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| John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman (photo credit unknown) |
On this song for the day, Oct 27, 2026, we find a beautiful and harmonically challenging composition, "Lush Life" from the 1963 Impulse album John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman. Remarkably written by Billy Strayhorn when he was likely under the age of twenty, this tour de force deals with the very adult concept of the weariness of a robust night life after a failed romance. As jazz chronicler Ted Gioia wrote, "Lush Life" " ...ranks among the most sophisticated jazz ballads." The difficulty of being able to honestly deliver the feelings of the poignant lyrics within such a beautiful but boldly structured piece of music has always been a challenge. Others have tried, but Johnny Hartman's wonderfully rich and expressive baritone along with John Coltrane's burnish tenor accompaniment, is perhaps the unsurpassed version of what many consider Strayhorn's masterpiece.
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