The first Brenda Lee album I bought was …”Let Me Sing”. (Yes, the ellipsis and quotation marks are all part of the title.) I love that album. It’s great for drinking a bottle of wine to and considering your life too. And because I loved it I decided to grab a couple more the next time I was at the record store. The result was a good example of why sometimes a little bit of research is a good idea before snapping up records willy nilly.
You see, Let Me Sing is the last album that Brenda Lee recorded that charted in the Top 40 (at #39). That’s not to say that albums that don’t chart aren’t worth anything, but it seems that anything after that album, recorded at the end of 1963, sounds a little uninspired. Coming on Strong, recorded in 1966, bears little resemblance to the awesomeness that is Let Me Sing. Not that it’s entirely awful. The title track of Coming On Strong was her last hit before reinventing herself as a country artist. (Yes, it’s the song Golden Earring sings about playing on the radio in Radar Love.) It’s just that it’s offset by some truly lame material. For example, on that album is one of the least energetic and unfunky versions of Stevie Wonder’s Uptight I’ve ever been privileged to listen to.
Johnny One Time, I feel, is a better album than Coming On Strong. Maybe it’s because it has If You Go Away on it, a song I enjoy to hear sang by pretty much anyone. It feels a little more vibrant than Coming On Strong. This could be because it seems that Brenda took a little bit of a recording hiatus, having not released anything for a year and a half beforehand. That doesn’t seem like much of a rest, but not if you take into account she was releasing two albums a year from 1960 to 1966, that’s huge.
The point of all this is that I guess I need to be smarter with my impulse record purchases. Even when I’m buying an artist I know I like, who has a giant back catalogue to choose from, you can’t always expect gold.
I’ve always thought I should know and appreciate more about jazz and classical music. Well, not ALWAYS. For awhile I derided jazz pretty badly. Mostly because I didn’t understand it. I wouldn’t say I understand it much more than I did back then (not as long ago as I’d like to admit) but now I am at least open to learning about it. So far my endeavours to understand it have been only very slightly successful. Probably because I most of my experience with both jazz and classical has been mostly reading about them, watching documentaries about them and not actually LISTENING to the music.
Today I went to the record store and I bought three jazz records. All of these records are by artists I have a very vague understanding of. Mostly they were chose because of name recognition, and how cohesive a package the cover made it look like. I didn’t want “greatest hits” packages or some other cash-in title, of which it seems there are many.
I normally do a little bit of research about an album before I write about it here but I’ve decided instead to write this post in a way that displays my ignorance of the subject matter. After I write a very uninformed piece about my meandering thoughts on these albums, I’ll go off and read up about where they fit into the artist’s careers and jazz as a whole.
The Cat by Jimmy Smith
I was first introduced to Jimmy Smith through Sideshow Sid’s CJSW show The Musiquarium, which uses the track Walk on the Wild Side as it’s theme song. It’s a kick ass song that has always been something I thought that a burlesque dancer could light a stage on fire to. (Get on that, Garter Girls.)
I found myself a copy of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf somewhere along the line, I think even before I put two and two together that this album was by the same guy. I don’t listen to it very often because it looks like someone used the record as a doormat before I got it. Too scratched to enjoy. But the couple of times I did listen, it exhibited the same grand virtuosity that is evident in Wild Side.
I think The Cat is a pretty excellent album. I feel like I’m not the one to proclaim anything about it, but like Virginia Wolf, it has all of the things I’ve liked about Jimmy from the beginning. The fingerwork that seems to be beyond human capacity and songs that are just incredibly funky.
In a Silent Way by Miles Davis.
I’ve watched a little over half of Ken Burns’ 19 hour Jazz documentary. (Despite this fact I still cannot speak intelligently on the subject.) I think they were just about to get to Miles when I believe I got distracted by The Wire.
I once briefly owned a Miles Davis CD, Panthalassa, that was “remixed” by Bill Laswell. When I bought it I was expecting something like Laswell’s dub experiments, using Davis’s material as a jumping-off point. Instead I got a straight-up jazz album only mildly remixed, and I don’t really understand what the point of it was even now. It had the entirety of In a Silent Way mixed down to a 15 minute selection as it’s opening track. I remembered having heard most of the album as I was listening to it, so I guess it gave me a good base to rest my opinions on.
Have Trumpet, Will Excite by Dizzy Gillespie
Of the three artists, Dizzy is probably the one I should know the most about due to his stature as a historical figure and also because of how much time was devoted to him in the Ken Burns documentary. At least I think so, it’s been awhile. Funny thing is, I think he’s the one I’ve heard the least amount of music from.
It’s my understanding that he’s of a certain era of musician that came directly from the Big Band era. Musicians like Davis and Smith were not, (I don’t think) of the generation that started off playing big band jazz and then branched out from that. Where as Dizzy was. (If I’m wrong about this, it will be unnecessary to correct me as I’ll be reading about all three of these guys on Wikipedia pretty soon.) As such, his music reminds me a little of that era and sounds a little more dated than the others. Not that Jimmy Smith doesn’t sound firmly of the 60s, but Dizzy sounds older, 40s or 50s. I enjoyed Have Trumpet, but it wasn’t my favourite of the bunch. Of course, it was the last of three albums and I might have not as into it as I could have been, so I’ll reserve my judgement.
All three of these albums will receive multiple listenings from me, I’m positive of that. Especially the I a Silent Way. I already feel like it has subtleties that will reveal themselves as I grow as a jazz listener. It’s my hope that next time I choose an album it will be based on more than just the cover design and I also hope I’ll soon be able to write about a jazz album in reference to more than just my own ignorance. I’m sure you’ll be grateful for that, as I doubt this was all that interesting of a read as it could have been.
I’m a big fan of Saul’s Trent Reznor produced The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust! from 2007. What we have here is a less abrasive, (although with the punk-rock influences kept firmly in place) venture that is also more polished and accessible.
Once again I’ll allow myself to indulge in the cliche of using a blend of artists to describe an artist that by all means should be described on his own terms. If you could resist describing this album as a holy alliance of Lennie Kravitz and Nine Inch Nails, then fine, you’re a better person than I am.
As I was listening to it Saul announced on his twitter that he’s signed with YMCMB. I found that pretty surprising, but regardless, I expect we’ll be hearing a lot more of this album in the coming months because of this.
Yup, I’m cruising right along here with MONM. Two albums in 12 days. Sigh.
I was expecting more from Tycho.
I’m primarily familiar with Scott Hanson as ISO 50. It seems he’s been making posters and selling shirts under that name since forever. I never thought to listen to the music he made as Tycho until today. I liked it, but it felt very “surface” to me. There are some beautiful Boards of Canada-esque textures on this, and the beats are pleasant. The problem was that at no time did I feel like I was being challenged by the music or even pulled from what I was doing to really listen to it. Even when I stopped myself from puttering around the house and take it in, I found I couldn’t recall any part of any song that actually stuck out to me.
I understand that some music isn’t meant to be catchy and hooky, some is meant to let your mind wander around and meditate through. I’m a big appreciator of that type of thing. The problem is is that this rode a line between those two areas and I felt that it didn’t excel at either.
Who knows, maybe I’m not “getting it” yet. I’ll give it a couple more listens I’m sure, but I have my doubts that I’ll be recommending it to anyone for anything but background music.
Do I sense a trend here? I hope this doesn’t continue. I have what I expect to be a barn-burner of an album up for my 3rd MONM pick.
Already a day late with this year’s first MONM album.
Pretty but not particularly notable. This is how I’d describe the entire “Dream Pop” genre. Not quite as interesting as Shoegaze, not quite as catchy as Pop. So it’s unsurprising that Citrus never got me interested, as pleasant of an album as it is. “Pink Cloud Tracing Paper” got me to listen, but only because it sounds exactly like My Bloody Valentine. The rest of the songs sound like The Sundays (remember them?) if they were Japanese and were more into MBV.
I don’t put music on as background noise, but if I were the type, this is what I’d put on. Like when your friends come over, and you don’t want the music to over power the dinner conversation. Yeah, if only more restaurants played this, rather than that horrible chill-out background music.
You said.