Albums I Could Not Live Without (Part 4) - New Turntable/New Listening Room Edition!
Friday is fun because it’s about music, so there’s links and playlists — Today, I return to the Album I Could Not Live Without series, in a whole new ‘listening room’.
Earlier in the year — in fact right at the very start of the year — I shared the third in this occasional series, a way of thinking about albums I feel like I simply could not live without.
And yes-yes, I know, I know, we can live without ‘owning’ albums and still get to hear them these days, no trouble. But play along eh…
I bought a second turntable recently — and I’ve moved a finite selection of records into the TV-free lounge within my house. It’s the new favourite room for everyone really. It’s all about reading. It’s all about removing the temptation for technology. It’s nice to sit and listening to records, and sometimes CDs, rather than just a streaming pile of content…
The CDs are mostly soundtracks, but there’s also a bit of all-sorts in and around that. But the records fall into four categories only: Jazz, Soundtracks, Classical, and then the smallest selection with the biggest wiggle-room: Albums that I absolutely adore. So, you know, there’s ambient, rock, pop, and alt/indie in there. Some blues too.
Since setting up this small-ish selection and the new turntable, about three weeks ago I suppose, I’ve listened to more records in that time than I have across the whole first half of the year. I’ve already gone through one full rotation of soundtrack albums, put them back and cycled in another.
You might remember that I had one of my Beatles-buzz Hyper-fixations and that accounted for the second set of Albums I Could Not Live Without:
And of course the first one, was just the first one. Because I had to start somewhere.
With that in mind, here’s a new list of albums — and, yeah, a couple of them were on an earlier list. That’s fine. I chose them this time from within the context of this new, streamlined collection within my collection. So, in no particular order:
I love Buddy Rich, but I get it — it’s a bit loud and clatter-y for some, including even for some drummers and big-band fans. But the answer, always, is to check this album out. Here Rich is exquisite, playing brushes, playing in the background, playing for the songs in small combo playing (which was where you heard his true magic I think). He’s here with Art Tatum on piano and Lionel Hampton (a great pianist and drummer, but here on his primary instrument, the vibraphone). All three of them masters. And on this 1955 album they really created something special.
Frank Sinatra, Trilogy: Past, Present, Future
I have about two dozen Sinatra albums, and I’ll buy and keep more, if and when I can. He really was the voice of the 20th century to me. Well, one of (Bob Dylan and Billie Holiday are there either side of him I reckon). But my favourite album from the Chairman of the Board is this — was he the Chairman of the Bored when he made it? This bonkers fantasy trilogy album is the subject of this podcast:
So maybe take the 30 minutes to listen to that first, if you’ve never heard about this record. Then dive right in to the triple album!
Charles Mingus, The Black Saint and The Sinner Lady
I bought this on CD for $1 about 30 years ago — a water-damaged copy, but the disc played just fine. To this day it’s one of my favourite Mingus albums. I have a few on CD, and a few more on vinyl, and again, I’d like to own even more one day. To me he is one of the 20th Century’s greatest composers. And a brutal, brilliant, beautiful bandleader too. But as a sample of the songs he could write and the way he could whip a band into shape you could do a lot worse than start right here. Sometimes this sounds like 1963 is still some year that has yet to happen!
Billie Holiday, Songs For Distingue Lovers
Just A Few Stray Thoughts on Billie Holiday
·Every single Billie Holiday album feels like a Greatest Hits collection. This one is only half an hour, but every song is perfect. My favourite Billie record is generally whichever one I’m listening to, although I’ll definitely cop to having a real soft spot for Lady In Satin, but my copy is a reissue with a different cover, and that bugs me. So in recent years, I’ve focussed more on Body & Soul and this album. But it’s like trying to pick a favourite child. God bless them all!
Clint Mansell/Kronos Quartet, Requiem For A Dream OST
I’m always mentioning this — because the soundtrack album was nearly as much of a knockout as the film. The movie is one of life’s greatest gut punches — it hits hard. And part of that charm is in this score, composed by Clint Mansell, and performed by the Kronos Quartet. It also plays nicely on its own without the film, and not all scores manage that. I was a Kronos fan ahead of hearing this, but this made me a Mansell fan. I still check out every score he makes, and there are many gems, but this is the one. And one of my favourite albums. I waited patiently to find this on vinyl at the right time and the right place in my life. And it comes out now and then for a very focussed listen. Lately I’ve had it heavy in the rotation. The new room likes it a lot, and this record seems to dig its new surroundings.
Alice Coltrane, Journey in Satchidananda
Here’s what I said last time — when I picked this the first time:
I think maybe I fell in love with this working late nights in a record store. I was already into John Coltrane, and aware of Alice – maybe only knew a few things from compilations, and from her appearances on some of John’s tracks, but as soon as I heard this I was in. And so much so that I used to take this with me to pubs – get them to play it over the house system. I was like a traveling salesman with this album for a while, getting a couple of bars to buy their own copies on the strength of a night sharing it through their sound-system. I think I’d hear something quite like this in my head for years before I’d ever actually heard this. And I sincerely hope that makes sense. This was such an explosion of ideas in my brain, a furthering of modal jazz that I was so ready for. And still think is one of the most perfect musical meditations.
Released in 1971, and recorded with some of her late-husband’s ex-band members and favourite collaborators, this album sees Alice take her grief gently with both hands, and hold it under the head as she walks it through new musical mantras to make peace. I’ve never not loved this album but I’m now listening to it in a new room, so it feels almost like I’m hearing it with new ears.
A while back, I sold a few of my Randy Newman albums, but I could never part with this — it’s not the first I heard, but it’s the one that hits me the hardest, so, therefore, it does feel like ‘the most important’ if not the very best. Rednecks, Marie, Mr President, Guilty and Louisiana 1927 are the songs that absolutely knock me out. But every tune here is a gem, and there’s a story happening in and around all the little individual stories. In what is hopefully Trump’s last few months of such visibility, this album takes on something else; a warning from 50 years ago, more palpable and relevant in some ways now somehow.
I’ve mentioned this one in a list of 10 before so I better share (again) what I said at the time:
When I first heard this I thought Van Morrison had made up a new language. I still feel like that every time I listen to it. Van Morrison is a grumpy old sod, and he’s largely been making the same album for 30 years now, but his first decade of work is utterly undeniable. And this album is one of those special, once-in-a-lifetime-talent records. Any time I hear it feels like a first time. Still.
As with the Alice Coltrane, I’ve basically never stopped loving this album (released in 1968, I guess I first heard it sometime in the late 80s). I definitely struggle to care about whole eras and areas of Van Morrison’s work, and he seems like a nasty-minded nuisance, but this album remains majestic.
One of the greatest, and most surreal moments of my life was checking my phone to receive an apologetic message from Paul Buchanan. We’d been phone-tagging a bit for an interview and his message was as if Liam Neeson and Bryan Ferry had collaborated to write and perform the saddest, most heartfelt apology; I mean it was basically a brand new song and just to me. I had fallen so in love with this album and then got offered the chance to do an interview. I had a newborn son, and Paul Buchanan had told me that it meant the world I was even interested in talking to him with what I had going on. I mean. Come on! It was just an amazing week or so doing this phone-tag, then eventually talking to him, then writing it up. He was so charming, and his story was wonderful and sad and his music is just the most beautiful thing you might ever hear. This album is never far from my thoughts. And I’ve just returned to listening to it regularly after a few years of just keeping it in my heart.
Schnell Fenster, The Sound of Trees
Perhaps I said everything I could about this album here:
But I keep finding new ways in. I own this album three times over on vinyl now, and just recently I found it (again) on cassette tape, and bought that. Some days I think this is my all-time favourite album by anyone ever. And it’s sounding as good as ever in this new space.
Now, maybe there’s an album or two there you’ve never heard, or you haven’t heard them in your favourite room, nor for some time, so have a hoon on anything here you like the sound of, and feel free to share any recent or all-time favourites below. Also if you’d like to write a guest post of Albums You Could Not Live Without drop me a line.
As always on a Friday, I’ll leave you with a playlist. I have a feeling this one is going to play through very nicely, if a little low-key and melancholy. Hope you have a great weekend. Thanks, as ever, for reading. And for listening.
I’ve been meaning to thank you for some time for introducing me to Paul Buchanan and Mid Air. It’s an amazing album and strikes such an interesting mood. I can’t think of anything comparable that is quiet and melancholic without being too dreary or acousticy. I return to it often and I’m thankful that you pointed it out many, many years ago.
Jamie.