Rowhouse Logic - Breathtaking Inanity

I’m making two tunes available for download tonight, both featuring John Coltrane and both of which have moved me to tears at one time or another in my life for different reasons. They both feel fitting today. I won’t discuss theory at all, as both are quite simple and I’m not in the mood.

The first track is In a Sentimental Mood by Duke Ellington. This performance was recorded on September 26, 1962 by Duke Ellington on piano, John Coltrane on tenor saxophone, Aaron Bell on bass and Elvin Jones on drums. The track is from the album Duke Ellington & John Coltrane. You may well have heard this recording before in various movie soundtracks. Click here to download.

The second track is entitled Nancy (With the Laughing Face), which was originally composed for Frank Sinatra. The Nancy in question is his daughter, Nancy Sinatra. This one is special to me because it was the song I danced to with my wife at our wedding. Something of an odd selection, but it was one of the few Coltrane tracks we could find that we could actually dance to.

Nancy (With the Laughing Face) was recorded by the John Coltrane Quartet on September 18, 1962 for the album Ballads. You can find the personnel on last night’s post. If you hadn’t already guessed, I spent a good portion of my life wanting to grow up to be John Coltrane. As with most such wishes, it was not to be, though I’ll never regret trying. I can’t listen to this recording without thinking about my wedding and my wife. Not a bad deal.

These are both very introspective and extraordinarily emotional pieces. If you have the ears to hear, I doubt I need to tell you why they were on my mind tonight.

Something I think a lot of us are struggling with right now is exactly how to deal, both emotionaly and interpersonaly, with the horor that is occuring in New Orleans. The emotion is both sharp and painful, but of little use. I don’t know that anyone has the capacity to really handle death and destruction of this magnitute and still feel totaly sane at the end of the day. We are watching and reading about human life destroyed in slow motion, accompanied by vocal cries for help. There is not a damn thing most of us can do about it other than donate and hope and pray. What the hell do you do with that?

This entry was posted on Friday, September 2nd, 2005 at 1:18 am and is filed under General, Music. 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.