Heaven’s Melodic Strains

The Illinois Jacquet’s 1956 sextet rendition of “Harlem Nocturne” wasn’t simply playing but occurring, happening. Jimmy Jones’s piano glowed like the sun’s last gleam, taking the day with it. I fumbled for my phone to record, in however impoverished form, the high breeze of Roy Eldridge’s trumpet, its fleet rise and easing fall. If Little Jazz’s horn was the wind, Jacquet’s tenor was the tides: waxing and withdrawing, meeting the melody in a long, estuarine flow. The sound was total, final, at once ancient and immediate. I and a half dozen others sat there, listening on the moonlit shore.