Night Train

“Jazz washes away the dust of every day life.” – Art Blakey

My car is one of my safe places (ironically enough), and one of the most important elements in my car is music. Let’s think about it, we drive from town to town for minutes, hours even, and we do it (at least I do it) so often that our actions in the car become automatic…we know what we’re doing and where we are going but we just do it, without having to think about it. For this reason, I use my time travelling for listening to amazing music (and maybe indulge in one or two guilty pleasures of modern pop music) and for relaxing, trying not to think too much, wishing the music will wash my troubles away, or simply notice that the song is exactly about me (we’ve all had that experience!).

The genre of music I love the most since I can remember, is Jazz music. I can’t describe it but it really gets to me. And the quote above couldn’t be more accurate. Art Blakey for the win! But this post has a purpose: to tell you all about the CD I’m currently “mellowing out” to in my car, and that is Oscar Peterson Trio’s Night Train.

This album was released in 1963 by Verve Records and was one of Peterson’s most commercially successful recordings. I’m amazed that in 2016 its sensation still comes through so purely.  I mean, I was born 30 years after this album was released and I just love it, I feel that the music fits perfectly to my mood!

Most Jazz albums have long-duration tracks, however Night Train had the purpose to be played on radio, and for that reason its tracks aren’t longer than a few minutes which, along with including some covers of R&B and Blues standards, sort of makes the album more commercial and easier to listen to (don’t know if I’m explaining this to well, but I hope you get it…). But it isn’t for this reason that I love this album, not at all, and I don’t think Peterson cared enough about playing his music on the radio, no. He cared about letting the music flow naturally.

This album starts with a boogie opening and makes its way to the mellow tone as the trio goes softer, getting to my favorite track “I Got It Bad and That Ain’t Good” (I can’t describe what I feel when I hear this track, all I can say is: try it, it will get through to you for sure) and finishing this first half with an “Hymn to Freedom”, which is one of  Peterson’s most significant compositions and is said to be an anthem of the Civil Rights Movement. Than the music goes back to boogie again, and the trio does not end with a goodbye but with a “This Could Be the Start of Something”, and it really was for these elements of crescendo and diminuendo were so well though of by Peterson, that the album became a masterpiece, and has got to be one of my favorite albums of this genre ever.

For whoever gets to read this little post of mine, I leave the album on Spotify for you to get a kick out of. 😉

Relax and be amazed,

Kiss Kiss, Joana