1956 (with writeups)

I started out thinking I had actually run out of years to review, which was part of why I endeavored to actually write reviews of everything - as it turns out the slip of paper for 1956 just migrated on its own to one corner of the bag, and I have a few other years left still. I do think it's a good idea to keep up this approach the next time I pull a year out of hat, rather than the quantity over quality one I've been using.

Elvis Presley - Elvis Presley (1956)

Through this project I’ve learned that I enjoy listening to early rock and roll albums, but that it can be a little hard to assess them because so much of what would have been considered fresh to listeners at the time is now just part of the basic foundation of a genre that’s existed for 70 decades or so. Maybe adding to this is the fact that Elvis was always a performer rather than a songwriter, and I’ve heard the original versions of a few of these songs before. Still, I can understand some of the excitement there must have been around the album because these are well-chosen songs and the performances have a lot of unvarnished, live energy to them.

Moondog - Moondog (Prestige) 

Moondog was an American composer and musician who was largely self-taught. His wikipedia article notes that his initial interest in music growing up was with percussion instruments, and it does show on this album, with all of the pieces either being heavily based around percussion or using unusual rhythms. Another frequent unusual thing about this album for its time is use of non-musical sounds: “Lullabye” is built around the sounds of Moondog’s six week old daughter crying and his wife singing to calm her, and other pieces incorporate sounds like ocean waves, frogs, and even street traffic. As unconventional and idiosyncratic as this music is, there are plenty of melodic parts, and the overall feel is playful and welcoming rather than challenging. I like putting on stimulating instrumental music when I occasionally paint or work on other art projects, and this is an album I’d like to put on again and get creative with.  

Peggy Lee - Black Coffee with Peggy Lee

Peggy Lee was a jazz and pop singer and actress whose career spanned seven decades (she was releasing full albums for about five of those). I was previously only familiar with her songs “Fever” and “Is That All There Is”, and the first place I heard her, without knowing it was Disney’s Lady And The Tramp - she co-wrote the songs in the movie, played a few different voice roles, and sang a few of the musical numbers: The song “He’s A Tramp” was apparently the one most modeled on something she’d sing normally - for this reason, I initially kept picturing Peg, Peggy Lee’s blonde-maned, eyeliner-wearing stray Pekingnese character from the movie, when listening to this. Incidentally, the appearance of Miss Piggy from The Muppets was also initially based on her. 

Initially released as eight songs spread over a set of 78 rpm records in 1953, Black Coffee was upgraded to an LP with four new songs in 1956. While vocal jazz is not normally my thing, apparently that just means that a performer has to have a pretty captivating voice to hold my attention for a whole album of it - and Peggy Lee does have that: her trademark is a soft yet sultry and mature singing style that really pulls you in. The songs can sometimes be more upbeat than you’d think from that description, but they’re carefully arranged to have energy while still never overpowering her singing. This is the kind of thing I’d only put on in certain moods, but I’m definitely interested in hearing more. 

Charles Mingus - Pithecanthropus Erectus

This is the second Charles Mingus album I’ve heard, with the other one being Mingus Ah Um. One thing I like about Mingus is he can paint a picture with sound when he wants to, and this especially applies to the first side of this album: the title track is meant to depict the rise of mankind, then its downfall, so it starts with primal bass and percussion, then gradually gets more complex, only to start falling apart around your ears, then finally eerily withers up and dies. Meanwhile “A Foggy Day” is a playful adaptation of the George Gershwin standard where the instruments periodically imitate car horns, sirens, traffic cop whistles and the like - the contrast between these sections and ones where the instruments are playing variations on the melody brings to mind someone having a leisurely drive despite all the chaos going on around them. 

Gene Vincent & his Blue Caps - Bluejean Bop!
While I wanted to try a variety of different styles of music from 1956, I did decide I wanted at least one other rock and roll album. Gene Vincent is best known for his single “Be-Bop-a-Lula”, which was also released in 1956, but not included on this album. Obviously I was going to end up comparing this to Elvis’ debut, but there are fairly significant differences and I can see someone preferring this album because of them: Firstly, unlike Elvis, Gene did actually did some songwriting - he co-wrote three out of twelve songs on the album (and a fourth is original to the album but credited to his manager Tex Davis and guitarist Cliff Gallup). Secondly, most of the songs Elvis covered were rock and roll or country to start with, whereas Gene Vincent tended a little more towards taking pop standards and adapting them to more of a rock style - it’s a little more creative, and I can imagine how it might have influenced the Beatles to say, do a rock version of “Til There Was You” from The Music Man. Finally, there’s just more of a full band feel to the album - there’s a little more focus on the band as a unit than just Gene as a vocalist, especially on the more uptempo tracks, where the band members sometimes join in on shouted call and response vocals, and on “Jumps, Giggles, and Shouts” everyone gets a solo. 

Spike Jones - Dinner Music For People Who Aren’t Very Hungry

This is the first album in my 1956 run where I can safely say I’m not going to give it another listen in full… but it is diverting for about thirty minutes. The gimmick of the album is that it’s supposed to be a hi-fi demonstration record, with the music and sound effects sometimes moving around the sonic field in humorous ways and a straight man narrator bridging one piece to another. The thing is I’m apparently not quite versed in popular music of the time, so some of the takes on pop songs are possibly lost on me - for instance I’m not sure if there’s a “joke” to “Memories Are Made Of This?” beyond “someone tries to sing a sentimental ballad with loud dog sound effects in the background”. I do, however, know enough classical music to get some amusement out of “Black And Blue Danube Waltz” and “Sneezin’ Bee” , the latter of which takes an already silly-sounding tuba arrangement of “Flight of the Bumblebee” and adds interrupting sneezes, under the premise that the soloist is allergic to pollen. These two tracks made me at least appreciate the album more in theory, because I started to think about how a lot of talent and effort actually went into creating something deliberately stupid and silly, and that’s a mark of other comedy music I enjoy. 

Billie Holiday - Lady Sings The Blues

I thought this was one I already owned and had listened to, but it turns out the record I have is a compilation with the somewhat confusingly similar title The Real Lady Sings The Blues. Billie’s voice and singing style is very unique - it  took me a few listens to appreciate it, but her rasp can really bring out the emotion of a song whether it’s meant to be romantic, sad, or foreboding as in “Strange Fruit”, a masterfully disturbing protest song about lynchings. Something that occurred to me on this particular listen is that at times Billie’s voice actually has a similar timbre to an alto saxophone to my ears. 

Frank Sinatra - Songs For Swingin’ Lovers!

I took kind of a hiatus on the 1956 project, which I might be closing with this one - If so, I wanted to at least end it on an even number (eight albums as of right now), and pick at least one more really famous one other than Elvis. Additionally, I started thinking about this particular album because I’m becoming inundated with Christmas music at work, and this style of swing music can make me think of Christmas, if only because that’s the only time of year you’re liable to hear the genre in the wild (and for what it’s worth, three out Sinatra’s top 5 songs on Spotify right now are versions of Christmas standards). 

The thing is though, I’ve tried at least one other album via the year out of a hat project, and I hadn’t really gotten the appeal of Sinatra - I still don’t feel like this is something I’d go out of my way to listen to, but I’ve gotten a little closer to it: over the course of the album I kind of was able to transport myself mentally to some kind of idealized 50s gin joint for about 45 minutes. The moments that most affected me were the more rare melancholy songs like “We’ll Be Together Again” though, so maybe if I try something else it should be In The Wee Small Hours, which is noted for its more depressive themes.