{"id":12992,"date":"2023-08-08T08:02:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-08T12:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/?p=12992"},"modified":"2023-08-04T09:27:23","modified_gmt":"2023-08-04T13:27:23","slug":"the-story-behind-the-john-coltrane-and-johnny-hartman-collaboration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/2023\/08\/08\/the-story-behind-the-john-coltrane-and-johnny-hartman-collaboration\/","title":{"rendered":"The Story Behind the John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman Collaboration"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Professor Michael Coyle examines one peculiar record that made waves in the history of Black music.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Collage
Philippe Gras (Coltrane); Everett Collection Inc (Hartman) \/ Alamy Stock Photo <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Jazz legend John Coltrane made only one record with a vocalist \u2014 Johnny Hartman, a crooner who hadn\u2019t yet found success when the album was released in 1963. Why would Coltrane choose Hartman, a crooner, over a jazz singer? This is the question Professor of English Michael Coyle addressed in an essay that will be published in Cambridge University Press\u2019 forthcoming Companion to Jazz and Modernism<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coyle\u2019s interest in music dates back to his childhood, when he discovered his love for rock music. From there, he began to explore earlier genres, such as jazz. Coyle refers to himself as a \u201cmodernist scholar\u201d \u2014 he\u2019s interested in the emergence of modern rhythms both in music and in poetry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coyle started researching the Coltrane-Hartman collaboration when a performer he brought to a Core Challenges of Modernity presentation adapted the record. It was then that he noticed the stark difference John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman<\/em> presented against Coltrane\u2019s other records. Coyle began to delve into the history of crooning, a style made possible only after the commercial availability of the microphone in 1927. Before microphones, the predominant singing style was shouting \u2014 a skill mastered by loud performers such as opera singers \u2014 and it allowed them to project their voices without the help of technology. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere was, for instance, in 1930s Kansas City, a guy named Big Joe Turner [who] learned to sing in crowded Prohibition-era ballrooms in Kansas City,\u201d says Coyle. \u201cHis voice was so big, that at a certain point, the guy on stage would give him a signal and he\u2019d start singing from behind the bar; his voice could fill the room.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the introduction of the microphone, the Big Joe Turners of the music scene fell out of style; many performers stopped belting and began to sing softly. Audiences grew keen to soft-voiced performers, such as Rudy Vall\u00e9e, because these performers could express a wide range of gentler emotions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vall\u00e9e\u2019s soft music achieved dramatic highs and subtle lows. His innovative crooning style inspired household names such as Bing Crosby, who also achieved astounding success. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe first crooners,\u201d Coyle says, \u201chad an electrifying effect on the nation.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crooning, which was pioneered by white performers such as Vall\u00e9e and Crosby, was then adapted by Black musicians. This is where its history gets interesting. The ability of Black performers to record their work and adapt the recordings of others led to quick, mass innovation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCrooning is possibly the only 20th-century American style that was developed first by white performers before being adopted and adapted by Black performers,\u201d says Coyle. \u201cSo there\u2019s this pause in time before crooning gets taken up by Black performers. To them, crooning has always represented modernity \u2014 a refusal to allow other people to tell them what it means to be Black.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was when Coltrane put out his version of a crooning record featuring Hartman \u2014 who cemented his legacy with this record, filling its long tracks with slow, swirling melodies. Whereas Vall\u00e9e crooned rhythmically, rushing to the next word, Hartman crooned patiently, expanding
\nthe style. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLots of people who don\u2019t like John Coltrane because he\u2019s not melodic enough love this record, because it\u2019s just beautiful,\u201d says Coyle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Altogether, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman<\/em> was unlike any record that Coltrane had made. So why did he make a crooning record anyway? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere were a lot of reasons,\u201d says Coyle. \u201cColtrane\u2019s music was so radical at that point that white jazz critics were attacking him as being anti-jazz. So he was under pressure from his manager to make a traditional-sounding record.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The choice of whom to feature on vocals was then entirely Coltrane\u2019s. It came as a surprise that Hartman, a crooner who was unknown on the mainstream scene, was chosen. Coyle and audiences agree with the choice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s gentle and it\u2019s lyrical. You think, \u2018How does anybody sing that way?\u2019 It\u2019s just perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prof. Michael Coyle examines a record that made waves in the history of Black music.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1263,"featured_media":12993,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1745,1747,376,1708,1741,1742,1743,84,1744],"coauthors":[1451],"class_list":["post-12992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-discover","tag-black-music","tag-coltrane-hartman-collaboration","tag-english","tag-jazz","tag-john-coltrane","tag-johnny-hartman","tag-michael-coyle","tag-music","tag-music-history"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palXSH-3ny","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2023\/08\/Coltrane_Hartman.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1263"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12992"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16100,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12992\/revisions\/16100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12992"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=12992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}