JOHN COLTRANE & JOHNNY HARTMAN / “Lush Life”

Legend has it Billy Strayhorn composed “Lush Life” when he was 16 and that it was one of the songs that persuaded Ellington to hire Strayhorn, thereby commencing a lifelong friendship and collaboration. You might say they had been separated by birth but brought together by music. Their symbiosis was so thorough that it is difficult, and in some cases impossible, to tell where the contribution of one ends and the other begins. Sometimes one would start a composition or an arrangement and the other would finish. They would often work long distance over the telephone. The identification of one with the other is so complete that Ellington’s famous theme song, “Take The 'A' Train,” is actually a Strayhorn composition.
 
At a deeper level, there is something stunning about “Lush Life,” some quality that touched Duke in a way that no other song had ever done. Duke musically married Strayhorn in response to Strayhorn’s sophisticated proposal of a song that was devastatingly thorough in its emotional depiction of an aging, worldly hipster who had nothing to look forward to but reminisces about a now-distant past, an old hipster who once again plays the young fool in love. Duke never performed or recorded “Lush Life” and he never revealed why. This song is one of the true mysteries of music: How could a teenager write such a composition? If it so impressed Duke, why didn’t he record the song?

Literally hundreds of people have sung and recorded “Lush Life.” Most versions are either too syrupy with a surfeit of strings and sentimentality or are overly melodramatic as if the song were a Broadway show stopper. (Would you believe Queen Latifah recorded a version for The Dana Owens Album? I'll just say one ought not be allowed to record this song until one is at least thirty-five.) Nevertheless, there is one version that surpasses all other recordings. 
 
I’ve listened to numerous versions of “Lush Life,” some of them quite good, a handful of them very, very good, great even, but none of them match the John Coltrane & Johnny Hartman 1963 recording. It is literally a blessing that Trane in his wisdom decided to call on Johnny Hartman. Together they established the gold standard of jazz ballad albums and forever demonstrated that minimalism can be the most demonstrative expression.
 
Although he was well respected in hardcore jazz circles, to most of America, Johnny Hartman was an unsung unknown. Hartman has numerous recordings and a handful of them are wonderful. However it is no slight of his other work to declare Hartman’s collaboration with Coltrane the pinnacle of Hartman’s recorded work. Hartman’s burnished, un-rushed baritone invites you into its world and envelopes you in a substantial softness, sort of like a mother hugging a hurt child to her bosom. I am particularly impressed with how these two men negotiate intimacy. In the opening of "Lush Life" Hartman offers an elegant set up to what turns out to be another disappointment. Listen to how Hartman articulates “alas, I was wrong. Again.” And the ending, the bitter-sweetness of the closing notes. Hartman’s baritone floating to a denouement with the elegance of a balmy autumn sun sinking peacefully into the Pacific. Trane’s soft staccato riff, both insistent and surrendering, demonstrated how much he’d learned from Lester Young.

As a bonus, I'm also dropping "My One And Only Love," which Trane opens with the most beautiful, tender singing any non-vocalist has ever uttered. Following Trane, Hartman oozes in with a baritone that surfaces like the richest cream in the world. Damn, Black man is singing.

I remember when the record came out. No one could have predicted it. And once one heard it, none of us could forget it.

—Kalamu ya Salaam

 

        An indisputable classic        

I remember this album from my Tower Records days. From time to time, smooth jazz fans would come in looking for something more challenging than the Kenny G.’s and Najees. They’d outgrown the basic melodies and the square-ish rhythms that didn't swing. These fans still wanted something mellow and pleasant, but they also wanted some substance and complexity. Along with other classic jazz albums like Kind Of Blue, Duke Ellington & John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley & Nancy Wilson, it was always a safe bet to recommend John Coltrane & Johnny Hartman. We had a lot of repeat customers. If we ever went wrong in a recommendation, they'd let us hear about it. But once a customer bought the Trane & Hartman album, that was the last we ever heard about it. Well, that's not exactly true. Sometimes they'd come back in and ask us for another album, for "something that sounds just like this one." Unfortunately, as any Trane fan knows, that just wasn't possible. I don't know all that much about jazz, but I'm fairly certain that there's no other jazz album that combines baritone vocals and tenor saxophone quite the way this one does. I know we're posting this one as a Cover, but the truth is, it's an indisputable classic.

—Mtume ya Salaam

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 25th, 2006 at 12:46 am and is filed under Cover. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “JOHN COLTRANE & JOHNNY HARTMAN / “Lush Life””

Leave a Reply

Name

Mail (will not be published)

Website

| top |