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. You can also read all the other entries I’ve written so far by heading to the lovely index page here.

So here we are, 1963. “What happened in 1963?? Give me some context!!” I hear you scream. Well, first of all, calm down. Secondly, here are some headlines: JFK was assassinated, Martin Luther King delivered his ‘I have a dream’ speech, Kenya gained independence, thieves gained £2.5m pounds in the ‘great train robbery’ here in Britain and Quasars were discovered. What’s a Quasar? It’s an ‘extremely luminous active galactic nucleus’ of course (thanks, Wikipedia).

But anyway, as ever, we’re here to talk about music. So here’s what the rateyourmusic.com community rates as the top five albums of 1963:

#1 Charles Mingus - The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady
#2 Bob Dylan - The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan
#3 Berlin Philharmonic (Conducted by Herbert von Karajan) - Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9
#4 Duke Ellington/Charles Mingus/John Coltrane - Money Jungle
#5 Thelonius Monk Quartet - Monk’s Dream

Well, the jazz is, very slowly, starting to peter out. We had five in 1962, now we’ve only got three entries and my man Bob makes his first of many appearances. We’ve also got more Charles Mingus and The Duke’s first appearance. We are in for a treat I tell you, but, because I like to spoil you, I’ve also had a look further down the list and spotted some samba, some soul and another album featuring The Duke. I’ll throw them all into the mix too:

#6 Jorge Ben - Samba esquema novo
#7 Duke Ellington & John Coltrane - Duke Ellington & John Coltrane
#11 Sam Cooke - Night Beat

We’ve got eight albums to get through, and this is my favourite set yet! So we’d best get started. Here’s my ranking of and thoughts on the above:

It’s time for some samba! Jorge Ben Jor’s debut album Samba Esquema Novo features a song called Mas, Que Nada!, which I guarantee 95% of the people reading this have heard. It’s the one that goes: ‘uuuhm balyah da dum, uhm ba, uhm ba, uhm ba’. Nope? Nothing? Type it into youtube, you’ll almost certainly know it.

My Portuguese is non-existent so I can’t talk about the lyrics here, but I really like the vocals on this album. Jorge’s voice is quiet, it almost feels like a mutter at points, and has an unassuming quality that works well with this rather chilled collection of songs.

Instrumentally speaking, Jorge’s classical guitar playing takes you straight to a relaxed afternoon in a quiet Brazilian backstreet, and his simple samba rhythms are well accompanied by some quiet drumming, bare-bones bass, and tastefully sprinkled trumpet, creating a scene that is just extremely pleasant. It feels like a 28 minute holiday, by the end I’ve got into my beach-shorts, dug out my beach towel and put on the sun-cream, only to realise it’s freezing outside and there isn’t a good beach for absolute miles (sorry Cleethorpes). It was all a dream. Thanks Jorge.

Song Pick: Mas, Que Nada!

7.5/10

Night Beat is Sam Cooke’s twelfth and penultimate album, he was shot the following year in self-defense (although some dispute this), the circumstances around which are worth a read on Wikipedia. Night Beat is remarkable in that it’s his fabulous voice that takes centre stage here, undisturbed by the additional strings and backing choruses that apparently appear on a lot of his albums. I wouldn’t know as this is my first Sam Cooke album, so I’ll have to take their word for it.

This is a really simple rhythm & blues record, the band arrangements are generally pretty basic guitar, drum, bass and piano ones and serve to lay a soothing backing for Cooke’s voice that is so good I’m sure it could cure diseases (hang on, I think Trump’s calling...). It’s a smoother, quieter version of Otis Reading (he’ll be appearing in a few years’ time), with just the right amount of warbling, i.e not very much. There’s nothing I hate more than over-singing, and Cooke is absolutely not guilty of that. His brilliance is obvious, he has no need to show-off, and these songs are all the better for it. He has one of those timeless voices that immediately takes you somewhere, and I’m glad this album is such a great showcase of it.

Apparently these songs were all recorded in late-night recording sessions, and that’s certainly something that comes across. This thing has a very relaxed, contemplative night-time feel to it and is likely the most accessible album on this year’s list. I doubt there’s anyone out there that wouldn’t enjoy this.

Night Beat doesn’t do anything particularly inventive, but what it does it does so well, and with such grace, that it’s the perfect late-night listen. My only complaint is the choice of Shake, Rattle & Roll, which closes the album. Cooke sings it fine, but lacks the power and grittiness that the song needs.

Song Picks: Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen, You Gotta Move, Please Don’t Drive Me Away

8/10

DukeandJohn — 6. Duke Ellington & John Coltrane

Duke Ellington & John Coltrane

We’ve got two albums featuring The Duke in 1963. Aren’t we lucky? Here’s the first.

Coltrane had a massive admiration for Ellington and this set comprises a super relaxing set of jazz numbers, performed well within their abilities, but in a way that’s homely and warming. Ellington, owner of 'the largest recorded personal jazz legacy' and leader of the 'best known orchestral unit in the history of jazz' since the 1920s restrains himself for maximum effectiveness. The opener In a Sentimental Mood, which is one of the most famous jazz recordings out there and a personal favourite, is elevated by Duke's simple but effective piano licks. Coltrane's ability to make a saxophone sound beautifully sad is at it's best here too, and returns to similar form on My Little Brown Book later on. More than 20 years younger than Ellington, though Ellington was to outlive him, Coltrane is close to the height of his talents here, and that's audible even when he's playing well within them.

On the great closer The Feeling of Jazz Ellington plays gorgeous, spaced out chords that perfectly punctuate Coltrane's beautiful, wandering saxophone lines. It's like he's sitting back and letting the young upstart take over, like a father accompanying a son as he takes something he started to new heights.

This album isn't a challenging one, it doesn't push the boundaries in any way, but it's just so darn beautiful and listenable that it doesn't matter. This is a really accessible jazz album, made all the more magical when you think how dominant these two magicians were in their respective eras, and just how well they work together.

Song Picks: In a Sentimental Mood, My Little Brown Book, The Feeling of Jazz

8/10

It’s worth noting here that there is also a collection of all nine Beethoven symphonies as performed by the Berlin Philharmonic on the rateyourmusic.com top five for 1963, however I think it’s a bit of a stretch calling a collection that large an album, so I haven’t included it (though do check it out if you have five and a half hours to spare). I have however included this performance of Beethoven’s ninth symphony, as performed by the Berlin Philharmonic, which was released in 1963, and also made the top five.

Beethoven composed his ninth and final symphony from 1822 to 1824 while almost completely deaf. The story of its premiere in Vienna in 1824 is both heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time. Beethoven stood in front of the conductor’s stand and conducted, although the orchestra was told to watch Michael Umlauf’s conducting instead due to the fact Beethoven couldn’t actually hear the orchestra, and thus couldn’t realistically be expected to conduct it. One report says that when the piece finished, Beethoven carried on conducting for two more bars as he was behind. Fortunately Caroline Unger, one of the performers, had the foresight to turn him around to face the audience at the end of the performance. The applause was apparently so jubilant, that although Beethoven couldn’t hear it, he would certainly have seen it.

As you’d expect, this is an intense, dramatic, majestic, and downright impressive piece. Perhaps a little smoother, more modern sounding, and more accessible than some of his other symphonies, but still with those trademark moments of high drama and explosive volume. It also has perhaps Beethoven’s most triumphant melody, and one of the most famous melodies ever written for that matter, Ode to Joy, which was adopted as the European anthem in 1985. I was sat there with the biggest smile on my face when it appeared in the fourth movement, hearing it for the first time in the context in which it was written. It’s notable also for being the first symphony from a major composer to include voices, which sing words from the poem Ode to Joy during the symphony’s triumphant finale mentioned above. This is a fittingly brilliant end to a whole host of great symphonies. I haven’t heard any other performances of it to deduce whether this is particularly good one, but it seems to me to be a well recorded and brilliantly performed version of this historically important piece. Did I mention it was written by a man who couldn’t hear? It’s enough to make you feel pretty inadequate.

8.5/10

Money Jungle.jpg — 4. Money Jungle

Duke Ellington / Charles Mingus / Max Roach

Duke Ellington’s second appearance here, and he appears this time alongside two familiar faces, Charles Mingus on double-bass and Max Roach on drums.

By all accounts the vast majority of the songs were written by Ellington who simply gave Mingus and Roach a lead sheet outlining the basic structure and melody of the track. They then played along, without a rehearsal, and what we have here is the result.

I’m always a bit wary of supergroups, it just never seems to work does it? A lot of what makes a band great is the way they complement each other, not how fabulous they all are as musicians individually. Money Jungle doesn’t have this problem, which considering they never even rehearsed together before recording this is remarkable. It’s a perfect display of how three performers can be individually very expressive, while still making something that works as a whole. The fact that it’s only a trio here helps, there’s only so much that can be going on at once. You can easily tune into each of their individual performances, and zoom back out into the whole. This, for someone relatively new to jazz like me, was a fascinating exercise.

It’s a fairly challenging listen (though nowhere near as much as Mingus’ The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady) but it’s one that rewards repeat listens and features some really magical moments. I mean listen to Mingus’ didgeridoo like bass line in the title track. Take that out of the context of everyone else’s playing and it would sound terrible, but in the mix it just works, buzzing along like the world’s largest bumble-bee as Ellington and Coltrane have their own battle of notes. Mingus’ throaty bassline on Fleurette Africaine is another wonder, how can a bass even make that noise? Most of the time though, it just feels like there’s no way that three musicians can be playing with this much energy and individuality and for it to work together, but somehow it does. A spectacular display of musicianship that’s also a damn fine listen.

Song Picks: Money Jungle, Fleurette Africaine

8.5/10

First of all, what a splendid name. Thelonious Monk. Monk’s Dream is his first album on Columbia Records. I was going to work out how many albums he’d done in total before this but it’s a lot and I kept losing count. Monk’s Dream features new recordings and interpretations of old songs by Thelonious, with only one completely new song: Bright Mississippi.

Monk has a really unique style, which is very rhythmical. He doesn’t tend to hold notes long, and he tends to hit notes hard, so much so that the poet and jazz critic Philip Larkin rather unfairly called him ‘the elephant on the keyboard’. I’d have to disagree strongly with that assessment. Sure, he plays pretty loudly, but there’s also a wonderful finesse to his playing (see Five Note Blues). The way he stutters, rolls and uses abrupt pauses just as effectively as abrupt notes is really unique and makes Thelonious stand out among other pianists I’ve heard in jazz. The way he plays also creates a completely unique tone, with lots of sparkling overtones. I always like it when you can recognise an artist immediately because their style is so distinctive, and that’s certainly the case with Monk.

Monk and his long-time saxophonist Charlie Rouse work together like Marmite and cheese. You can tell they’ve been playing together for a while here. On the title track Monk skitters around the keyboard dabbing at chords to begin with, then there’s a wonderful overlap as both he and Rouse play, before Monk peels off to give Rouse space to breathe, and breathe he does, crafting beautiful, steady lines over the top of Frankie Dunlop’s immaculately featherweight drumming (he’s superb throughout this album) and John Ore’s walking bassline. Monk finishes the song with his own, characteristically staccato, percussive and exciting solo. The album goes on much in that vein, it has a wonderfully relaxed feel, not miles from Duke Ellington & John Coltrane. The band works together beautifully, and that’s what makes this infinitely listenable, but it’s the personality that Monk puts into the piano playing that makes this something really special, and a jazz favourite for me.

Song Picks: Monk’s Dream, Body & Soul, Five Note Blues

9/10

Widely regarded as Mingus’ masterpiece, this is one of those where you feel like if you don’t give it a 10/10 the rateyourmusic.com version of Zeus will launch a lightning bolt javelin at you, striking you right through your headphones and into your puny non-music-understanding brain. So bearing in mind I’ve only ever given less than ten albums a 10/10, I approach this review with some trepidation.

The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady was recorded by an 11-piece band, and orchestrated with a perfectionist’s touch by Charles Mingus, who had a very clear idea of how he wanted everything to sound. It was also the first jazz album to use overdubbing, a process of recording new takes on top of other ones that have already been recorded. The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady interestingly included some lengthy liner notes by Mr Mingus and a review by his psychotherapist, which is well worth a read and available here. By all accounts this album is an exploration of Mingus’ mind and how he sees the battles within it, and the world, and how he sees the battles on it.

Solo Dancer builds up tension around a saw-like brass line, with some busy cymbal and snare drum hitting and a chatty saxophone line before it all fades away beautifully into a more relaxed feel as everything calms down, leaving, for a very short period, nothing but the saxophone playing. The tension builds again in the front-line instruments, while the drums stay calmer, and we’re left with a more lengthy solo, underpinned by Mingus’ quick-stepping bass-line before everything explodes again into a wonderful crescendo featuring that sax-line that’s been there throughout, praying for a better tomorrow.

Duete Solo Dancers, starts with a less guttural version of the saw-like brass-line of the opener. In comes the most terrific twinkling piano and once again we’ve got ourselves a huge sound, an orchestral sounding piece with a particular melody line that sounds like a quicker version of the ‘dum, dum, dum’ we say out loud to mark a cliffhanger. There’s so much going on in this track, and indeed all of them, that I’m going to cease writing about them specifically now. I think it’s fair to say that what Mingus has created here is an extraordinary piece, a piece that tells a story much like a classical piece, and yet is firmly rooted in jazz. It’s so complex that a layman like me reviewing it feels a little like me trying to assess the meaning of life itself. It’s full of magical moments, such as the way the brass instruments seem to talk to each other, and to the listener, seemingly having an animated argument as a battle of good vs evil clatters on around them.

The way familiar lines crop up again throughout the piece keeps things rooted nicely, you get that lovely relief of being home again every time that swinging line re-appears, it’s a relief, a harbour in the intense storm that is this album.

Am I clever enough in the parlance of jazz to really talk about this album? No. But I can certainly appreciate just how ambitious it is. Written as a ballet, this piece tells a frenetic, noisy and at times dissonant and hard to listen to story that requires many repeat listens to really appreciate. I still pick up new things on every listen, and I suspect I’ll continue to do so for years to come. This is one that will probably rise in the ranks over time. For now it’s held back only by how challenging it is. It doesn’t have that fun accessibility that most of Mingus’ albums have, which I think is a side-effect of just how ambitious it is. But, even if I can’t see myself listening to this one as much as some of his other work, because it really does require all your undivided attention, I know that every time I sit down and dedicate myself to it, I’ll be taken away on a rather fabulous journey, noticing new elements to the scenery that I’d never seen before, or perhaps even taking routes I’d never taken before. This album is a puzzle book, one that I’ll probably never solve, but one that’s so satisfying to fail at it barely matters.

9/10

I await my death, oh Zeus of rateyourmusic.com, but maybe let me finish this challenge first yeah? And who knows, by the end this may well have grown to a 10/10, it feels like one of those albums.

Dylan - Freewheelin — 1. The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

‘How many seas must the white dove sail, before she sleeps in the sand?’ Dylan sings on one of the most famous songs out there: Blowing in the Wind, the opening track of his second album, which followed up 1962’s collection of mainly covers (inventively titled Bob Dylan), and cemented his place as folk’s primary political troubadour.

It’s no secret that Dylan is my favourite artist, which is partly down to the fact I think he’s the best lyricist we’ve ever had. No one even comes close for me, maybe Cohen if I’m feeling generous. Now, I say this mainly based on his lyrical content from later years, when he sang the finest abstract poetry, conjuring up endless fabulous, often mad images as his band produced the kind of energetic, impactful and yet breezy sound that no one has managed to imitate particularly well since. But this is before then, this is when Bob played an acoustic guitar, and made his name for what he called ‘finger-pointing’ songs, commenting on the happenings of the day (pretty much all of which are still relevant today) with a sharp lyrical skill beyond his years.

This is essentially a mix of anti-war songs and love songs. Masters of War is a masterful example of the former, a song so cutting, that it’s hard to imagine one of the ‘Masters of War’ he refers to listening to it and not feeling rather ashamed. Bob repeats the same melody over and over, and the chords are painfully simple too. But it doesn’t matter, what’s important here is the words and the delivery. Now, I know there’s plenty of people out there who say ‘Dylan can’t sing’ and ‘all his songs are performed better by other people’ etc etc. But, obviously, I disagree rather strongly. For my money, Dylan’s 60s output has some of the best vocal performances we’ve ever heard or are likely to hear again. He’s the only artist I can think of where every word feels important, and that’s partly because of how the lyrics always hook me in, but also because of how he delivers them, not in the interest of creating a pretty melody, but in the interest of penetrating your brain, something he succeeds on doing better than anyone ever has, or probably ever will. At least for me.

Girl from the North Country, which borrows it’s melody and several of its lyrics from the English traditional Scarborough Fair, is perhaps the album’s finest love song as Dylan remembers a lost love fondly, hoping that she’s still ok. It’s performed with a breeziness of a man who has moved on, but not because he’s forgotten her. It’s likely about Suze Rotolo, Dylan’s girlfriend at the time, who appears on the cover.

Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright tells of the end of a, likely the same, relationship and ends rather brilliantly with the lines:

“Now, I'm not sayin' you treated me unkind
You could have done better but I don't mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don't think twice, it's all right”

Dylan sings them over a carefree sounding picked-guitar part, as if it’s no big deal, life goes on. The way an album can so effortlessly contain songs that have as breezy a feel as the above two (even if the third line above does have more than a hint of bitterness to it) and others that have the weight of Masters of War and my personal favourite A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall is rather special. Hell, the way it is both breezy (I’m a fan of that word today it seems) and demands your attention is remarkable.

There’s also great examples of Dylan’s slightly absurdist humour in I Shall Be Free, but we’ll get into that more on later releases, where it’s more prevalent.

It’s not my favourite Dylan album, those happen when Dylan picks up the electric guitar and starts singing about ragmen, pipers, jesters and who knows what else, but it is one of the finest acoustic albums out there, and the start of an album-run that is rather spectacular. I remember when I first listened to this (it was the first of his albums I heard) and it blew me away. Back then, I don’t think I could really explain why it blew me away so much and led to me listening to nothing but Bob Dylan albums for a solid 3 months. But I know now, I think it was the first time I’d ever listened to an entire album and paid attention to every, single, word, and that wasn’t because I wanted to, but because Bob demanded I did. For the first time, music didn’t just put a new filter on my surroundings, but took me completely out of them.

Errr, Clive, aren’t you going to link back to that lyric you mentioned in the first line of your review? Isn’t that what all good music reviewers do?

Nah, I just put that there because I like the image.

Song Picks: Blowin’ In The Wind; A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall; Girl from the North Country; Corrina, Corrina

9.5/10