John Coltrane - My Favorite Things (61)

One of Coltrane more acclaimed and notable works from what I seen, and it forsure lived up to the hype. With about 40 minutes of runtime, it felt like there was not one wasted moment on here. The album starts off with the best track and honestly one of the best tracks I heard, My Favorite things.

Honestly feels weird hearing My Favorite Things when my only source of reference was the 3k rendition on TLB. But yeah this one blows that one out the park. Might be the best jazz piece I ever heard. You can hear the modal influence on this one that helps create a very exquisite and warm melody. Then on top of that add coltrane sax solos throughout here with the catch melodic motif and you got something amazing. . Similar to Giant Steps, Coltranes solos prove to be the highlight of this album as well.

Warm is actually a good descriptor for this album. Every song just has this sense of fuzziness to it, as if you're listening to an audible hug. Everytime We Say Goodbye is another example of such. Sounds like staying cozy on a rain day which is funny considering the song also has a level of sadness that it's trying to portray.

This album shares similar characteristics to Kind of Blue. A very accessible and easy to listen to record that still has this sense of expert musicality to it. This is what makes the album very repayable.

Favorite Tracks: My Favortite Things, Everytime We Say Goodbye
Least Favorite: Summertime

Serge Gainsbourg - L'Étonnant Serge Gainsbourg (61)

This the first album I listened to in French, so this was an interesting experience. Although not much different than listening to other albums in different languages, where I'm mostly paying attention to the melodies and instrumentals. However, this is music in the early 60s so those 2 aspects are kinda low for vocal albums I'll say. But I still found a lot of enjoyment with this album.

I did read translations of every song just to get an idea of what the lyrics are. As far as lyrics, they seem to be very poetic and full of eloquent imagery to describe love and I can see how this correlates to the music that accompanies them.

Although I can't understand any of the lyrics on a causal listen, the overall atmosphere created from the instrumentals and singing resonated. At times it felt like I was listening to a French Sinatra, just from the way he was crooning over these lush instrumentals. The album has a lot more jazz elements than I was intially expecting like in Les Oubliettes, which might is one of my favorite out of the album. But the album also has very playful and whimsical feel to it with songs like Le Rock de nerval, Les Sonnets d'arvers and others. Overall the album was pretty enjoyable from the first foreign artist on this list.

Favorite Tracks: Les Chanson de Prévert, Les Oubliettes
Least Favorite: Les femmes c'est du chinois

Seeing some of my favorite albums of all time on here.

Art Blakey - A Night In Tunisia (61)

Second album from Art Blakey after moanin. The album starts off with a pretty great rendition of night in tunisia, not quite as good as the Lee morgan version but great nevertheless. Something I'll say about this album is that it's more busy than moanin. While it does keep the same core of being melodic and cool with songs like Yama. Howevee, there's greater instances where the music is more active than what you'll get from moanin and the intro sets it off right. Kozo's Walt also does a pretty great job on keeping the music melodic and being able to switch into energetic moments. Overall the album is pretty solid and consistent with great song renditions but I wouldn't say there's any real standouts on here that wow me, I guess the closest would be Sincerely Diana.

Favorite Tracks: Night In Tunisia, Sincerely Diana
Least Favorite: When Your Lover Has Gone

Bobby Bland - Two Steps From The Blue (61)

With this album and the Sam Cooke albums and a few others, I'm starting to see the framework for soul music being built. There's a mix of soulful ballads like lead me on and some more faster songs like don't cry no more. I think the ballads and slower tempo tracks is where he shines the best on. But even then I still feel like some of the ballads miss the mark for me. As with the other early rnb albums I heard kinda blows my mind they're singing these songs straight up like that with limited technology. His voice is pretty amazing all over this. I do think this album runs slight too long even though it's only 30ish minutes but mostly due to some of tracks kinda blending into each other in terms of instrumentation. I think the front end has the better songs overall.

Favorite Tracks: Two Steps From The Blue, Lead Me On
Least Favorite Tracks: Little Boy Blue

John Coltrane - Africa/Brass (61)

This album is far more mellow than My Favorite Things. The opening track, Africa really exhibits this with this ominous buildup for the second half of the song. Even greensleves which I always think of this "fairy tale" esque song is more melancholic than you would think. Speaking of greensleves, coltrane rendition of it on here is straight up amazing and provides a pretty unique take to the song at least for me, to the point i barely recognize it. The track exchange its goofiness for something more smooth. Low point of the album is blues minor, when compared to the first. The song felt like a bonus track almost.

When comparing this album to his last 2, Giant Steps and My Favorite Things, I would probably put this last. It does feel like a step or more below those 2 but nevertheless another solid album from Coltrane.

Favorite Tracks: Greensleves
Least Favorite: When Your Lover Has Gone