Cover songs are, of course, everywhere, you hear them all the time in every form of popular music. Not at all uncommon for a semi-popular singer or band in the world of pop or rock to cover a song by somebody a lot more successful, for example. If all goes well, the artist gets some attention from the curious fans of the more popular artist in addition to their own. Sometimes it works the other way around, the more popular group will cover a song by a lesser-known performer to shine a little light on a deserving talent. The great jazz albums of the 40s, 50s, and early 60s were about a 50/50 mix of originals and covers of popular songs. The labels wanted to entice jazz fans, and especially the jazz-curious, by listing songs they might recognize on the album cover. You could even make the argument that 99% of the entire classical music genre is made up of musically adept, highbrow cover bands.
It takes a special kind of hubris (or artistic vision) to cover an entire album, especially when that album is considered a stone classic, part of the pantheon, the sacred canon. I was trying to think of other examples of this kind of gutsy move, but not many come to mind. Mary Lee’s Corvette, a downtown NYC band with a brief splash of fame in the late 90s and early 00s, released a live recording of their song-by-song recreation of Dylan’s mighty Blood on the Tracks, captured on cassette at Arlene’s Grocery, a lower east side bar. Bob not only heard it, he liked what he heard and hired MLC to open a few New York-area shows for him. Boom, fifteen minutes of fame. There have been a few genre mutations attempted, Dark Side of the Moon recorded as reggae album is one that pops to mind but, for the most part, full recreations of the classics are few and far between. The two records I want to talk about today, the original and the recreation, are the rare exception. In my collection they go right next to each other on the shelves. At least they would, but one’s a vinyl LP and the other’s a CD.
• John Coltrane Quartet, Ballads (1962) – John was a rising heavyweight in the world of jazz by 1962. He had been the featured sax player in Miles Davis’ first great quintet, which got him recording time as a solo act for a variety of record labels. He had released the superb Blue Train on Blue Note in 1958 and contributed spectacularly to Miles’ Kind of Blue a year later. In 1960, he left Miles for good, got on board with Atlantic and gave the world Giant Steps and My Favorite Things. A fat new contract with Impulse! Records followed, but his new label was a little pushier about wanting some sales to justify the signing. Coltrane gave them Ballads, followed by a one-off team up with Duke Ellington, and one with the velvety smooth vocalist Johnny Hartford. All three are brilliant jazz records, all three generated the sales Impulse! was looking for.
By the time he recorded Ballads, Coltrane had put together what would become his most famous, and most formidable, quartet. With Tyner, Garrison, and Jones, he would go on to take jazz into previously unexplored territory, beginning with A Love Supreme in 1965. But first, they made the label some money by releasing what I believe is the most beautiful jazz record ever made.
Eight exquisite covers of carefully chosen romantic ballads written between the 1920s and 1950s. Some had been songs-for-hire for popular singers like Ella, Bing, and Frank, others had come from popular movies. The lovely “You Don’t Know What Love Is” was plucked from a 1941 Abbott & Costello film(!). Great romantic ballads were just in the air back then, apparently. Coltrane and his sidemen took the genius approach of removing all traces of sentimentality from the songs, leaving in the tunefulness, romanticism, and lushness. They took these melodically simple tunes seriously, mining them for beauty and exploring the melody lines for sublime, controlled improvisations. It’s the kind of record that works perfectly as a pretty record in the background while you’re doing something else, or as a compelling close listen with your feet up and favorite adult beverage in hand. Listening closely lets you delight in Coltrane’s playful, sensitive tossing and turning of the melodies, his tenor sax a perfect singing voice on an album with no lyrics.
• Karrin Allyson (2001), Ballads: Remembering John Coltrane (2001) – Ms. Allyson’s big idea was to take the Coltrane classic and add the lyrics, and it works spectacularly well. The former Karrin Schoonover, who speaks (and sings in) five languages, started her music career as the lead singer of Tomboy, an all-female rock group. But the jazz bug bit her and she changed directions, signing to the Concord Jazz label in the early 90s. Unless you have some serious pop crossover success, a la Norah Jones, you just don’t become a household name as a jazz vocalist anymore. She’s been nominated for five Best Jazz Vocal Album Grammys, but casual music fans would likely have a tough time spelling her first name correctly.
Karrin assembled something of an all-star band of studio session pros to undertake this project, and they all did a wonderfully sympathetic job as Sherpas in the climb up Mt. Coltrane. The songs on this version of Ballads clock in a little longer than the originals, they had to leave room for a little soloing around the lyrics, but the overall effect is very much the same. Ms. Allyson doesn’t have the big, booming voice of an Ella Fitzgerald or Sarah Vaughn, but she does have a remarkably tuneful and fluid instrument and approaches the songs in a similar way to Coltrane. No sugary sentiment here either, always a danger with early- to mid-20th century love songs. They were written to be sentimental back then, schmaltz sold. Including the lyrics makes the occasional lyrical mawkishness even harder to avoid. But avoid it she does, using her lovely voice and creative sense of phrasing to basically pull off the same trick as Trane, exploring and playing with the simple melodies in ways that sound fresh and vital. Just like the original, it's perfect as a pleasant background record, but intensely rewarding as a close focus listen.
The CD era being what it was, somebody decided the original Ballads was too short for the format, so three additional songs were recorded to fill the space. Luckily, if not amazingly, all three are worthy additions. “Naima” is a Coltrane original ballad, recorded for Giant Steps. Since there are no lyrics, this is mostly a band showcase, played beautifully with Ms. Allyson’s wordless vocalizing rising gently from the mix every now and then. Hammerstein and Kern’s “Why Was I Born?,” from the Broadway musical Sweet Adeline, had already been recorded by Billie, Ella, Lena, Judy Garland, Sinatra, and even Coltrane prior to this version, and fully deserves its place in the Great American Songbook. The CD ends with one of my personal favorites, Cole Porter’s heartbreaker “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye.” Are the extra trio of songs essential? Maybe not, Coltrane’s original album didn’t need them to be perfect. Are they welcome? Most definitely.
EARWORM: John Coltrane, “Say It (Over and Over Again)” – Ballads’ opening track, still gets me from the first notes.
BONUS EARWORM: Karrin Allyson, “Say It (Over and Over Again)” – Because the lyrics are fabulous, too.
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