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Comment by vjulian | Hacker News Reader

There are a few pieces of music that I avoid listening to too frequently. That’s because I find them to be too beautiful, too profound and—illogically—I don’t want to wear them out. Perhaps also because I find myself consistently in tears when listening to them, at times even when thinking about them (as I am now). One of those pieces is Blue In Green, as recorded for Kind of Blue. God Bless Bill Evans.

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For a given jazz standard, if the renditions exist, chances are my favorite one is either Bill Evans or Oscar Peterson on piano. He's like if Chopin learned jazz.

My potentially hot take is Blue in Green is Coltrane's best solo on the album. It's purely a taste thing, the best way I can describe it is Coltrane frequently breaks my sense of immersion in a song.

I don't know if it's because Adderly wasn't on that one or what, but it's pretty much the only track where I feel where he gave the track what it needed instead of what he wanted.

I often find that my favorite solo in a piece of jazz music is the one by the accompanying musician.

Example: George Benson’s guitar in Freddie Hubbard’s First Light title track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwvxiBEPDdA

Interesting. The entire Kind of Blue album has the opposite effect. If I hear the music now, it pleasantly tranports me back to the early 1980s when I bought it as one of my first CDs. Then I go on to focus on the music...

I very much agree with this sentiment. For me it is the 9th symphony that I don't want to wear out.

That's interesting. For me, this is an album that never gets old and I can always put on. My favorite piece is "So What," which is conveniently at the front. I often put this album on when I want to relax. It's one of my all-time favorites.

Yes.. Good music, or any good art are consumables.. I'll always "like" them but that visceral feeling won't always happen.

Out of curiosity and if you don't mind me asking, would you mind listing the others?

Beethoven quartet opus 135, especially the third movement. Several others, about an album or two worth of music. Ravel’s quartet is up there. I melt when I hear George Duke’s rhodes solo on Blessed Relief (a great piece overall). Stuff like that.

Barber's Adagio for strings, although it gets referenced enough; Khachaturian's Spartacus and Phrygia, especially the brass version; Holst's planets, esp Uranus; Beethoven's 7th; Gorecki's 3rd.

For me it’s Bach: Erbarme dich, mein Gott.

In this version: https://youtu.be/BBeXF_lnj_M?si=kPTUsAB19_RyECO5

Some of mine include Bach's violin partita 3, Beethoven's 9, and Mahler 1.

Add a few more that others may not mention:

Brahms symphony 4 - 1st movement Brahms symphony 3 - 3rd movement Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto 3

Jazz

Duke Ellington & John Coltrane In a Sentimental Mood My Little Brown Book

Dave Brubeck Quartet Koto Song

Rock

Pink Floyd Echos (from Meddle ) Animals

Ein Deutsches Requiem

greatest choral music ever written

That is the moral of Christopher Alexander's Zen View pattern

Bill's chords just hit different.

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