365 Days of Song Recommendations: Jan 17

Duke Ellington and John Coltrane — In a Sentimental Mood

Yesterday’s song recommendation got me thinking about classic ballads, and for my money, this performance ranks among the most beautiful, most romantic, most moving pieces of music ever recorded.

“In A Sentimental Mood” is, of course, a standard, and rightly so, and it exists as such in both its instrumental and sung forms.

Duke first wrote the piece in 1935, and one should most definitely listen to the original recording:

As to vocal versions, the song is a rare instance where the superimposed lyrics actually do justice to the brilliance of the music. My personal favorite vocal version comes from Ella Fitzgerald, and it’s absolutely gorgeous. If you don’t melt when you hear Ella sing these lines …

In A Sentimental Mood
I’m within a world so heavenly
For I never dreamt
That you’d be loving sentimental me

Ultimately, it’s the Ellington-Coltrane version that stands above them all. That searching quality that defines the Coltrane sound, and which, in so many cases, becomes the soundtrack to a kind of anguished spiritual quest, here evokes the quivering reed of longing, and the effect is both warming and chilling simultaneously. Rarely has a melody been treated with such depth and reverence, and rarely has there been a melody that deserves it as much as this one.

Alfred Lord Tennyson’s aphorism “’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” is perhaps one of history’s wisest observations about the complexities and risks of loving, and I’d venture to say that, when one listens to this performance, one hears it all—both the love, and the loss.

Hear the full #365Songs (to-date) playlist below, and please follow for the entire year’s worth of song recommendations: