You’re going to have to take my word for it, but once upon a time, jazz and the blues were not only creative and daring, but also socially significant. Music with messages could also be works of art. The label Candid Records is reissuing a series of vintage albums (gloriously remastered) that are all true classics, both musically and culturally. Get one, get them all.
Bassist Charles Mingus put together the clever idea of re-creating a “concert” in an empty studio with his band of Dannie Richmond/dr, Ted Curson/tp, and the forward thinking Eric 
Dolphy/as-bcl-fl. The result is a searing and stretched out interpretation of the protest song “Original Faubus Fables” with Mingus preaching it and Dolphy reaching it. A wild read of “All The Things You Are” is re-interpreted and made elastic, while “Folk Forms No. 1” has Mingus directing traffic like a Neopolitan policeman. Music that almost spontaneously combusts, but miraculously holds together. WHEW!
From the same year of 1960, drummer Max Roach released a protest album about segregation with his team of Booker 
Little/tp, Julian Priester/tb, Raymond Matillo/perc, Jimmy Schenck/b, Thomas Duvail/perc, Abbey Lincoln/voc and guests Babatunde Olatunji and Coleman Hawkins/ts. The mix of jazz and Afro Cuban still sounds fresh, with Lincoln blistering on the opus “Triptych: Prayer/Peace/Protest” and getting earthy on the field holler “Driva Man”. Schenck swings hard with Lincoln on “Tears For Johannesburg” with the horns bopping hard on “Freedom Day”. Visceral visions.
In 1961 Lincoln headlines her own album with Coleman Hawkins/ts, Booker Little/tp, Eric Dolphy/fl-as, Mal Waldron/p, Walter Benton/ts, Art Davis/b and Max Roach/dr. Lincoln is penetrating with Hawkins on a memorable “Blue Monk” and she wails around the vibrant percussion and horns on the tribal “African Lady”. Her own material “Retribution” has her swooning with the melancholic Little, and her rendition of Billie Holiday’s “Left Alone” with grabs you by the throat. Music that won’t let it go.
Most obscure may be the 1961 album by blues guitarist Lightnin’ Hopkins, as he sings, plays guitar and even plays a bit of piano all on his own. His finger work on the ivories for “Lightnin’s Piano Boogie” is pretty impressive, with his guitar work finger picking good on “Take It Easy” and “Mighty Crazy”. His avuncular vocal delivery is foreboding on “Your Own Fault, Baby, to Treat Me The Way You Do” and “I’ve Had My Fun If I Don’t Get Well No More”. A night at the local country inn.
Pianist and vocalist Otis Spann embodies the blues with guitarist Robert Lockwood Jr. on this intimate 1960 studio session. Less is always more with the greatest of the bluesers, and Spann serves it right on material such as the potent “Country Boy” and harrowing “Otis In The Dark”. His casual vocal delivery sneaks up on you as on “The Hard Way” while his fingers do the walking on the swinging “Great Northern Stomp” and Lockwood picks and grins on “My Daily Wish”. A blue plate special of the blues.