What romanticism entails is that brilliant optimism of life, flying in the face of reality and the doldrums of existence, regardless of what science or realism might offer. It is an insistence that the world is good and beautiful even when it appears not that way to others.

One must assume that if the romantic is seeing things in this light, differently than anyone else, his view must be incorrect, or at least irrelevant to most people. Obviously if ten people sit in a room and nine believe the walls are blue, they probably are blue irrespective of what the 10th person would say. So what is this “vision” of beauty and righteousness? Surely it is incorrect, but it certainly exists. In this way the romantic notion becomes abstracted from its object; the rose glasses are removed and inspected.

I believe this romanticism is as real as the rose glasses are. They are pure beauty and optimism – so pure that whatever is passed through this romantic ideology comes out more beautiful, more comforting, more loving and hopeful than ever would have been seen in reality. These romantic glasses are truly awe inspiring.

Can we describe these glasses, this conversion of the everyday from average to wondrous? We can try with words. But these concepts are difficult to find proper definition buckets with which to hold them. Music is the closest analogy, because music can be both the interpreter and the interpreted. It is, in fact, the process of turning life into beauty.

The city all other cities want to be.  New York City, the greatest city in the world.

This album is very accessible and can be freely referred.

It is contemplative since it can be the most direct, un-mocked-up expression of emotion.  I believe it is the most expressive form of music and the easiest with which to create beautiful, cathartic melodies allowing direct access to the soul of the musician.

Oscar Peterson, Oscar Peterson’s Finest Hour
2007 Compilation, recordings from 1950-1965

This CD contains some fast moving tracks, skillfully and blazingly played, by who I consider the greatest jazz/blues pianist who ever lived. For me, Peterson really comes into his own while playing romantic, breezy or contemplative solo piano, and these recordings are brilliant but high tempo. The real issue I have with this album is the recording quality, which is clawingly bad while listening to this great music.

I bought the album because of the tracks I hadn’t heard, plus a temptation to get another version of Mumbles with Clark Terry, if another version even existed than the one on Trio Plus One. It’s basically Oscar Peterson on piano and Clark Terry mumbling to the music, but it’s great jazz and fun to listen to.

George Gershwin, Essential George Gershwin
2003 Compilation, recordings from 1920-1937

This two disc album has some striking recordings of some of the most classic Gershwin tunes. The songs all have vocalists and it is great to hear the songs as they were originally intended – sometimes I think an instrumental version gives so much power to the performer that the resulting version of a song can become completely different and unrecognizable. This might say more about Oscar Peterson, for example, or John Coltrane if it were a sax set. Here you hear Gershwin as it was intended. The vocalists are great, but they do use that shimmery vocal style popular with music of the 1920s and 30s. The recording quality ranges from fair to excellent.

I think this is a thorough compilation with some great period editions of Gershwin tunes. However, I would not recommend it to early Gershwin listeners because there are much more accessible versions of his tunes. For that, I would definitely recommend Oscar Peterson’s The Gershwin Songbooks or any of Thelonious Monk’s classic versions of these infinitely romantic melodies.