Music Monday: Three from 1964

1964 was an intriguing year in jazz and improvised music. Hard bop continued to be popular both on the charts and with musicians, but more experimental, on the one hand, and more soulful, on the other, styles were starting to gain traction anticipating major strands in musical development at the end the decade.

There are so many great albums for that year, it is really challenging to identify just three, but here are a few of my favorites that embrace the range of traditions manifesting 60 years ago.

To my ears, Donald Byrd’s A New Perspective is a masterpiece. I generally don’t love albums that rely too heavily on vocals, but this album is an exception. It draws on the hard bop tradition while anticipating soul jazz and even spiritual jazz with its clear evocation of the Black spirituals. Plus “Cristo Redentor” is amazing (and a hat’s off to Duke Pearson who arranged this album and wrote that tune).

When I first heard Andrew Hill’s Black Fire, I wasn’t exactly ambivalent, but I’m not sure that I got it. After listening to it for about decade, I not only came to appreciate it, but I also started to “get it.” “McNeil Island” is named after the federal prison in Washington State; I’m not clear on the connection to Hill or the themes in this album, but I expect there is a story there.

Finally, for something a bit more chill, but no less wonderful Booker Ervin’s The Blues Book is a fantastic album at the intersection of blues, hard bop, and modal music. The album features some players — such as Carmell Jones — who contributed to the sound of 1960s jazz (most notably with Horace Silver’s outfit), but perhaps don’t get enough credit. Booker Ervin is the star of the show, of course, with his distinct tenor (honed with Charles Mingus’s band) giving his voice to blues inflected originals:   

As a bonus: Albert Ayler’s Spiritual Unity was recorded on July 10, 1964, even if it wasn’t released until 1965: