Only twenty years separate these two numbers. Glenn Miller‘s “In the Mood,” recorded in 1939, is one of the most famous pieces of the Swing, big band era. Here it is in a rendition led by Tex Beneke, who took charge of Miller’s orchestra in the immediate post-War years, after Miller disappeared in a flight over the English channel in December 1944. Soon enough, Bebop was the prevailing jazz form, then Rock n Roll the new popular music of the young. It’s a swell bit of film. 😉

Ornette Coleman‘s “Lonely Woman,” recorded in 1959, appeared on the groundbreaking album The Shape of Jazz to Come. Both a deeply controversial and widely acclaimed musician his entire career, Coleman was heralded by musical greats as knowledgeable and different from him as Leonard Bernstein and Virgil Thompson. As recently as 2007, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Music for his album Sound Grammar.

In the Mood

Lonely Woman

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