To rock fans, 1956 was possibly the biggest year of the decade just because it marks the introduction of Elvis but 1956 was a huge year in music for many more reasons than that - it was a watershed of eclectic artistry, a year worth studying in its own right. Exciting developments were made in jazz as hard bop gave ground to experimental ensembles and in rock music as Bill Haley was eclipsed by youthful upstarts.
Unfortunately, many of the rock and rollers who were there at the gate like Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley had to wait on their record companies to give them an album deal. Labels were hesitant to commit to entire albums from teen-oriented artists and it was RCA who took the plunge with Elvis Presley, followed soon by Capitol with Gene Vincent and Coral with Johnny Burnette. In artistic terms it was Gene Vincent who came out on top with his gorgeous voice and Cliff Gallup's fleet fingers lighting up the fretboard but it was Johnny Burnette and the Rock and Roll Trio that took the genre the furthest the fastest, creating the prototype from which all garage rock, hard rock and punk rock descend. Elvis may have won the lottery of fame and fortune but he couldn't withstand the competition and in our opinion he never was a force to be reckoned with, more a singer/entertainer than a rocker.
What all the rockers lacked was a strong guitar tone. Gallup had great technique, and Paul Burlison of the Rock and Roll Trio stumbled upon a method to create dirty amplifier noise but nobody was experimenting with guitar tone yet (Link Wray was still two years away from 'Rumble'). You had to look to B.B. King - and by extension the other electric bluesmen, soon to become gurus to an entire British generation. King's singles sold well enough to gain an album package and his guitar tone, when compared with those of Gallup, Moore and Burlison, sounds like the 1960s, a harbinger of the blues-rock to come.
There was another harbinger of things to come - of the British Invasion, in fact - that I'm sure not a single American picked up on. Lonnie Donegan, "The King of Skiffle," took folk and blues music, energized it and became a runaway success, inspiring the rock and roll generation in Britain yet criminally forgotten outside of it. His combination of substance with bite, strong emotional content with a powerful band would hardly be heard again until Dylan went electric. He's the best kept secret of 1956.
The year was equally important in the development of jazz as the hard bop paradigm proved to be a dead end that the more creative souls had to overcome. In stark contrast to the many virtuosic but predictable displays of talent in 1955, in this year one could expect the unexpected. Chamber Jazz reached a possible peak with the efforts of Chico Hamilton and The Modern Jazz Quartet. Charles Mingus released his first major statement with Pithecanthropus Erectus, melding played-by-ear jazz with the classical tone poem (combining the uncombinable, you might say). Stan Kenton released Cuban Fire! - an insane blend of Latin rhythms with movie soundtrack bombast that turned out to be just crazy enough to work.
Standard singers were being completely outstripped by the new developments and it took an actual jazz man to bring the increasingly old-fashioned medium into the cutting edge: Chet Baker Sings was a major development in Songbook interpretation. Nobody, including the vaunted Frank Sinatra, had used the Songbook to explore the darkness of the soul the way Baker did. With Ella Fitzgerald embarking on her endless Songbook project it was clear that the era of Tin Pan Alley was over and institutionalized, the page turning to a new era in popular and progressive music.
Songs of the Year: Our "Top 10"
(not necessarily in this order!)
1. Frankie and Johnny by Lonnie Donegan
2. The Train Kept A Rollin' by Johnny Burnette
3. Fontessa by The Modern Jazz Quartet
4. My Funny Valentine by Chet Baker
5. Black Coffee by Peggy Lee
6. Jump, Jive an' Wail by Louis Prima
7. Blue Suede Shoes by Elvis Presley
8. Jump Back Honey, Jump Back by Gene Vincent
9. Every Day I Have the Blues by B.B. King
10. Recuerdos by Stan Kenton
ALL THE ALBUMS: follow links for reveiws
"Unbeknownst to the Americans the British invasion had already begun." Ticharu
"Baker's dusky trumpet and desolate vocals bring a nearly gothic mood to Songbook standards." Nymith
"Arrangements, inventiveness and a little weirdness... just my cup of tea!" Ticharu
"So far ahead of the curve that the rotten ballads are wholly forgivable." Nymith
"So far ahead of the curve it took 10 years for the road to catch up!" Ticharu
"Between Vincent's expressive voice, Cliff Gallup's dynamic guitar and the Blue Caps' energy level, teen-oriented rockabilly never got better." Nymith
"Older fellas in the 1950s didn't normally carry on like this in public." Ticharu
"Delicate atmospheres. Classy. If only 'Over the Rainbow' were removed it would be impeccable." Nymith
"Another formidable entry in the Stan Kenton collection, though once the thrill wears off it's a bit samey." Nymith
"Peggy nails almost every song she's given, proving she can hold her own even without the Benny Goodman Orchestra behind her." Nymith
"A moody jazz masterpiece, cerebral even by the standards of the genre and with great rewards for patient listeners." Nymith
"Tedious and annoying." Ticharu
"Toshiko practices tone and expression after her previous experiment with pure energy. Less invigorating, perhaps." Nymith
"Great guitar sound, genial singer, wholly pleasant electric blues experience." Nymith
"Sleep inducing..." Ticharu
"If Moondog had produced the first Elvis Presley record it almost certainly would have topped my list for 1956." Ticharu
"By the standards jazz had reached in 1956, this is remarkably unadventurous." Nymith
Elvis Presley
"Modestly rocking fun ruined by some wimpy country balladeering and artistically overshadowed by the successes of Johnny and Gene." Nymith
"Such a weird record, I should have liked it better than I did." Ticharu
Album Cover of the Year: Elvis Presley.
"Everything the album wasn't." Ticharu
The Cold Coffee Unused Bin:
(some of these records weren't up to scratch, some were perfectly fine, can't review everything)
in no particular order:
Big Joe Turner: The Boss of the Blues
"Probably very important... probably should listen to it!" Ticharu
Harry Belafonte - Calypso
"The album nosedives so fast it's truly amazing." Nymith
Ella Sings the Rodgers and Hart Songbook
"Too much of an endurance test." Nymith
The Misty Miss Christie
"Look both ways before crossing the street..." Ticharu
Duke Ellington - A Drum is a Woman & At Newport
"At Newport isn't a bad record at all but there was a lot going on that year which seemed more essential. A drum is a woman... really?" Ticharu
Chico Hamilton Trio
"2 fewer people, not nearly as interesting." Ticharu
Kenton in Hi-Fi
"Cuban Fire got all the attention." Ticharu
Louis Jordan - Somebody Up There Digs Me
"Somebody up there should have known better." Ticharu
Hoagy Sings Carmichael
"Hoagy sang much better than this earlier on, sadly the spark ain't happening on this record." Ticharu
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