Welcome back to this special retrospective music-posting feature. The gimmick is simple — each week, you post a list (ranked or unranked) of your favourite 25 (or however many) albums of a given year. We are now moving backwards through the early days of the LP era. The video below, originally posted by Eexalien in the Weekly Music Thread provides valuable context about the early days of the LP.
Cliff notes:
- Following the Edison cylinder, the first agreed upon recording format was the 78 rpm record which became the standard around 1910. These records were made of a very fragile material called shellac (a resin secreted by the lac bug). A 10″ 78 rpm record held about 3 minutes per side and a 12″ one between 4 and 5 minutes but the 10″ was the more popular format
- The concept of the music album originated when 78 rpm records were issued in multi-disc packages similar to books. In terms of packaging, these aren’t dissimilar from what we now think of as box sets but in terms of length, most could easily fit on a single 12 inch or even 10 inch LP hence the persistence of the album misnomer in the LP era (the fact that LP was Columbia’s proprietary term contributed greatly to this phenomenon as well).
- By the 1930s, the industry was well aware of the limitations of the 78 rpm record and wanted to use microgroove technology (224 to 300 grooves per inch rather than the previous 90) to replace it. The first 33 1/3 rpm records were issued by RCA Victor in 1931 . Their records held 15 minutes per side but the records were too fragile to support multiple playbacks and the format was abandoned by 1933. WWII got in the way of further developments.
- In 1948, Columbia records launched a superior version of the 33 1/3 rpm record which they dubbed the LP (for long player). In a display or remarkable foresight, they actually began mastering records for the new format as early as 1939 giving them access to a considerable back catalogue right at launch. The 12 inch version of LP is essentially the 45 minute album as we know it now but the 12 inch was initially mostly reserved for classical music. Nearly everything else was issued on 10 inch LPs because of the popularity of 10 inch record players with backwards compatibility with 10 inch 78 rpm records. The 10 inch LP was only phased out around the mid-fifties.
- RCA responded to Columbia’s 33 1/3 rpm format by launching the competing 45rpm format on 7 inch records, a format which they had started developing before the war. The only problem was the 45 rpm record had been initially designed as a less ambitious improvement over the 78 rpm record than their own abandoned 33 1/3 format not as a direct competitor to Columbia’s LP. It had the very glaring limitation of being quite short. This meant that RCA was trying to compete with single disc releases by issuing multi disc sets not dissimilar to those previously issued on 78 rpm. These sets proved to be unpopular and as we now know, the 7 inch 45 rpm format nonetheless found it’s calling as the preferred format for single song releases while the term album became synonymous with the 12 inch 33 1/3 rpm record.
[spoiler title=1960]
Cannonball Adderley – Them Dirty Blues
Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers: The Big Beat
Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers: Les Liaisons dangereuses *
Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers: Meet You at the Jazz Corner of the World
Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers: Paris Jam Session
Kenny Burrell: Quiet Kenny *
Ornette Coleman: Change of the Century
John Coltrane: Giant Steps
Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis & Johnny Griffin: Battle Stations
Miles Davis: Sketches of Spain
Miles Davis: Workin’ with The Miles Davis Quintet
Eric Dolphy: Outward Bound
Duke Ellington: Blues in Orbit
Duke Ellington: The Nutcracker Suite
Duke Ellington & Johnny Griffin: Side by Side *
Bill Evans: Portrait in Jazz *
Ella Fizgerald: Ella in Berlin
Ella Fitzgerald: Wishes You a Swinging Christmas
Red Garland: Soul Junction
Dizzy Gillespie: Gillespiana *
Joe Harriott: Free Form
Joe Harriott: Southern Horizons
John Lee Hooker: That’s My Story – JLH Sings the Blues
Elmo Hope: Elmo Hope Trio with Frank Butler and Jimmy Bond
Freddie Hubbard: Open Sesame
Etta James: At Last!
The Jazztet: Meet The Jazztet
Duke Jordan: Flight to Jordan
Harold Land: West Coast Blues!
Julie London: Around Midnight
Julie London: Julie at Home
Jackie McLean: Capuchin Swing
Jackie McLean: Jackie’s Bag
Jackie McLean: Swing, Swang, Swingin’
Charles Mingus: Blues & Roots
Charles Mingus: Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus
Modern Jazz Quartet: The Modern Jazz Quartet & Orchestra
Wes Montgomery: The Incredible Jazz Guitar of
Babatunde Olatunji: Drums of Passion
Eugene Ormandy: Concerto For Cello In E Flat / Symphony No. 1 In F Major (Shostakovich) *
Max Roach: We Insist! Freedom Now Suite
George Russell: Jazz in the Space Age *
Nina Simone: At Newport
Igor Stravinsky: Stravinsky Conducts 1960 (The Rite of Spring & Petrushka)
Cecil Taylor: The World of Cecil Taylor
Bobby Timmons: This Here Is Bobby Timmons
Lennie Tristano: The New Tristano
Randy Weston: Uhuru Africa
Phil Woods: Rights of Swing
[/spoiler]