Music Milestones, 1962: Jacques Brel – Les Bourgeois

A forefather of modern chanson, Jacques Brel is a Belgian icon who played a crucial role in expanding francophone music to a worldwide audience. Indeed, Brel’s literate and theatrical approach to singing and songwriting would prove highly influential on followers such as Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, David Bowie, Scott Walker and many others. 

Although I am fairly familiar with Brel’s discography and own several of his records, Les Bourgeois is the one that I repeatedly return to with great pleasure. The title song is a jovial tale of three unruly youngsters who grow old and conservative, accompanied by cabaret music that aptly captures their coming of age. The cabaret music continues with “Les Paumés du Petit Matin”, where Brel portrays the life of such early morning misfits. Brel pays a mournful tribute to his homeland in “Le Plat Pays”, where cathedrals are the only mountains. Les Bourgeois is moreover filled with many other gems, with “Madeleine”, “Bruxelles” and “Le Caporal Casse-Pompon” being personal favorites of mine.

Once again, I highlight the closing track of the record, “Rosa”, a tango in which Brel sings about carefree youth while teaching Latin 101:

Music Milestones, 1961: Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington – The Great Summit

 

Although the two founding fathers of jazz took about 60 years to join forces and make their first studio record together, the long wait was definitely worthwhile. A special acknowledgement is due to producer Bob Thiele, the architect behind The Great Summit who managed to gather these two jazz greats in Manhattan for a meager two days of recording.

Despite the short duration of this reunion, The Great Summit offers 17 outstanding compositions by Ellington effortlessly interpreted by Louis Armstrong & His All-Stars. The record begins with “Duke’s Place” where Ellington sets the stage with an infectious piano melody, which bolsters Armstrong’s singing about the wonders of such a joyful joint. Armstrong’s trumpet is more prominent on “Cotton Tail”, where he also displays some of his excellent scat ability. “It Don’t Mean a Thing” is another favorite of mine, although I must admit to prefer Ella Fitzgerald’s rendition of Duke’s classic on her Songbook.

The Great Summit closes with the beautiful “Azalea”, which was composed by Ellington with Armstrong in mind, and where their piano and trumpet combine to harmonic perfection. Have a listen:  

  

Music Milestones, 1960: Miles Davis – Sketches of Spain

My favorite period of Miles Davis’ oeuvre is the late 50s, when he released the masterpieces Workin’, Cookin’, Relaxin’ and Kind of Blue, as well as Birth of the Cool (an essential compilation of earlier work produced in the late 40s). However, I pick Sketches of Spain for its odd place in Davis’ discography. In fact, this record arguably contains the least jazzy music that he ever put out; I dare say that the music here is hardly jazz. 

After listening to and marveling at Joaquín Rodrigo’s composition for classical guitar Concierto de Aranjuez, Davis teamed up with longtime collaborator Gil Evans to produce a record revolving around this piece. Davis and Evans eventually delved deep into Spanish music, and ended up conjuring a soundscape tinged with Hispanic flavor. The record opens with the second movement of Concierto de Aranjuez where classical guitar is front and center, with adept accompaniment by Davis on flugelhorn and trumpet. Horns gain momentum in the haunting “Will-o'-the-Wisp”, another Spanish piece from Manuel de Falla’s El Amor Brujo. The last three tracks of the album are original compositions by Evans, and successfully give continuity to the flamenco-flavored procession of the two aforementioned covers.

I leave you with the album closer, “Solea”, perhaps Sketches of Spain at its jazziest:

Music Milestones

While reorganizing my music collection, I came up with the idea of making a retrospective of the records that have so far been most influential in my life as listener. I will therefore post short reviews of these inspiring records as regularly as possible, and accompany each review with a snippet highlighting a particularly meaningful track. Due to the narrow scope of my music collection, this retrospective starts for the year 1960 and runs through 2012.

This retrospective is of course highly personal, and your views on my selection are therefore very welcome. More specifically, I am interested to know which records you would pick for each year. So, do have your say...

Enjoy the tunes!