Wanda Jackson - Rockin' With Wanda (1960)

I was introduced to Wanda Jackson a few years ago, by the wonderful KALX radio station. I had just moved to California and was trying to learn the area roads, out driving around- and this song comes on called Fujiyana Mama; it was equal parts awesome rockabilly and hilarious late '50s camp.

I was hooked; got this album from Miss Jackson. The tunes range from straight rockabilly to honky tonk to country to rock & roll- if ever Elvis had a female counterpart, it'd be Wanda (she briefly dated Presley in 1955, so there you go).

Check out this record if you wanna hear an early influence on rock music, from a woman's point of view (this is the 2002 re-mastered issue with bonus tracks)...

Wanda Jackson - Rockin' With Wanda (1960; Capitol Records)

Lennie Tristano - Crosscurrents (1949)

"Pianist Lennie Tristano is heard with his finest group, a sextet with altoist Lee Konitz, tenor-saxophonist Warne Marsh, guitarist Billy Bauer, bassist Arnold Fishkin, and either Harold Granowsky or Denzil Best on drums. Their seven selections include some truly remarkable unisons on "Wow," memorable interplay by the horns on "Sax of a Kind," and the earliest examples of free improvisation in jazz: "Intuition" and "Digression."

- Scott Yanow, Allmusic.com

"Here is another first for Lennie Tristano. "Intuition" represents the first collective improvisation in the history of recorded jazz. Only the order in which the instruments would enter was determined beforehand. Everything else was created on the fly. Tristano had been experimenting with this type of total improv in private, and now put it on record at this path-breaking 1949 session. This song was a radical move in the 1940s, and still sounds futuristic today. Put this up on the shelf with other Tristano breakthroughs, including the first recorded example of atonal piano jazz, and that earth-shattering version of "I Can't Get Started" from 1946. But this artist's recorded legacy is more than a matter of being first. The sheer brilliance of Tristano's conception is evident time and time again on these seminal recordings. Why this artist doesn't figure more prominently in the jazz history books remains one of the great mysteries of 20th-century music." 

- Ted Gioia, Jazz.com

Lennie Tristano - Crosscurrents (1949; Capitol Records)