Lush Life (Johnny Hartman’s version)

Johnny Hartman (vocals), John Coltrane (tenor sax), McCoy Tyner (piano), Jimmy Garrison (bass) and Elvin Jones (drums). From the album John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman (1963).

Billy Strayhorn was a jazz composer and American pianist, known for his close collaboration with Duke Ellington for almost thirty years. This ballad was composed by him. He wanted to be a composer of classical music, but he could not get it because of the difficulties of a black man to enter a world dominated by white men. Then he met Art Tatum and Teddy Wilson, who introduced him to jazz music. He met Ellington in 1938, after a performance in Pittsburgh. Then he showed her an arrangement he had made for one of his themes. Ellington was so impressed that he hired him. The ballad describes the boredom of nightlife after an unsuccessful romance.

A brief introduction by Tyner gives way to Hartman, who tells us that he frequented nightclubs to get out of the monotony, where he knew girls disenchanted by failed relationships. Then he met a girl who was interested in him tempting him to start a romance that could lead him to the love he was looking for. But the thing did not work and he was alone again. Hartman sings in his velvety voice, accompanied by Tyner, emphasizing each of his words while Coltrane makes brief comments. Hartman says he remembers the girl, but now he has a lush life and identifies with those who also are lonely. Enter Coltrane playing the melody in his own way and Hartman repeats that he has a lush life just like other lonely people. Coltrane and Tyner end the theme with a short phrase. 

Source

© Impulse! Records