{"id":43567,"date":"2012-12-13T14:30:45","date_gmt":"2012-12-13T19:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=43567"},"modified":"2013-02-03T02:36:28","modified_gmt":"2013-02-03T07:36:28","slug":"they-say-its-wonderful-hartman-and-coltrane-an-appreciation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/12\/13\/they-say-its-wonderful-hartman-and-coltrane-an-appreciation\/","title":{"rendered":"They Say It\u2019s Wonderful: Hartman and Coltrane, an Appreciation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Over the past month or so, I have listened to John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman<\/em>, one of the greatest jazz vocal albums ever made, about once a day. I haven\u2019t tired of it, which is a testament to its durability. But I think there\u2019s more to it than that. I discovered John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman<\/em> about four years ago, and it continues to enchant me. The album\u2014composed of six slow yet easily digestible romantic ballads\u2014may contain the most beautiful half hour of music I have heard on one CD.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not trying to idealize the record. But I\u2019m not alone in feeling so strongly. Writing in Esquire<\/em> magazine in 1990, Daniel Okrent named John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman<\/em> the greatest record ever made. Okrent admitted such a claim \u201cis a fragile limb on which to walk.\u201d But he stood firm. \u201cIf you want to argue,\u201d Okrent wrote, \u201cforget it; having listened to John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman<\/em> for some fifteen years, I simply can\u2019t be moved.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A few years ago, while doing research for a jazz history class at Rutgers University in Newark, the saxophonist Jeff Coffin told me that John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman<\/em> was the first CD he bought.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really latches onto you,\u201d Coffin said. \u201cYou crave it.\u201d<\/p>\n

I agree with Coffin but can\u2019t go as far as Okrent, even though part of me wants to. Nancy Wilson\/Cannonball Adderley<\/em>, for instance, made in 1961, is an achingly lovely vocal album from which I\u2019ve gotten a lot of the same pleasure. Still, throughout the years I\u2019ve returned to John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman<\/em> more than any other album I own. What accounts for its charm? <\/p>\n

In March the album will turn fifty years old, so it feels like a good time to look back on it. The album was recorded at the behest of Bob Thiele, Coltrane\u2019s producer at Impulse Records, who wanted Coltrane to make some more accessible music after a spate of bad reviews. Coltrane recorded some ballads, cut some tracks with Duke Ellington, and then chose Johnny Hartman\u2014a ballad singer with an astonishingly deep baritone voice and perfect intonation\u2014for a vocal album. He had never recorded with a singer before, and he never would again.<\/p>\n

Coltrane explained to Frank Kofksy in 1966 why he wanted Hartman, of all singers, for the record: \u201cAnd Johnny Hartman\u2014a man that I\u2019d had stuck up in my mind somewhere\u2014I just felt something about him, you know, I don\u2019t know what it was. And I liked his sound, I thought there was something there I had to hear, you know, so I looked him up and did that other one, see.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gregg Akkerman writes in The Last Balladeer: The Johnny Hartman Story<\/em> that Coltrane and Hartman had never met before the recording, though they both played in Dizzy Gillespie’s orchestra in the 1940s at different times. Hartman was understandably reluctant to accept Coltrane’s invitation, given the saxophonist’s reputation for wildness. (A couple of years earlier, in 1961, John Tynan wrote in DownBeat<\/em> magazine that Coltrane’s music with Eric Dolphy represented \u201canti-jazz.\u201d) But Coltrane, who achieved God-like status before he died in 1967, was a sensitive accompanist and, as it turned out, a fine match for Hartman.<\/p>\n

Of the many well-chosen tracks on John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, I\u2019m particularly fond of two of them: Irving Berlin\u2019s \u201cThey Say It’s Wonderful\u201d and \u201cYou Are Too Beautiful,\u201d written by Rodgers and Hart. Depending on my mood, I might add “Lush Life,\u201d Billy Strayhorn’s haunting composition, to that list. Hartman’s phrasing is immaculate on every number; he artfully inhabits each lyric. In \u201cThey Say It’s Wonderful,\u201d Berlin rhymes the word \u201cgrand\u201d with \u201cand,\u201d an awkward thing to do. As Alec Wilder writes in his definitive study, American Popular Song<\/em>, \u201conly a master lyricist would trust such a bland connective word to bear such weight,\u201d and only a master vocalist could nail the connection like Hartman does.<\/p>\n

What makes this record particularly fine is Coltrane\u2019s fantastic rhythm section, with Elvin Jones on drums, Jimmy Garrison on bass, and McCoy Tyner\u2014the only living musician from the session\u2014on piano. In \u201cYou Are Too Beautiful,\u201d Coltrane lays out, letting Tyner take a graceful solo in double time. Jones, who could play very loosely and with much power, uses brushes the entire album; he lays down remarkably delicate beats. Garrison plucks deep, round notes that mimic Hartman\u2019s voice, which sounded like a cello at times.<\/p>\n

The album has its faults, I\u2019m reluctant to say. The last and weakest track, \u201cAutumn Serenade,\u201d a slightly up-tempo number with a rumba feel, seems out of place. (The other tracks include \u201cDedicated To You\u201d and \u201cMy One And Only Love.\u201d) With so many songs to choose from, I wonder why they used \u201cAutumn Serenade.\u201d Perhaps I’m alone here, but I wish the band had ended with another slow ballad. \u201cMidnight Sun,\u201d say. Or maybe \u201cThe Masquerade Is Over.\u201d I can imagine a slowed down \u201cThere Will Never Be Another You\u201d sounding particularly good. Nonetheless, Coltrane’s solo on \u201cAutumn Serenade\u201d is sublime; you get a mild, fleeting taste of the ferocious saxophonist he could be.<\/p>\n

Which brings me to this: as much as I love John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman<\/em>, it has never been my favorite Coltrane album. That designation goes to Crescent<\/em>, a collection of deep and searching ballads recorded in 1964 with the same group from the Hartman date. In the 1960s, Coltrane was moving so quickly and making music so far out\u2014see, for example, Interstellar Space<\/em>, one of his last studio recordings\u2014that John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman<\/em> seems like a footnote, an afterthought, in his vast output. Perhaps that\u2019s why, three years later, Coltrane felt he needed to tell Frank Kofsky that he didn’t regret making the record. Why would you regret making something so good?<\/p>\n

As for Hartman, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman<\/em> is, I think, the best thing he ever did. I\u2019m also fond of Songs from the Heart<\/em>, Hartman\u2019s first LP and one of the better records he made in his life. But the date with Coltrane is, without a doubt, the crown jewel of his discography. Hartman\u2019s voice is arrestingly beautiful (praise Rudy Van Gelder\u2019s excellent engineering), and he owns each song.<\/p>\n

Because Johnny Hartman sang more like Bing Crosby than a blues shouter at a time when handsome black singers were not expected to do that, he never really got the recognition he deserved. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen times,\u201d Hartman once said, tragically, \u201cwhen I couldn\u2019t go into white clubs and sing my style of singing \u2026 You get the feeling that you\u2019re never supposed to be serious or be a man who could fall in love.\u201d <\/p>\n

Hartman enjoyed some popularity in the late forties and early fifties but for most of his life worked the supper club circuit in the shadow of fame. By the time he died of lung cancer in 1983, he was relatively obscure, though deeply respected by singers like Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett. In 1995 Clint Eastwood featured Hartman\u2019s deep voice in The Bridges of Madison County<\/em>, giving him some posthumous recognition. <\/p>\n

As far as I know, no one has used any of the music from John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman<\/em> in a movie; I\u2019m hoping someone will. In any case, after a month of hard listening, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman<\/em> has become my own kind of internal soundtrack. I whistle these ballads as I walk down the street, but mess up their difficult melodies. I try to sing them, but can\u2019t really, not the way I’ve heard them. So I put on my headphones and play the record again and furrow my brow as I marvel at its mysterious beauty. <\/p>\n

Matthew Kassel is a freelance writer. His work has been published by the <\/em>Wall Street Journal, the <\/em>Village Voice, NPR, and<\/em> <\/em>The Forward, among other publications<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the past month or so, I have listened to John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, one of the greatest jazz vocal albums ever made, about once a day. I haven\u2019t tired of it, which is a testament to its durability. But I think there\u2019s more to it than that. I discovered John Coltrane and Johnny […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":454,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1187],"tags":[8443,9499,9501,3308,9502,1750,9498,9503,9500,6113],"class_list":["post-43567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-on-music","tag-cannonball-adderley","tag-daniel-okrent","tag-elvin-jones","tag-frank-sinatra","tag-jimmy-garrison","tag-john-coltrane","tag-johnny-hartman","tag-mccoy-tyner","tag-nancy-wilson","tag-tony-bennett"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThey Say It\u2019s Wonderful: Hartman and Coltrane, an Appreciation by Matthew Kassel<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"December 13, 2012 \u2013 Over the past month or so, I have listened to John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, one of the greatest jazz vocal albums ever made, about once a day. 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