1969, part 3
I’m still looking back forty years at the best albums of 1969. This week, part 2 of America’s contributions (##11-20)
It’s not just how good the songwriting is (way beyond just “Both Sides Now”), but how amazing her singing sounds.
One of the most individual piano stylists of the past half-century, Ran Blake was as political on his third album as the solo piano format allows (the title is anti-police), but the music can stand on its own without program, beautiful and emotional in his spare, harmonically distinctive way. Too bad it’s on neither CD nor iTunes, it certainly deserves to be more accessible.
This was a prolific year for CCR, and one of the best years any rock band has ever had. Green River, released in August, was the second of three CCR albums to come out in 1969 (all of which charted Top 10), and it might be their best album ever (Cosmo’s Factory is the other contender).
On the guys’ November release, the mood is often more lighthearted, but “Fortunate Son,” “It Ain’t You Or Me,” and the striking “Effigy” balance the scales forcefully.
I’m guessing that this was released in 1969, since that’s the apparent vintage of the latest tracks here (trying to pin down the release dates of LPs on Ra’s Saturn label is a largely futile endeavor). It was just the second album on which he played only electronic keyboards, and is also distinguished by the degree to which the percussion is African hand drums rather than a kit. Unlike most Arkestra albums, which tend to be more ensemble-oriented, Ra is heavily featured. The concluding 21-minute concert recording of the title track is a keyboard freakout, real love-it-or-hate-it material, until the band comes in for the last five minutes. This stuff is more psychedelic, and far weirder, than anything coming out of San Francisco at the time.
Otis had died in 1967, but his leftovers made a better album than most living musicians were capable of. And check out drummer Al Jackson’s transmutation of Clyde Stubblefield funk polyrhythms on “Groovin’ Time.”
This was the very first ECM release. It’s a commanding trio session by one of the greatest jazz pianists, a session his liner note announced as “a different approach to my music…my meeting with free jazz.” But, as he quickly emphasizes, it’s not “complete anarchy or disorganized sound”; I’m guessing that what made it free for him is that it lacks predetermined structures (aside from “Willow Weep for Me”). It’s more about grooves than tunes, certainly, but Waldron’s darkly majestic sound and empathic collaborators Isla Eckinger (bass) and Clarence Becton (drums) make this brooding album psychologically compelling.
This was the album on which Zappa finally stripped concepts and politics, smut and grossness, weird disjunctions and ramshackle suites, the Mothers of Invention, and – most of the time, Captain Beefheart’s cameo on “Willie the Pimp” excepted – vocals from his work (not that all that stuff wasn’t great!) to reveal just how fine a composer, arranger, and guitarist he was.
Chicago’s debut, before the real CTA made them change their name. The band’s ‘80s work has tarnished its reputation, but when they started out they were more adventurous. The catchiness of a song such as “Beginnings” disguises how unpop-like its structure is, and some other tracks are way out there, especially Terry Kath’s feature “Free Form Guitar.”
The earlier At Folsom Prison gets the kudos for being more historically important (in other words, coming first), but this is a much better performance.
