The Birth Of the Cool, Miles Davis

It's Black music month!

The Birth of the Cool, Miles Davis, 1957, :32

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

This album, like yesterday's, turns out to be a compilation album of singles recorded in a few days seven years earlier by Davis and a nonet, then released later under a variety of titles.  The "cool" in the title is meant to show that these recording were among the first to demonstrate cool jazz, a new, more meticulous and subdued, sound in jazz, as opposed to bebop.  Personally, I prefer a more exuberant, sweaty Miles, but this is nice too.  Favorite tracks: "Move," "Godchild."

Here's Little Richard, Little Richard

It's black Music month!

Here's Little Richard, Little Richard, 1957, :29

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

The debut album of the man who, along with Chuck Berry, can most fairly be described as an inventor of rock and roll.  The Penniman whoop and wail, the fuzzy guitar, the sultry sax, the crashing drums: every song announces that Little Richard is going to fly rock's freak flag high. The unrelenting staccato buzz of "Jenny Jenny" is garage before there was garage.  Good gawd!  Favorite tracks: Slipping' and Sliding' (Peepin' and Hidin')," "Tutti Frutti," "Rip It Up," "Jenny, Jenny."