Featured Label, 10 Essential Blue Note Albums: 1950s

The 1950s featured some of the most widely-acclaimed releases of the Blue Note Records catalogue, with seminal recordings from the likes of Art Blakey, Cannonball Adderley, and Horace Silver just to name a few of the label's still fondly-remembered output. If you're after some of the finest hard bop, experimental bebop, and cool jazz going, look no further; we've compiled a short list of some key releases from the time period that still make for rewarding listens even to this day.

Art Blakey - Moanin'

Bandleader of the massively influential jazz talent incubator The Jazz Messengers, drummer Art Blakey also led many sessions under his own name throughout his career. This 1959 release features the Jazz Messengers accompanying, and marked something of a homecoming for Blakey, having been away from the label for a number of years. Though it may sound quite typically hard bop for the time, it's easily some of the most solid out there, and even now remains an early standout of Blakey's career.

John Coltrane - Blue Train

You can hardly talk about '50s Blue Note without bringing up Blue Train, John Coltrane's only leading session on the label, recorded during Coltrane's tenure in Thelonious Monk's quartet - a residency at the Five Spot, New York City. Featuring the rhythm section of the Miles Davis band, with whom Coltrane was also playing with at the time - bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Philly Joe Jones - Blue Train sees Coltrane working towards the 'sheets of sound' style that would become the first of his signature styles.

Cannonball Adderley - Somethin' Else

Much like Coltrane's Blue Train earlier on this list, Somethin' Else was saxophonist Julian "Cannonball" Adderley's only album recorded with Blue Note; but much like Blue Train it remains easily one of the most recognisable in the catalouge. The album features Miles Davis in one of the few occassions that he recorded for Blue Note (and an equally rare appearance as a sideman), and was recorded around the time of Davis' seminal Milestones and Kind of Blue albums, obth of which featured Adderley. With an all-star lineup that also includes Art Blakey on drums, Somethin' Else is a landmark hard bop release, that also contianed some of the characteristics of the then-developing 'cool jazz' sound.

Thelonious Monk - Genius of Modern Music

Though the album's title has been given to several different compilations of Thelonious Monk's music, the original volumes I & II of Genius of Modern Music feature the pianist's earliest recordings as bandleader. Although first released in 1952, volume I was actually recorded in late 1947, and highlights just avant-garde his conception was, even amongst the beboppers. It was on these records that the world first got an inkling of Monk's knotty melodic genius, and with classics like 'Criss Cross', 'Four in One' and the timeless 'Straight No Chaser'. Monk's Sidemen include trumpeter Kenny Dorham, bassist Al McKibbon, and Art Blakey and Max Roach on drums.

Milt Jackson - Milt Jackson and the Thelonious Monk Quintet (aka Wizard of the Vibes)

Originally released as Wizard of the Vibes and later recompiled as Milt Jackson and the Thelonious Monk Quintet, this release is a highlight of the Blue Note catalogue both for its Monk-led sessions and Jackson's killer vibraphone playing. The later retitling is still slightly misleading, as only two of the three recording sessions included on the album actually feature the Thelonious Monk Quintet, but nonetheless you're getting some truly creative reworking of contemporary pop standards.

Horace Silver - Six Pieces of Silver

6 Pieces of Silver features, as the title suggests, six original tunes by Horace Silver as well as a take on the standard 'For Heaven's Sake', with Silver playing alongside Donald Byrd, Hank Mobley, Doug Watkins and Louis Hayes, many of them regulars in his quintet by that point. What makes 6 Pieces a key recording for Silver was the inclusion of the original tune 'Señor Blues', the first recording that put Silver on the map as a composer, going down as a highly popular standard and later re-recorded by Silver with vocals by Bill Henderson.

Sonny Rollins - A Night at the Village Vanguard

Released in 1958, this live album of Rollins at the Village Vanguard actually consists of three recorded sets, with two different bands; Donald Bailey and Pete LaRoca for one set, and Wilbur Ware and Elvin Jones for the other two. Releasing only a couple of years after the seminal Saxophone Colossus, Rollins already had a well-developed personal style by this point, and with his piano-less trio you can really hear him go to some far-out places.

Bud Powell - The Amazing Bud Powell, Vols. 1 & 2

If you're after some essential bebop piano, look no further than the two volumes of The Amazing Bud Powell, recorded by the pianist between 1949 and 1953. An innovator of the style, the Amazing sessions were also some of the first to capture this style of jazz in (for the time) high fidelity, thanks to the efforts Blue Note's then-recording engineer Doug Hawkins. Both volumes have Powell playing alongside a handful of bebop musicians, all names you'll no doubt recognise from Fats Navarro, to Roy Haynes, and even a young Sonny Rollins.

Sonny Clark - Cool Struttin'

Produced during a particularly creative period for Sonny Clark, a two year stint where Clark did little else than writing and recording music, Cool Struttin' stands out as some of the strongest of his late '50s material, and a hard bop cult classic.

Kenny Dorham - The Complete 'Round About Midnight at the Cafe Bohemia

Recorded on an early Summer night at the Café Bohemia in New York City with Dorham's then band, with pianist Bobby Timmons and guitarist Kenny Burrell sitting in, this expansion of the original 'Round About Midnight CD packs in every take from the night they could use; clocking in at 2-hours on the complete edition release, this fantastic set plays it pretty low-key for hard bop, and despite the slightly scrappy recording quality you can hardly do better for '50s Dorham.