yours.

 

 

 

#20. Dexter Gordon – Go (1962)

 

Dexter Gordon had been in prominence as a tenor saxophonist and bandleader way before his signing to Blue Note Records, the label that would turn out the be the biggest juggernaut of the Jazz-genre very shortly after this. Therefore the title, of the album that got that ball rolling, would be easy to give to a personal favorite like this one.

We all know it’s one of the most celebrated records to come out of the label ever. A peak through its’ history would tell anyone that.

What happens on Go, that makes it such a remarkable event and the album that casual Jazz fans first think of, when they think of Dexter Gordon?
Well, on this album, Gordon takes on five tunes. One of them a new one, composed by him (the opener). Cheese Cake sets the stage, presents a core tune by Gordon that has gone on to achieve immortality. One of those tunes you hear and know you’ve heard from somewhere, but they strike you with a big blast of energy when you hear them, and hear this swingin’ ass song that grows from underneath it.

After the opener, Dexter leads his band through a saxophone-driven telling, of a manifesto that somehow culminates all the energy of an acclaimed career so far. There’s such a depth of experience that’s audible in Go and every single one of its moving parts. The soloing, peppered carefully throughout its’ runtime, is there as a highlight in its’ own right, but really to hammer home the brilliance of the tune itself. This is a tune-loaded album, whether Dexter and his band are interpreting an original composition, tried-and-true ballads like Love for Sale and Where Are You?, or other bops like Three O’clock in the Morning and Second Balcony Jump that this lastingly professional chief makes a part of his own vision as if they were decided for it.

 

 

 

#19. Booker Ervin – The Freedom Book (1964)

 

A whole lot of Jazz on this list lately, has been records by tenor saxophonists. Dunno why that is. Maybe because the unique tonal strength of the sizable wind-instrument has a lyricism to it, a way of expressing almost like the deepest desires of the music.

That might have sounded very peculiar, but that’s what this album makes me feel.
Booker Ervin didn’t take a long time into his professional recording-career, to become as prominent of a composer as he was a performer and a bandleader. He’s got a reputation now, posthumously among Jazz fans, as a great expressionist whose ever full-length album experience is elevated by the fact that there is a thematic strain to it. He won’t be bothered by crossing the line into more Avant-Garde directions, to achieve the full image of this.

The rest of the band do an ace job, but one that really rises above in their way of expression, is pianist Jaki Byard.The Freedom Book is a brilliant album, his best distinctively, even if not by a wide margin. It makes suave work of contrasting its high highs and low lows in terms of momentum. The pacing of each song bounces off of the one before and into the next one, and the two long pieces — specifically A Day to Mourn — are just showcasings of all this coming together. Every moment, big or small, fast or slow, is packed full of life, elements, good treatment.

 

 

 

#18. Dusty Springfield – A Girl Called Dusty (1964)

 

Nowadays things aren’t that much different. We still get out flash-in-the-pan R&B acts, Pop acts, female acts more specifically, that really storm their respective scenes with amazing debut albums that give this great high promise of an incredible career to come.
Some of those last. I’m not living in the sixties, so there’s never gonna be a fair way for me to evaluate whether or not people knew what a great career Dusty was gonna have after her emergence. But I do know that that same promise was all over this record.

Dusty is incredible. Her voice is full of conviction, every performance leaves it all out there. Every tune is well-chosen, cream-of-the-crop material from every corner ranging from more famous to less-remembered golden R&B oldies. Dusty makes all the material hers, and to me the undeniable force of her vocalization was announced right here.

This album didn’t end up being my album of the year for 1964, but I had settled into that idea for a long time. I had to replay this album a bunch of times over the couple weeks after hearing it. How did she nail everything so hard, so effortlessly, leaving her own mark on songs like Anyone with a Heart, When the Lovelight Starts Shining Thru His Eyes, Wishin’ and Hopin’ and My Colouring Book, to such a degree that after hearing this album, I can’t hear other singers’ renditions without immediately thinking of Dusty Springfield, comparing what I’m hearing to Dusty Springfield…

Some absolutely supreme stuff here. The magic of great performance on full-display. The spotlight belonged to her, and she didn’t waste it.

 

 

 

#17. The Ventures – The Ventures (1961)

 

“Jani, where do you get all this Rautalanka music from?” Said my father, today as I played this record to him from my phone, of all places.

Actually, no, device doesn’t matter because this is one of those records that will sound good on any system, from any platform. The Ventures have a really warm, enticing and welcome tone to their riffs — which couldn’t be achieved to the degree it is, without backing as stellar as what we hear. It’s not something that makes itself that apparent — guitar is still allowed center-stage, because it both deserves it and needs it.

The Ventures always had a way of making the end-result of all their simple elements coming together, sound really raw, kind of live. There’s a feeling of very little manipulation happening to the sounds, even on later records by the band, and the simple combo that they started with, is enough to end with.
I love Surf Rock, man.

 

 

 

#16. John Coltrane – Giant Steps (1960)

 

Well didn’t we just arrive at the possibly most well-documented album out of this entire list?
The one where there’s the least point for me to go over details and add input that isn’t already pretty much out there?

Giant Steps is a favorite for beginners’ classes, for people that want to learn how to play Jazz. And I don’t say that just to be hyperbole and sing this album’s praises — I don’t believe I have to — it actually is, along with Kind of Blue, the most popular album used for this purpose, according to a study that gathered statements from music teachers.

That’s pretty cool.
What’s even cooler than that, is that although this album is remembered by — and for all intents and purposes, characterized by — its’ strength in soloing… the tunes around them, the things that really identify these tracks as songs, are some of the biggest earworms ever, most of the time. There’s just so many things coming together in Giant Steps.
This isn’t the highest-ranking Coltrane-album on this list, but it is the album wherein John Coltrane made his talents not only known, but undoubtable to himself, and everybody else.

 

 

 

#15. Duke Ellington – The Nutcracker Suite (1960)

 

Look, if there’s any musician in the history of music — modern or even before it — who doesn’t need me selling their skill and capacity to anyone, it’s Duke Ellington. I can comment on what part of Duke’s career this represents, as his Newport comeback concert a few years ago, made his re-emergence known. He’d still kick a whole ton of arse in the sixties, before settling into the last times of his life, but I think that the buzz around the magnificent comeback, and the turn of the decade, both negated that The Duke will sooner or later need another record to represent his new musical direction.
It was well-documented that Duke really embraced new music, and he’d go on to compose a career’s worth of great tracks even after this, but his Orchestra’s celebration of Tchaikovsky‘s most famous work, really is the one I keep coming back to the most. Brilliant band-dynamics in swift movements, soaring sounds and a clear fondness for the source-material, whom they are actively making their own interpretation of.

 

 

 

#14. Leo Diamond – Subliminal Sounds (1960)

 

Well we’ve gone and done it now, huh? We reached the first Album Of Its Year on the countdown.

For a lack of a better genre-tag, Subliminal Sounds is dubbed “Easy Listening” on it’s RateYourMusic-page, when it reality, it’s everything but.

This album stands on its’ own on the surface of the sea of Spage Age Pop. Its own year or any of the high years for the genre. The name really tells it all. This is an artistic expression by Leo Diamond if there ever was one. Very experimental for its’ time, rather a collage of interacting harmonica-confessions than any emotive narrative, that still finds its way to becoming a complete body of work, with a distinct sound of its own.

Leo made most of the harmonicas, that he used to record this album, himself. You wanna talk about building something brick by brick, it rarely gets realer than that.

This album is unfortunately hidden and has never had a new issue released since 1960. Leo arranged and conducted all of it, and made the magic happen. It’s definitely one of the most precious, hidden gems I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know all year. Big standards like Autumn Leaves and Through the Lonely Night get hauntingly precious renditions done to ’em, and dabblings into more obscure soundscapes happen like on Dream Train or Laura, but a strong coherent central idea of sound, central mood, ties it all together masterfully.

 

 

 

#13. The Ronettes – Presenting The Fabulous Ronettes Featuring Veronica (1964)

 

There’s a lot of story to this album. From Be My Baby being such a colossal hit that a full-length album was basically demanded of the industry, to it coming together, to producer Phil Spector being the guy people like to think of as the main artist of this album — and they’re not all-the-way wrong — and his wife taking up the biggest vocalist’s role…

…and then to some mistakes Spector made later in his life, which are quite well-documented.

Additionally, Apathy sampled You, Baby heavily on his track I Dedicate This to You which is still a dear dear song to me, despite me not really messing with that type of music anymore these days.

All of those things struck me as I first heard Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes in its’ full length, and something like a narrative even got to forming. Then I wanted to play the music again. And a-gain. It’s just undeniable. It’s undeniable what Spector did to the idea of producing Pop records back in the days, but it’s even more undeniable how these innocent voices, this immaculate harmonization and utterly delightful Wall of Sound-technique, just come to create an angelic, uplifting experience you wanna hear time and time again.

 

 

 

#12. The Lively Ones – Surf City (1963)

 

I’ve been interested in Surf Rock for years before doing this whole thing; wanting to find out more about it was actually a big part of the inspiration to do this project in the first place. I mean, sure there were heaps of Jazz that needed discoverin’, as well as soundtracks and Space Age Pop (which I previously knew regrettably little of) and such, but Surf Rock was right there among them.

I’d heard a bunch of this band’s albums before this, and was more or less underwhelmed by the majority of it. So it took me by a huge surprise, that this band had actually crafted the album that is the pinnacle of everything great about the genre.

 

 

 

#11. Berliner Philharmoniker / Herbert von Karajan / Wiener Singverein / Wilma Lipp / Hilde Rössl-Majdan / Anton Dermota / Walter Berry – Requiem KV 626 (1962)

 

A few entries ago I made the statement that if there’s any one artist on this list, who requires no sales-pitch from me, it’s Duke Ellington. I think that list could make room for Mozart as well.

But really, here I am at a conundrum that’s become somewhat familiar. There’s been four “Classical” (umbrella-term) albums on this list before this, and there will continue to be one after this, as we enter the top ten.

All I can say about this album that could add any potential value to some ongoing Mozart-adventures, is that to me this was a trip and a half. Choral style of vocalization has always been endearing to me, whether I’ve found many albums that achieved this level of perfection where that is prominent, or not.
This album just never stops amazing me. It’s gripping from the first note to the last, has a world to say without any real words translating to me. On a literal level, none of the material this record contains, translates to me, but on every other level, it does in volumes. It’s a fresh feeling, fresh experience for me every time and I’m just really happy that it’s now a part of my life.

 

 

 

#10. Dinah Washington – Unforgettable (1961)

 

This stays Dinah’s magnum opus to me. It’s the fourth album by her on this list — the most from any artist — and there was never any doubt it’d be somewhere this high. For all the explanations I’ve gone on to give every album here so far, the details of why and how I love them… this album’s appeal is the simplest. You hear it all when you put it on. It’s astral. It heightens any lulling moment you could think of letting it accompany.

 

 

 

#9. Nat King Cole & George Shearing – Nat King Cole Sings / George Shearing Plays (1962)

 

Easy listening has never been as easy as it is on this pinnacle-record for Vocal Jazz. Nat King Cole’s pure-silk voice meets its perfect accompaniment with pianist George Shearing. Backed by a string quartet and Shearin’s band, all elements peppering themselves carefully throughout every song, you get a romantically lethargic album full of vibes that aren’t too heavy to the heart, but will get you Kind Of Reflective.

The first 10/10 record on this list.

 

 

 

#8. The Supremes – Where Did Our Love Go (1964)

 

Honestly, not even exaggerating a lil bit, I sometimes can’t stand how perfectly groovy, tuneful, well-performed, catchy and captivating this album is.
I got a lot of music and podcasts to listen to on my time, and the way this record keeps me feeling good and welcome and happy, is crazy.

I played this album for the first time as I was cooking something in my kitchen. It was just a rolling ball-effect that started right away. “Okay, the first song is crazy good, the rest can’t be.” “Okay, the firs four cuts were straight fuego, but the rest can’t be. This is gonna be front-loaded asf.”

I had no expectations of Where Did Our Love Go before I put it on for the first time, and now, reading about the actual significance that it had on the Popular music-scene, as well as its groundbreaking effect on Soul music… I feel like I kinda shoulda.

But I don’t care. I don’t wanna make my dedication to this album, about its’ great achievements. I had no idea about those when I was cookin’ and vibing like hell to every on-coming tune.

 

 

 

#7. The Ventures – (The) Ventures in Space (1963)

 

It wasn’t intentional misdirection when I said in the writeup for Surf City, that it was the pinnacle of everything great about the genre of Surf Rock. I still think that. I think this album ranks higher for me, because it shows the outward approach that Surf Rock can have. For all the great, great talent that was kicking the genre forward for the time that it had… the sound was always the same. The Ventures themselves appeared on this list two times before this, both albums containing a signature, Surf Rock sound.

In Space contains the same sound, but it is stretched. There’s more Space Age Pop sensitivity, there’s a more daring way of making these — for the genre, kind of experimental — soundscapes, come to be. And it’s far more adventurous, reaching out for different influences than other great Surf Rock records of its time. It sounds raw, because it is raw. There was very little effect added to the music in post-production. The instruments are used for more than their rudimentary purposes. It’s alive.

 

 

 

#6. Count Basie – The Count Basie Story (1961)

 

Another one of those ’61 albums that got the luck of me first encountering them on a train.

This album is a celebration of the 25 years-career of Count Basie’s orchestra. So he’d’a been there and done that even back then. But this was just something I found out after the day I fell in love with the record itself, declared it — after two long but amazing scrolls through its’ double-album-size tracklists, on that train — my first 10/10 of the year 2020.
Already, in January. I had a good feeling I’d be in for a good year of music discoveries.

This album is the epitome of swing. I could go even as far as to say it’s the epitome of Jazz. Not gonna say that there aren’t a couple better Jazz albums out there, but you know what I mean.
When you imagine Jazz, you imagine something as fun, as time period-encapsulating (which is funny since the bulk of the music dates back to the 1930s) and as… swinging. As this.

I love it more every time I play it.

 

 

 

#5. Grant Green – Feelin’ the Spirit (1963)

 

This album never fails with me. The soloing especially takes me on its astral cloud every time it pops up. The tunes here, well they’re drenched in dark black history and Grant’s respect and adoration of the work songs brings so much wind under their feathers in the end-result of things.

It’s just a commendable idea, but each and every bit of its’ execution take it levels beyond being merely commendable. It’s perfect.

 

 

 

#4. Muddy Waters – Folk Singer (1964)

 

This is the album that put me on to Acoustic/Delta Blues, and furthermore, expanded my view of the genre and the artistic properties it possesses. The value it offers to fans. The artistic, expressive, live and in-the-moment value of Blues, all came to me just from hearing this one record.

That is the most important thing I could say about my experience with Folk Singer. Those albums that make you (to a small or big degree) “get” an entire genre… those albums are the most important ones.

 

 

 

#3. Charles Mingus – The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady (1963)

 

Unbelievably undeniable big bang-dynamics at full-play. A full range of high and low contrasts, and unpredictability in the air, an effortlessness in balladry and hard-swinging sections.

This is the album that holds the highest average rating out of all albums in all genres in RateYourMusic, and while it’s not my tippy-top favorite, through the years of listening to it I’ve yet to wake up thinking that there’s anything wrong with that statistic.

 

 

 

#2. John Coltrane – Africa/Brass (1961)

 

The most complete experience ever made out of two original compositions and a cover of a pop standard.

Coltrane as well as the main cast of his big band-essemble here take turns in owning and completely obliterating the figurative center-stage when it comes time for each one’s extended solo, on the first track Africa. This has been my favorite Jazz album for a couple of years now, better than anything else in the genre and was the de-facto #1 of this list back when making it was just a thought, when 2020 was still a new year. I’ve never been able to even begin to debate in my mind whether Coltrane, McCoy Tyner or Elvin Jones shone the brightest on this opener, the greatest opening number ever to a Jazz album. I don’t care what branch of the great Jazz tree is your flavor, this track is packed to the brim with so much of it that one can’t deny it.

I have a long history of loving Africa/Brass, and the thing I always found most-commendable about it, is how John takes the idea previously (more famously) visited in My Favorite Things, of a minor-major chord switcheroo on an extended version of a standard. He really shows he’s a student and a teacher of great tunes and their utilization, on Greensleeves.

And you’d think the album would be done after two spectacular showcasings like that, but no, Blues Minor takes a splash of everything and packs it into a track that closes the spectacle in a dignified way and competes with each previous number on its own merit.

From the first time I heard Africa/Brass I love it, and it doesn’t change. Merely thinking of it makes it feel like a more special work of art.

This is the greatest Jazz album ever made.

 

 

 

#1. Berliner Philharmoniker & Herbert von Karajan – Symphony No. 6 “Pastorale” (1962)

 

Christmas, summer in the countryside, the innocent fear of thunder and respect of nature. All things innocent.

How the world ever deserved a pure and brilliant talent like Ludwig van Beethoven, I don’t know.

I can’t describe this album. It started off perfect and keeps getting better for me as an experience. It’s albums this good, that make me glad I’m so devoted to- and active in listening to music.

 

 

 

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The story goes on. It’s hard to gauge just yet what this project has meant to me. I’ve already had an affection for music from the era of Hi-Fi and emerging stereo-sound, not to mention all that creative path-making.

 

The early sixties already showed me the full picture of how musicians got rid of ways that might have served them in the earlier decade. Especially in the last two years of this walkthrough, I saw a major decreasing, of the same old Standards being covered in every other album, as if I’m supposed to be excited by Fly Me to the Moon or Autumn Leaves again for the seventeenth time.

 

’63 and ’64 admittedly took a clear lead in this list, in terms of which year had the most qualify for it, but it all happened in steps, and like I stated, the story goes on, and this progression that this old but idealistically very modern decade of music, took, is starting to show. It’s all unfolding in front of me, and after I have my complementary break — time to pat myself on the back, for coming so far in this project in such a short time — I’m sure I’ll be equally if not more eager to take on the last five years of the sixties. A time of great change, evolution, groundbreaking events and progressive ideas of what various genres of music can accomplish.

 

Knowing what I know about the early sixties now, all I got to anticipate from 1965-1969, is that I shouldn’t. The full picture of what’s in store, is a mystery and it’s good like that.

In the meanwhile, I’d like to propose a toast to all this great music that I did find, that I now shared with you, which is the reason I still bother making these lists. Nothing more rewarding about discovering music, than letting other people in on your top discoveries. It was all just because of a decision made last summer, that was stuck to.

 

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If you like my writing, and would like to see how I pull off full-length novels, check out my books Ice Road (Oulunsalo Fiction, Part 1), Talisman (Oulunsalo Fiction, Pt. 2), and Helicopters (Oulunsalo Fiction, Pt. 3)

 

 

 

 

And do be on the look out for my upcoming crime epic, The Coleman Stories, coming to stores in August 2020!