2. Ben WebsterMusic For Loving
This collection gathers several album’s worth of Ben Webster ballad performances. I could start with a favourite song, say, ‘We’ll Be Together Again’ and listen forever and never care again. I’ve known many of these songs since early childhood, there are even some like, ‘My Funny Valentine’ that I’ve recorded myself [b-side to ‘Oliver’s Army’], when that seemed the least expected thing to do. Truthfully, it takes a lifetime to really learn everything that is within these songs and this is what you hear in these recordings. Now as shadows gather, I don’t even need to hear a vocalist singing many of these lyrics; the mood and the implications of each story are all here in Webster’s playing. Like his contemporaries, Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young, this is a voice without, or beyond, literal definition. If you cannot sense the story being told, I’d check with your undertaker. The orchestrations are sweet and very much of their time, I imagine they were written with the thought of making these records more appealing. Only a fool would dismiss them as saccharine, they are but the canvas, as once Webster plays, everything falls away and nothing else matters.
