It's About Time: The 50s

The 1950s marked a significant transition in music history. In many ways, it was the moment where modern pop music began to take shape, which would come to force out the old guard of laid back and classy crooners in favour of the new and exciting sounds and personalities of rock & roll. The pop of the time got more rowdy, rhythm and blues came around to infuse a little soul into the musical world, and jazz was having it's final explosive moment in the sun with classics from the likes of Miles Davis and John Coltrane being some of the most noteworthy music from the decade. The decade was very much an inflection point, and a time of musical turbulence, where all sorts of styles seemed to battle over the future of popular music.

It's easy to overlook the 50s, but if it weren't for the advancements made during this time, the modern music landscape would likely look very different. That being said though, the music world was clearly still finding it's feet in this radical new world they made for themselves, so while the rest of this series will feature 10 albums for each decade, only 7 matched my criteria for this one.

Ray Charles - Ray Charles

Kind of like: Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye Songs to try: Mess Around, I Got a Woman, Sinner's Prayer

Starting with the lowest rated of the eligible albums from the 50s, and its albums like these that make you realize why white people stole so much black music. The difference is massive, how could 1950s white boys expect to do better than this while playing fair? There are albums from 10 years later than Ray Charles' self titled that still feel more primitive and outdated than this. It hardly sounds modern, but a modern ear (even one as stubborn as mine) can easily pick up things to appreciate and might even forget that its listening to such an old album at moments.

It is a very simple album at it's core (which makes my job very difficult), but if you're looking for an album to sum up the basic fundamentals of R&B and soul, this may well be it. And Ray Charles' earnest yet expressive vocal performance is enough to keep you engaged throughout too.

Marty Robbins - Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs

Genre: Country Songs to try: Big Iron, Billy the Kid, They're Hanging Me Tonight

When I saw the name of this album, saw that album art, and saw it was a country album... I can't lie, I was shocked that it was eligible for this post, and I wasn't looking forward to it. So when I say I had a pretty good time with it, that should be taken as high praise.

As someone who doesn't tend to like country and to whom the cowboy fantasy doesn't appeal at all by virtue of the fact I'm not American, this album was pretty enjoyable throughout. I had heard Big Iron before from Fallout: New Vegas and I was kinda into it then, even when listening quite passively, and Billy the Kid, as cliche as the song may be, caught my ear on first listen here.

I can't say I thought especially highly of it in absolute terms, but the fact someone so removed from the target audience is able to listen to this album without being bored is either a sign of a total bastardization of the genre, or exceptional execution of it. I'll leave that call to people more familiar with the genre.

Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong - Ella and Louis

Genre: Jazz Songs to try: Moonlight In Vermont, Tenderly, April In Paris

Personal and controversial opinion: turns out, I don't really like Louis Armstrong's voice. It's iconic, it really suits a certain vibe, but most of the time? Not for me. Otherwise though, I really enjoyed this album. And even the fact that Louis Armstrong was there did positively contribute to the album for me. It really centered the conversational nature of jazz for me and to such a degree that I'm not sure there's much else I can point to for a similar experience. It feels almost parasocial.

I'm still getting used to talking about older music, and jazz is particularly alien to me, so I'm not sure how to highlight what this album does that isn't a natural byproduct of the genre it exists within, but whether due to the fact that it's jazz or by virtue of this album in particular, it feels like an album that very much exists within a space. It would be both cliche and inaccurate to suggest that it feels like being transported to a jazz club, but there is definitely a very physical quality to the music here.

I definitely think this album is worth a listen if you are at all interested in jazz, which should hardly come as a surprise considering the two legends responsible for it, but I don't think it's one to rush to. It doesn't get much wrong, but it also lacks a hook, in my opinion. There doesn't seem to be anything remarkable that this album does specifically that isn't done better elsewhere. Although that may just be my lack of jazz literacy.

Nina Simone - Little Girl Blue

Kind of like: Samara Joy Songs to try: Mood Indigo, My Baby Just Cares for Me, Plain Gold Ring

While this may be pretty far from Nina Simone's best, all that would make her such a legendary performer is present here in moments and glimpses.

The most obvious example of that legendary bubbling beneath a far more bland surface being her voice: as great as it still is here, is rarely as distinctive and powerful as it would come to be in some of her classic albums of the 60s.

Another example is the general energy of the album. Nina Simone would become way more dynamic than this album gets, and in future albums she really captures your attention in ways that she simply doesn't for most of the runtime here. It's some great background music, but Nina was so clearly meant for something more.

That being said, make no mistake, this is still some excellent classic jazz, and some of the easiest to recommend from the genre amongst all I've heard so far. It's probably not required listening for prospective jazz fans, but could be the album that lights that spark to begin with it if you aren't quite ready to dive in at the deep end.

Chet Baker - Chet Baker Sings

Kind of like: Laufey, Jeff Buckley but jazzier Songs to try: But Not for Me, That Old Feeling, The Thrill is Gone

Something to be aware of regarding my specific tastes is that I rarely care about vocals. I can often appreciate them in relation to emotion and how it is conveyed through the voice, but otherwise I don't care how much range someone has, or how their falsetto sounds. It's just not something that excites me at all except for very rare exceptions. But from the moment I hit play on this album I was taken aback by how smooth Chet Baker's voice was. In a time where digital enhancement wasn't an option, his voice came seemed almost flawless and yet still human in a way that those digital enhancements can't be.

To be clear here, I don't hate things like auto-tune and I'm not necessarily coming after artists that use it: the worst thing I can say about it is that it is treated as a default when it shouldn't be and as such is overused. I only bring it up to really demonstrate just how good this guy's voice is. His range isn't all that impressive (or at least, if it is this album doesn't show that off) but his control within his decidedly average range is absolutely mesmerizing. And the tone is smooth as honey to boot.

If good vocals are something you care about in music, this album is a must-listen for sure. It wasn't enough to make me love the album on it's own, but the album does excel in that area and remains solid on most other musical fronts too so I can absolutely see someone loving the hell out of this.

John Coltrane - Blue Train

Genre: Jazz, Hard Bop

This is why there is a limit on exclusively instrumental albums: I recognize their importance and I want to talk about them, but I don't know how. Part of that is down to a simple lack of exposure to jazz especially, but also generally instrumental music, but part of it is also that most of my musical analysis is grounded by lyrics and themes. The former of which of course doesn't exist at all, and the latter of which may not exist and even when it does is especially abstract and hard to read. But I'll try to say something about what I was able to take from the album.

I generally like when the album is horn-led (which is most of the time) as opposed to piano-led. There's just something about the softer tone of brass that feels way more satisfying to me compared to the pointed tone of most jazz pianos. I also found myself coming back to the drums a lot for reasons I don't entirely understand. The playing was fairly simple, but there was something captivating about it, especially on Locomotion.

A negative takeaway I had though, was that technical proficiency often came before emotional resonance for me. That isn't an objective critique, I can't criticize the style-over-substance approach entirely when one of my favourite films is Baby Driver, but it's not what I personally want out of music, so I often got frustrated with the album when there would be these very impressive runs that never seemed to say anything except "hey, check this out". That being said, I'm Old-Fashioned did end up being a very refreshing surprise due in part to that frustration being built up with that flashiness, and I think it led to me being more receptive to it.

One final note on the album that I have is that it often felt like there was nothing to latch onto. No motifs or repetitions of any sort, no ideas that cropped up and provided a pay-off. Maybe this is just my unrefined palette for jazz speaking (it almost certainly is), but I had no idea what to expect in the worst way. It felt less like an unpredictable thrill ride and more like watching a child do art.

Ultimately, I would say I enjoyed the album, but I don't really know whether to recommend it to anyone that hasn't already listened to it. It seems very much like the type of album that would have reached the people it should reach naturally and may not be for the people who would need me to tell them to listen to it.

Miles Davis - Kind of Blue

Genre: Jazz, Cool Jazz

This is pretty much exactly what comes to my mind when I think jazz. It is the quintessential jazz album. If you have listened to jazz, you've listened to (or actively avoided) Kind of Blue. I think that fact alone speaks to the quality of this album plenty on it's own, but seeing as its my job to speak to the quality of the album and I refuse to be outdone by a single fact, I'll expand on that a little more.

If there was one thing that I would say separates this album from the select few jazz albums I've heard, I'd say it was all about structure. Very few songs or even moments here feel totally unstructured or totally rigid, and that balance is crucial for me to be able to appreciate the beauty of the genre as an outsider. Whereas Blue Train felt overly improvisational to me, to the point where I struggled to really grasp anything, Kind of Blue often gives you a solid base (usually provided by the rhythm section) from which the rest of the band can express themselves and which you can mentally return to when the improvisation gets overwhelming, which it rarely does to begin with here for what it's worth.

That point about expression brings me to my next point: this album is great at selling an emotion or a vibe. Maybe it is inexperience talking, but I struggled to pin much down with Blue Train, but here every song feels very distinct and purposeful in a way instrumentals rarely do to me.

I don't mean to bring up my opinions on Blue Train's shortcomings to drag it down; many people more familiar with the genre hold it in very high regard, I just think its a useful contrast to explain how beginner-friendly Kind of Blue is. It is just so excellent at demonstrating what is so great about jazz that even people who have never heard it before can get some sort of connection to it. Its because of that fact that I don't just highly recommend this album, I insist that, if you listen to jazz, this has to be your first album. Its just absolutely perfect as an introduction to the broader sounds and ideals that can then be explored afterwards.

Final thoughts on the 50s

Getting deep into personal opinion territory here, unfortunately I feel let down by the 50s a little. There were some surprises for me, and I finally listened to jazz and got something out of it, but for the most part I feel like music at this stage was largely a technical exercise, where emotional resonance generally took a backseat to that technical proficiency. Combine that with the fact that the two things I generally really appreciate in music (lyrics and production) were both pretty primitive at this stage, and it makes for an experience that was mostly one of neutral appreciation for technical mastery as opposed to the investment I usually feel in music.

As for specific highlights, Kind of Blue definitely deserves to be hailed as the best of the decade, and Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs was a surprisingly decent listen for me, but otherwise I didn't really feel much towards this selection of albums. Hopefully the 60s does a little more for me.