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Hovhaness Live

Clarinet Legacy Series

The French Clarinet School - Revisited - Legacy Series

Grapevine Records
New Release!

In the late 1970’s, I met Johnny Hartman at a Manhattan restaurant with a mutual friend. After brief pleasantries I asked Johnny to autograph my LP copy of his famous recording with John Coltrane. To say I was a fan of Hartman is still an understatement.

These two tunes were to be the cornerstone of a full album that was never to be, regretfully.

The following notes are taken with my apologies from the websites of NPR & Verve.

Johnny Hartman was the quintessential romantic balladeer. The only singer to record with John Coltrane, Hartman was mostly known only to true jazz lovers during his lifetime. He was so adept at establishing and sustaining a pervasive mood, he can make everything outside the musical moment seem trivial. Listening to his baritone, one of jazz’s most assured "instruments," is like wrapping yourself in a huge mink coat.

Hartman never achieved the high visibility status that some other male jazz vocalists did, but he surely spent time with players from the music’s upper echelon. Though categorized as a crooner (a bit of a put-down to your usual jazzer) the Chicago native did time in the 1940s with Earl Hines, Dizzy Gillespie’s Big Band, and Perez Prado’s large ensemble. Trios are the usual setting for jazz singers, and Hartman also worked with pianist Erroll Garner’s threesome for a while. But it was the unlikely pairing with John Coltrane that brought out he luxuriant sound of the singer’s best work in 1963.

The collaboration seemed unlikely because Coltrane was then being heralded for his intrepid and earnest investigations. In comparison, Hartman was much more lighthearted, though no less committed to his work. With plenty of space left open for the singer’s skilled phrasing, the music had a hypnotic quality — Hartman was always able to enhance the explicit emotions of a lyric. Their meeting is accepted as a high water mark in the singer’s career, containing a quality of spirit that Hartman tried to recapture on subsequent sessions until his death in 1983 at the age of 60.

Hartman always cited Frank Sinatra and Nat "King" Cole as his primary influences. You can hear it in his naturalistic phrasing and attention to the narrative detail of a lyric.

Dick Hyman Trio A Waltz Dressed in Blue with Michael Moore, bass & Ron Traxler, drums		Vocal Jazz Incorporated High Clouds Ira Shankman, Music Director
All titles in 3/4 time E. Stratta: A Waltz Dressed in Blue V. Young: Beautiful Love S. Sondheim: You Must Meet My Wife G. & I. Gershwin: My Man's Gone Now D. Hyman: Waltzin' Without the "G" J. Mercer: Once Upon a Summertime S. Sondheim: A Little Night Music F. Delius: Mazurka for a Little Girl Originally released © 1977 Grapevine GVR 3309 Produced by Ettore Stratta iTunes: Click Here Rhapsody: Click Here Napster: Click Here eMusic: Click Here		Grammy Nomination 1978 "It works because they're all fine singers ... It works because Ira Shankman ... knows a Jazz chorus ... It works because the arrangements are by such fine arrangers ... It's a fine record." Modern Recordings Alan Jay Lerner: On a Clear Day Dave Merrick: Here Willie Maiden: A Little Minor Booze Hank Levy: Chiapas Ettore Stratta: High Clouds     (Grammy Nominated Arrangement) Kurt Weill: My Ship Chris Dedrick: Loves Does Not Die G. & I. Gershwin: A Foggy Day Johnny Richards: Walk Softly Originally released © 1977 Grapevine GVR 3310 Produced by Ettore Stratta Links forthcoming