Vikings & Beekeepers

By 1962, Ornette Coleman had pretty much mastered the world of jazz music. In 1958, he released a stunning debut in Something Else, wowing the hard-to-impress jazz community with his unhinged alto sax soloing. In 1959, he released The Shape Of Jazz To Come, the pre-eminent avant-garde jazz albums of the last 50 years. In 1961 he released the definitive long form improvisation album, Free Jazz. Oh, also in that three-year span, Coleman released about a half dozen other shockingly enjoyable jazz records that challenged people’s ideas and expectations of what a “jazz” record should and could sound like. So what do you do when, in just four years, you’ve redefined your art form and subsequently become the most prominent figure in a world where prominent figures are difficult to come by? Well, you quit your label (Atlantic), take a four-year sabbatical, learn the trumpet, learn the violin, join a new label (Blue Note) and release an album featuring your ten-year old son on drums. (more…)

Every couple of weeks Vikings & Beekeepers will induct one album into its Hall of Fame (capitalization denotes legitimacy). The albums inducted into the V&BHOF (acronym denotes awesomeness) will not necessarily be a highly regarded classic (although it may be) and it will not necessarily be an overlooked gem (although it may be). The only defining characteristic of these albums will be high quality and the ability to inspire me to write about them. For our first induction I decided to go all the way back to the relative early days of rock n’ roll, back around the time rock started to get good. Ladies and gentlemen, let’s take look The Who’s 1965 debut, The Who Sings My Generation. (more…)