Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers—The Witch Doctor (1961)
Really digging this album. It has kind of a different vibe from other Jazz Messengers albums and somehow manages, strangely enough, to sound both more traditional and more edgy at the same time. The songs are generally fairly energetic with abrupt shifts in style. Blakey's drumming seems more in your face than normal, like he's pissed off about something, and I like it. I also like the production a lot. Considering when it was recorded, this is more likely a result of subpar equipment than an intentional artistic decision, but the tracks have a decidedly dry, low-fi quality, with the drums frequently sounding overdriven. Great stuff.