John Coltrane

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.

Ornette Coleman has been awarded this year's Pulitzer Prize for his 2006 release Sound Grammar. He beat out a bunch of more classically oriented pieces; from the Pulitzer site:
 
"Also nominated as finalists in this category were: "Grendel" by Elliot Goldenthal, premiered June 8, 2006 by the Los Angeles Opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, libretto by Julie Taymor and J.D. McClatchy, and "Astral Canticle" by Augusta Read Thomas, premiered June 1, 2006 by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (G. Schirmer, Inc.)."

I would have loved to be a fly on the wall for those deliberations and discussions about musical merit.

John Coltrane has been awarded a Pulitzer as well, a  "...posthumous special citation to composer John Coltrane for his masterful improvisation, supreme musicianship and iconic centrality to the history of jazz." I can't argue with any of that, but I do wonder: why now?

The Coltrane awards follows Duke Ellington's award in 99 and Thelonious Monk's in 2006. As far as I know, Ornette Coleman is the only jazz musician to be awarded one while still alive. My understanding is that there was actually a rule change necessary in the Pulitzer's wording in order to allow jazz musicians to win at all.

Author Ray Bradbury also won a special award.