How to relive love in less than three minutes!
The jazz diva’s have not faded from my current obsession - and rightfully so. This is Ella Fitzgerald singing and Joe Pass playing Duke Ellington’s “In a Sentimental Mood” (lyrics by Irving Mills and Manny Kurtz). The first time I heard this song I thought it was one of the most beautiful songs I’d ever heard. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve listened to it since and my opinion has not changed.
When the first notes of this song are sung and plucked, the mood created is of a love so lofty and intoxicating its almost hard to explain. I’m at a loss because this song stirs such a specific memory in my personal history that when listening to it, I am transported back to that moment.
I think that is affect of this song - it captures those sentimental moments that seem, to us, so ineffable that to describe them would diminish their true meaning and power. It’s almost eerie how they have conjured this delicate haze through which our most amorous and vulnerable instances can be seen and felt.
I’ve already said too much.
- Jake
