John Coltrane & Johnny Hartman

Is there a more beautiful male vocal jazz album in the history of recorded music than the one John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman made?

If there is, please let me know, as I'd be more than willing to let another album of that caliber into my regular listening rotation.

Despite my avant proclivities, this album gets frequent listening time in my house. There's an unhurried calm that pervades the proceedings that I find soothing and soul-baringly gorgeous.

What are the qualities of the sound produced by these men that makes the album strike such a chord with me?

What separates the sincere from the saccharine when dealing with balladry such as this?

We all know that a ballad can head into Velveeta-ville rather quickly if put in the wrong hands. I'm not quite sure, other than the obvious reasons of skill and expressiveness, what makes John Coltrane and his quartet, with the addition of Johnny Hartman, so able to avoid swimming in the seas of cheese.

But they do.

There's a minimalist quality to the accompaniment that shows the utmost restraint. It's this understanding of the most basic underpinnings of what makes a song that also makes Coltrane's Ascension such an interesting and incredible achievement.

When asked about his collaboration with Hartman, in a Franz Kofsky interview, John Coltrane said:

"There was something about his voice."

Maybe that's as specific as we need to be in explaining beauty such as this.