Over what will likely be the next few years I’m going to be ranking and reviewing the top 5 albums according to users on rateyourmusic.com (think IMDB for music) from every year from 1960 to the present. If you want to know more, I wrote an introduction to the ‘challenge’ here.

Before we go all musical, here’s some stuff that happened outside of music in 1962: Soviet missile bases were discovered in Cuba and eventually removed in exchange for the removal of US ones in Turkey, Phil Knight developed the first Nike running shoe, and Ranger IV became the first space probe to reach the moon. When I say ‘reach’, it just crashed on it, but that was what it was designed to do, so it goes down as a success.

Now back to music: Here’s what rateyourmusic.com users rate as the top 5 albums from 1962:

#1 Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers - Mosaic
#2 Charles Mingus - Tijuana Moods
#3 The John Coltrane Quartet - Coltrane
#4 Charles Mingus - Oh Yeah
# 5 Max Roach - It’s Time

*The observant may notice that the actual rateyourmusic.com list contains a couple of other entries (mainly performances by the Berlin Philharmonic of Beethoven symphonies), but those have significantly less than 500 ratings, so I’m not including them.

So, we have another 5 jazz albums, and I believe this is the last time that will happen, as the jazz slowly peters out before pretty much disappearing by the time we get to the 1970s. So enjoy it while it lasts, yeah? As usual, I’ve had a look at other albums in the top 20 or so, and there’s just lots more jazz, so I’ll stick to these 5 as we’ve got quite enough improvised trumpet and sax playing for one article here.

Off we go, here’s my rankings and views on the above:

Max Roach, one of two jazz drummer bandleaders on our list for this year rather inventively included a backing choir in his 1962 release It’s Time, including such vocals as de da de da, de da bu di bu da, among others.

This is a weird one. I admire Max’s inventiveness, and clearly a lot of people like this, but for me the choir is a bit too much. The jazz is already pretty intense, Max Roach himself is seemingly incapable of playing a single bar of music without throwing in some flair or fill in the opener It’s Time (though he does calm down somewhat later on). He’s absolutely ‘over-playing’, but it’s pretty scintillating to listen to, and I feel the backing choir just distracts from that, and what the rest of the band are doing.

Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoyed a lot of aspects of this, and I can absolutely see why people like it. Max Roach’s drumming is inventive, impressive and has plenty of ‘feel’, the bass has a nice laid back buzziness to it, the piano is smoooooth (see Sunday Afternoon) and the choir, despite generally being too much for me, absolutely adds something on the brilliant Lonesome Lover where the less jazzy and more songy (yeah I know, my vocabulary is spectacular) nature of the song lends itself better to their voices.

Song Pick: Lonesome Lover

6.5/10

ArtBlakey — 4. Mosaic

Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers

Another album with the drummer as the band leader? Yes please. Mosaic is Blakey’s first with legendary trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, who along with Blakey, plays at such breakneck speed that it’s a technical triumph.

Blakey is on the beat, ferociously fast, and with a surprisingly heavy-handed style for jazz, a genre known largely for light-touch drummers. Just listen to the way he plays in the opener Mosaic: there’s not a beat out of place, which considering the pace the song moves at is a miracle. Bear in mind too this is before someone in the studio could ‘fix’ that one beat you messed up. The drums are an integral part to this album, the way they play off Hubbard’s trumpet lines is marvellous, and they contribute largely to the speed of the whole thing. It feels like Art is pulling everyone along, daring them to go faster,and yet it’s a testament to the quality of musicians here that none of them struggles to keep up. The way he dances on the cymbals, the pinpoint fills, the way he’s laying the foundation while also providing a lot of the excitement, it’s great. Anyway, onto Hubbard: the guy plays the trumpet like a chatterbox, his parts are stuffed full of notes, moving at a pace reminiscent of Coltrane’s sax playing, and yet he knows when to sit back and let someone else have a go too. Arabia is a great example of Hubbard’s impossibly fast playing, like a drum roll on a trumpet, scattering notes everywhere like a musically talented lawn sprinkler.

What keeps this one as very good and stops it going to great for me, and this is very much a taste thing, is that everything feels a bit too under control. I’ve come to rather like jazz, but I like a sprinkling of chaos in there. This one is just lacking a little in that department, which makes it less exciting than other jazz records I’ve listened to. But if you’re after some smooth as butter and speedy as a cheetah jazz, this one’s for you.

Song picks: Mosaic

7.5/10

Having loved Blues & Roots way back in my 1960 article I get a little bit excited whenever I see Charles is on the list again, this time he’s on twice, and oh is that a treat! Charles Mingus knows how to have fun that’s for sure, and although predominantly known as a bandleader and bassist he has a stab at the piano and some vocals here. The piano playing is pretty barbaric at times and the vocals consist of such things as singing ‘eat that chicken’ over and over again. Needless to say, I’m in absolute love with it.

Hog Calling Blues opens with Mingus scatting away and is a track absolutely brimming with the humour that sets him apart from other bandleaders. Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s saxophone honking is hilarious, and sets the tone of what this album is all about. I mean the infectious sense of fun here had me laughing out loud, and that’s not an easy thing for a jazz track to do.

Devil Woman is a more straightforward jazz/blues blend and I rather like Mingus’s vocals at the start of the track, the rest is characterised by some excellent saxophone work, which is a little more serious and soulful than that on the opening track. Other notable tracks are the also infectiously fun and previously mentioned Eat that Chicken and the surprisingly otherworldly closer Passions of a Man, a mess of chanting, incomprehensible talking, thunderous drumming, and rattlesnake sounds, which unexpectedly ends in what The Jam’s Pauls Weller calls ‘a beautiful piano melody that Debussy or Satie would have been proud of’. That solo is only 30 seconds long, and I suspect it’s elevated a few notches by how brilliantly messy what comes before it sounds, but I can see what he means. It’s a mysterious, strange, and bewitching track unlike anything I’ve heard in jazz up until this point.

This whole thing sounds like some seriously good jazz musicians unafraid to good around and push a few boundaries. The whole album sounds like it was a blast to make, and when that comes across, it’s one of my favourite things in music. I’ve no idea what Mingus was like as a person, but in the studio he’s becoming one of my very favourite personalities.

Song Picks: Hog Callin’ Blues, Devil Woman, Passions of a Man

8.5/10

Coltrane1962 — 2. Coltrane

The John Coltrane Quartet

Coltrane’s back with a self-titled album featuring the same quartet that led his 1961 album Africa/Brass. Notably, the track Tunji was written in dedication of drummer Babatunde Olatunji, who also gets a mention in an upcoming 1963 album by Bob Dylan…

Like the cover of the album (oh isn’t it pretty), this oozes sophistication. Coltrane’s playing is a little slower, more calculated and dare I say, more melodic than a lot of what I’ve heard so far (with the probable exception of Africa/Brass). The opener Out of this World here features some wonderful work by the rhythm section that keep things in shape as well as providing plenty of intrigue as Elvin Jones glides over the drums and cymbals like some sort of noisy magician. Coltrane and McCoy Tyner (the pianist) work together well as Tyner creates us some lovely chord bedding for Coltrane to sing those sweet, sweet saxophone blues over the top of. It’s a pretty, pretty piece where the quartet creates a sound that is wider and deeper than it has any right to be.

Soul Eyes is my other favourite here. I’m a big fan of a Coltrane slow-jam (as you’ve probably figured out by now if you’ve read my previous posts) and this one is just as sweet, soulful and majestic as the best of them (yes, even Naima from Giant Steps). Coltrane has a tone that is like floating through the clouds at night. Tyner’s twinkling piano accompaniment is the stars lighting up the sky. It’s another beauty. There’s a dreamy sound to this whole album that’s a sign of things to come...

Song Picks: Out of this World, Soul Eyes

8.5/10

Originally recorded in 1957 but not released until 1962, Tijuana Moods is Charles Mingus’ 21st album as bandleader. Interestingly, he hated the name Charlie, claiming it was ‘a name for a dog’, and so I’m not sure how it wound up on the cover of this album. It was, naturally, inspired by a trip to Tijuana.

Tijuana Moods is a return to the familiar joviality that I experienced in Mingus’ Blues & Roots from 1960. It’s catchy, fun, and full of bounce and energy. The Latin American influences really enhance this and make it stand out among some of the other jazz I’ve been listening to. I love it when two two cultures of music come together and it works (Paul Simon’s Graceland is one of my favourite albums) and that’s certainly the case here.

The most obvious difference on listening is the expert use of castanets, a percussion instrument also known as clackers or palillos, by Ysabel Morel which create the illusion of a very percussive orchestra of crickets on a summer’s day in the Tijuana sun. Or, if you’re in a more sinister mood, the tick, tick, tick of a rattlesnake.

Mingus steers the band expertly with his bass and keeps your toes tapping throughout. I’m coming to love that about Mingus records, the instrument playing and concepts are advanced, but it’s never at the expense of being able to tap your toes to it. Dizzy Moods is a prime example, things speed up and slow down, even change time signatures on a whim, but Mingus’ rock-solid bass is always there, holding everything together. Ysabel’s Table Dance is quickly becoming one of my favourite jazz tracks. The thing is full of energy, constantly changing. Clarence Shaw’s trumpet and Jimmy Knepper’s trombone play off each other brilliantly, scattering notes like short, confidently expressed poems in either ear when you listen on headphones. Ysabel Morel’s very quiet-in-the-mix vocals give the piece a kind of manic feel, and help aid the mental transportation to Tijuana that this album achieves so effectively. The humour of the ending is another example of just how fun Mingus’ records are to listen to. It’s a thing of wonder, and a track everyone should check out.

It’s worth mentioning that on the 2000 expanded addition, the album finishes with A Colloquial Dream, which features an excellent spoken word part by Lonne Elder as he talks us through his love of jazz music, using a scene including a brilliantly sound-designed bar fight. I don’t often feel like later added bonus tracks add much to albums (they usually take something in my view), but this one works, and if somehow the original five tracks of Tijuana Moods have failed to transport you to the lively and colourful scene Mingus evokes so well, then Colloquial Dream will surely do the trick. What a fabulous album, and one that is particularly poignant in lockdown, where you can’t go very far physically, so we require the help of people like Mingus to take us there in our minds.

Song Picks: Dizzy Modds, Ysabel’s Table Dance, A Colloquial Dream

9/10

The year is 1961. The Berlin Wall was built and Cuban exiles failed to invade Cuba through the Bay of Pigs. Electric toothbrushes and Barbie’s companion Ken are introduced. But let’s have a look at what our wonderful rateyourmusic.com users rated as the year’s top 5 albums:

#1 John Coltrane - My Favourite Things
#2 John Coltrane - Ole Coltrane
#3 The John Coltrane Quartet - Africa/Brass
#4 Columbia Symphony Orchestra / Igor Stravinsky - Stravinsky Conducts Le Sacre du printemps
#5 The Ornette Coleman Double Quartet - Free Jazz

Are you serious Coltrane? Give these other guys a chance would you? My word. Well it looks like we’re in for another load of jazz and our very first classical entry. A quick look through the rest of the top 15 or so reveals a load more jazz, so I’ll pass on adding any extras for the time being.

Let’s crack on, here’s my thoughts and ranking of the above 5 albums:

Coltrane’s ninth album, which features Spanish influences (like Miles Davis’ Sketches of Spain did in 1960), was the last album he led on for Atlantic Records before moving to his new label Impulse! Records.

This one feels a bit by the numbers for Coltrane, if anything he touches can ever be called such a thing. There’s nothing that jumps out as being distinct from his other work. The soprano saxophone makes a return following its debut on My Favourite Things, which we’ll get to soon, but in a less interesting manner.

There’s plenty here to like, Coltranes’s playing is still impressive, and I particularly like Reggie Workman and Art Davis’ bass work which has a lovely relaxed, melodic feel, interspersed with more aggressive almost distorted sounding segments. The piano work just doesn’t gel as well with Coltrane this time, and it feels as if something indescribable is missing somewhat, perhaps it’s the gaps Coltrane leaves between solos where not all that much happens? I’m not sure.

The traditional slower track here is Aisha, which is a beauty and particularly notable for how well Coltrane and Eric Dolphy’s saxophones play off each other in the middle of the song. Like Marmite and cheese, a dream.

There’s no doubt this is really good, it’s just not quite up to some of his other work for me. But hey, what do I know?

Song Picks: Ole, Aisha

7/10

Coltrane’s 7th studio album is the first to feature him playing the soprano saxophone, the smaller, more high-pitched sax he is playing on the cover. An edited version of the title track, which features the melody from the famous song in The Sound of Music was a hit and was regularly played on the radio in 1961. I presume it was significantly shorter than the nearly 14 minute version here.

Miles Davis purchased Coltrane the aforementioned soprano saxophone on a previous tour and it features on the first half of the album, giving Coltrane’s playing a higher, less sombre tone, which makes these recordings stick out somewhat from others I’ve heard so far.

The opener My Favourite Things anchors itself on the famous melody I’ve already mentioned but also features plenty of Coltrane’s virtuoso soloing during it’s long run-time, which is all the more enthralling now that he’s having a go at a slightly different instrument. It’s a quick, busy track which sounds perhaps as summery as anything I’ve heard from Coltrane. On Everytime We Say Goodbye Coltrane reigns it in and demonstrates once more how he’s just as capable of playing something slow and melodic, as he is fast and chaotic. A beautiful piece where the snare sounds as gentle as sand and the bass plods along unassumingly, giving the whole thing a really relaxed feel. McCoy Tyner’s lovely twinkling piano also deserves a mention here, really adding to the contemplative, meditative feel of the track.

The second half features Coltrane back on the familiar tenor sax, and back to his busy old ways, buzzing around the neck like someone with 53 incredibly well coordinated fingers on each hand. As with most of 1961’s offerings, this one requires attentive listening, Coltrane’s playing is a little too aggressive for background listening. Sit back, close your eyes, and let Coltrane’s whirlwind saxophone playing take you away.

Song Picks: Everytime We Say Goodbye

7.5/10

3. Le Sacre du Printemps

Igor Stravinsky/Columbia Symphony Orchestra

‘The Rites of Spring’ as it’s known in English is a ballet and orchestral work originally written in 1913 by Igor Stravinsky and conducted by him here on this recording from 1960 (released in 1961). I’m not sure classical works like this can really be considered ‘albums’ but there’s so few of them that will appear over the next few years and none after 1965. So I figured it’d be good to review some of them while I can.

As Wikipedia states the work is for a scenario that ‘depicts various primitive rituals celebrating the advent of spring, after which a young girl is chosen as a sacrificial victim and dances herself to death.’

As with a lot of classical music, it’s a very intense listen. I feel like the dynamic nature of classical pieces like this is something that hasn’t fully been explored yet in more modern music. One minute, it’s close to silent, and then it suddenly sounds like everyone on the planet in possession of a relevant instrument has got it out and started playing along, it sounds monstrous, in a way that is quite jarring if you’re not paying full attention to it.

Le Sacre du Printemps is dramatic, and you can certainly place certain parts with common film tropes, aspects of Jeux des Cités Rivales for example sound very much like they could be playing during a chase scene. One of the dramatic moments worth mentioning is in the second half of the piece Le Sacrifice, where things start in an ominously relaxed manner, with the odd relatively relaxed gong hit in there to prepare you for what’s to come. Then, the lovely flute lines fade into violins (I think, I’m no expert on classical instruments) before the whole thing explodes into a loud concoction of timpani and loud brass lines with the odd flute flourish over the top. It’s glorious. The work clearly tells a story, and if you, like me, have never seen any performances of The Rites of Spring (or any ballet for that matter), sitting down and seeing what images this piece brings up is quite the experience.

It’s a tight 30 minutes long, and well worth your time. It stands as an important document of a classical piece of composition, conducted by the man who wrote it.

Highlight: Part 2: Le Sacrifice

8/10

Africa Brass — 2. Africa/Brass

The John Coltrane Quartet

John Coltrane’s 8th studio album, his first on Impulse! Records, and first featuring a big band sound, with 21 participating musicians.

It’s pretty clear that things are different from the opening notes of Africa. There’s a depth to the sound that’s only possible with this many instruments. It sounds like an army of musicians, marching towards an African sunset, led by the ever energetic and noisy Coltrane. The core quartet is still very much here, but there’s a sense of atmosphere and scale added by all these additional musicians that helps this stand out from all the other Coltrane recordings I’ve heard so far.

Africa/Brass feels quite dark, there’s a certain depth and dark reverb to everything, and some of the soundscapes are truly original. Around 12 minutes into the opener Africa all the treble-y instruments take a back seat, and we’re left with the rumbling of drums and what sounds like a viola swirling to create the humming of a small swarm of mosquitoes, which is very effective. Greensleaves takes the melody of the traditional British folk-ballad of the same name and turns it into a virtuoso jazz-piece similar to My Favourite Things, but once again darker. The closing track Blues Minor’s triumphant ending is perhaps the only point in the album where this big band sounds like a true big band, ending the album in a glorious, emphatic blare of horns, before everything calms down to a lovely repeated saxophone line by Coltrane. At only 33 minutes, this is a great showing of what Coltrane does best in a condensed and more accessible package than a lot of his work so far.

Song Picks: Africa, Blues Minor

8/10

1. Free Jazz

The Ornette Coleman Double Quartet

Picture this: Ornette Coleman’s a bit bored, so he decides that for his 7th studio album he’ll assemble not only one band of top name jazz musicians, but two bands, and get them to improvise for 40 minutes in a studio together with practically no idea about what the other band is doing. You’ve just pictured Free Jazz, an album unlike any other I’ve ever heard.

Other than a few brief sections that were pre-determined, this whole thing is just two jazz bands improvising in one room. That’s two drummers, two bassists… yeah, you get the picture. Upon reading this I thought there’s no way this could be anything but a load of jazz noise, and lo and behold, it was just that, a load of jazz noise. My first two attempts to listen to it on headphones led to me aborting mission after around 5 minutes because it was just too much for my ears. An unholy cacophony of jazz noise (one band in my right ear, the other in my left) assaulting my ear-drums in a way they haven’t been assaulted for quite some time. Then, a couple of days later, I put it on on my speakers while cooking up a shakshuka and everything changed…

I was transported back to 1961, I was there with both bands in the studio as they played their instruments, trying to work off each other while playing some very complex stuff, the struggle was real. I had no idea what was going to happen next because they had no idea what was going to happen next. Would Coleman’s swirling saxophone solo end in a bum note? Would the drummer accidentally throw his sticks at someone’s head? Would a chandelier fall from the ceiling and wipe out some of jazz’s finest musicians amid the clatter and crash of glass and metal? It seemed like anything was possible. It was magical. An experience that was truly unique. I’m not sure how many times I’ll actually listen to Free Jazz, but it single handedly invented a genre (the genre free jazz is named after its title), and brought about one of my more memorable musical experiences, one where I felt completely in a moment, not this moment, but one from December 21st, 1960. There I was just cooking up a lovely vegetable and egg dish with Ornette and the gang playing away. I can totally understand why people would hate this, I did on my first two listens. But now I love it. I love its audacity, I love its inventiveness, I love how immediate it is. Give it a go, and you just might love it too. Just make sure you don’t listen on headphones.

In a year where Coltrane pushed a whole multitude of boundaries, Coleman obliterated them, and takes the title for 1961.

9/10