Top 5 for September 15, 2013

Sugar Boy – Beth Orton 

from a collection of performances in KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic

Blue Monk – Thelonious Monk Quartet w/ John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall

An unusual treatment of the melody. Coltrane seems to be playing a counter melody or inner voice. Fine solos from both.

This must be the place (Naive Melody) – Talking Heads from Popular Favorites 1976-1983 (aka Sand in the Vaseline)

One of their finest moments is from their weakest album. The best songs are done better on Stop Making Sense and this song is on any "best of" collection. This is the best such collection, band selected with a bunch of otherwise unreleased tracks. If I recall correctly, this was the b-side to Burning Down the House. Play it at my wedding if I ever have one.

Ruby, My Dear – Thelonius Monk, from Monk's Music

Monk and Coltrane again, in ballad mode. For all his future communication with the cosmos, Trane could have played like this forever and still have been revered.

And this sentence from “Pampkin's Lament” by Peter Orner, 

collected in Last Car over the Sagamore Bridge - “She was taller than I remembered, and her face was red with sadness and January.”