And away, we go…

The first year of my slightly ambitious project. It wasn’t an especially great year for albums needless to say. Indeed I only have fifteen albums listed this year (I’ll only have twenty for next year, meaning my first true top twenty-five will be in 1957).

Event of the year: Marilyn Monroe’s skirt blows up.

Fad:  Smelly Dave Crockett coonskin caps.

Babe of the Year: Peter Pan

Scandal of the Year: Peter Pan is a girl. Bet Wendy was shocked.

Movie or TV show to barf to: Mickey Mouse Club

What we could have done without: Duck and Cover

Pet of the year: Lassie

Other Tidbits: James Dean becomes a teen idol in death, The US capital is moved to Disneyland, Lunatics wearing coonskin caps mug Mickey Mouse, Winston Churchill takes his marbles and goes home, Johnny Cash shoots a man in Reno just to watch him die, US and China play Chicken over Formosa and Taiwan loses, Marty McFly invents rock n roll, Chuck Berry becomes a duck.

Okay, so I’m supposed to come up with a top twenty-five out of these thirty albums. The talking dog gives me a break, though. I only have to rank fifteen albums this year but I have to watch My Little Margie for penance. Well, it could be worse, I guess. He might have made me watch an I Love Lucy marathon. Yeah, Ricky, I know, you’re home. Why don’t you go over the Mertz’ or something?

Anyway, here we go with the fifteen greatest albums of 1955 (really, just ask me).

1)  Bill Haley and the Comets- Rock Around the Clock

2)  Clifford Brown and Max Roach- Study in Brown

3)  Julie London- Julie is Her Name

4)  Modern Jazz Quartet- Concorde

5)  Louis Armstrong- Satch Plays Fats

6)  Fats Domino- Rockin and Rollin With Fats Domino

7)  Miles Davis- Blue Moods

8)  Billie Holiday- Music For Torching

9)  Frank Sinatra- In the Wee Small Hours

10)  Kenny Dorham- Afro Cuban

11)  Sarah Vaughan- In the Land of Hi-Fi

12)  Webb Pierce- Webb Pierce

13)  Dinah Washington- For Those in Love

14)  Errol Garner- Contrasts

15)  Thelonious Monk- Plays the Music of Duke Ellington

Highlights- As noted before this is a pretty lean year but what do you expect when record albums and rock and roll were just starting out? It was a great year for singles though as I could rave about the singles from the likes of Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, and all sorts of rhythm and blues artists. Album wise though, it’s mostly more of what might have been described as easy listening later. Rock Around the Clock, at number one, is obviously one of the exceptions. It’s basically a greatest hits package and certainly listenable, but the truth is, even a few years from now, it wouldn’t even get so much as a mention. Still there are some surprises such as Study in Brown (see biggest surprise), and even Julie London who, at least for this year, was the ultimate torch queen.

It gets a little tougher once I get past Billie Holliday (another great torch queen). Nine through fifteen are not great albums by any length of the imagination. They’re on here mainly because they were better than anything else I heard this year (damn you, talking dog!). I also notice early on that it’s hard to discern one jazz track from another without a very close listen. I find it’s best to let the jazz albums in particular flow and I’m going to be finding some surprising classics from now until 1966 and even 1970. Even this year has an early gem (again see biggest surprise).

Biggest Surprise- Clifford Brown and Max Roach- Study in Brown.

This album really stands out in what is a very lean year. Jazz was still trying to get into the hard bop rhythm. This album comes closest to the cool sounds I’ll be hearing from the likes of Coltrane and Mingus in particular.

Biggest Disappointment- Thelonious Monk in general.

I was hoping to like him but basically it’s just a lot of piano to me. That will only work a couple times for me.

Stinker of the Year- Gene Autry- Trusty the Rocking Horse and Bucking Bronco.

Okay, this album must be so bad I can’t even find it on YouTube so I’ll go with his wonderful holiday songs of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer and Peter Cottontail. He wasn’t back in the saddle with stinkers like those and I’m sure he wasn’t with this album either.

So I guess that’s it for 1955. I hope I got off to a good start. I’ll post my favorite twenty of 1956 (another lean year) later this week.