In the early 1960s Duke Ellington made several records that teamed him with what some might consider to be unlikely musical partners. He recorded with Louis Armstrong, Charles Mingus, Max Roach and made one record with his full orchestra playing with the entire Count Basie big band. On September 26, 1962 he and saxophonist John Coltrane made a quartet album for Impulse! Records at the Van Gelder Studios in New Jersey. The record was titled simply “Duke Ellington and John Coltrane.”

The album has seven tracks and includes five Ellington compositions, both old and new, Billy Strayhorn’s My Little Brown Book and one by Coltrane called Big Nick, the only tune on the album where Coltrane plays soprano instead of tenor saxophone. Ellington and Coltrane are backed on a kind of rotating basis by Jimmy Garrison and Aaron Bell on bass along with Elvin Jones and Sam Woodyard on drums.

On the album’s liner notes Coltrane says “I was really honored to have the opportunity of working with Duke. It was a wonderful experience. He has set standards I haven’t caught up with yet. I would have liked to have worked over all those numbers again, but then I guess the performances wouldn’t have had the same spontaneity. And they mightn’t have been any better.”

In his memoir “Music is my Mistress,” Ellington writes “The only time I had the privilege of working with John Coltrane was on a record date. It was a very interesting session. We recorded some of his tunes with his rhythm section, and some of mine with my rhythm section. No hassle, no sweat. John Coltrane was a beautiful cat. The date flowed so smoothly we did the whole album in one session, and that is rare. I loved every minute of it.”

Here is a link to Ellington’s 1935 composition In a Sentimental Mood from the record recorded 64 years ago today:

"IN A SENTIMENTAL MOOD"