Despite winning accolades from folks who should know, like Tony Bennett and Ella Fitzgerald, Johnny Hartman never came close to becoming a household name. In the extensive liner notes to The Johnny Hartman Collection 1947-1972, well-respected critic Will Friedwald characterized Hartman, with his "deep and sensual" baritone as "one of the greatest interpreters of love songs that ever lived."
Raised in Chicago, Hartman began his professional career at 17 with the Earl "Fatha" Hines big band after winning an amateur contest that offered a $25 prize and a week's engagement with Hines. "Fatha" was impressed enough that Hartman continued with him for a year. Early in his career, Hartman also sang with Errol Garner and Dizzy Gillespie. Known throughout his career primarily as a ballad singer, the pairing with Gillespie resulted in some "interesting" juxtapositions between singer and instrumentalists.
Hartman made his first recordings under his own name in 1947, but it would be another decade before he realized much success at all. Two related stumbling blocks seem to have confused record company executives and interfered with his popularity. First there was the issue of whether Hartman was a "jazz" or "pop" singer and what kind of material to have him record. Record producers also had a hard time figuring out how to arrange and orchestrate to best showcase Hartman. In his book, Jazz Singing (1992), Friedwald argued convincingly that Hartman needed a trio plus one master soloist to "challenge him, inspire him, and keep him on the level." It was not until 1956 that Bethlehem presented him in this context on Songs from the Heart. The rhythm section consisted of Ralph Sharon (who would later collaborate for many years with Tony Bennett), Jay Cave (b) and Christy Febbo (d) while Howard McGhee provided the solos on trumpet.
The peak of Hartman's career came with the 1963 album that critic Scott Yanow claimed made Hartman immortal, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman on Impulse. Not only is this the album for which Hartman is best know, I believe it also marks the only time that Coltrane recorded with a vocalist. The two featured performers are joined by Coltrane's standout rhythm section: McCoy Tyner (p), Jimmy Garrison (b), Elvin Jones (d). Although all the songs on this album are outstanding, Scott Yanow considers the renditions of Billy Strayhorn's "Lush Life" and "My One and Only Love" as "definitive."
Bob Thiele produced the Coltrane collaboration and would then go on to produce four more Hartman albums: I Just Dropped by to Say Hello (1963), The Voice that Is (1964), Unforgettable Songs by Johnny Hartman and I Love Everybody (both 1966). Presented below is "Stairway to the Stars" from the Hello album. The tenor soloist here is Illinois Jacquet. Will Friedwald called the five albums produced by Thiele, the "most consistently excellent body of work in Hartman's career."
Despite the excellence of Hartman's mid-60s output, this was the era of the British Invasion and Rock 'n Roll was king. Like so many other singers of standards, Hartman found recording contracts harder and harder to come by. Also like many standard singers, Hartman spent much of his time overseas in the late '60s and the '70s. He was in the process of making something of a comeback in the early '80s when he was diagnosed with lung cancer and was forced to quit performing. He died in 1983 at the age of 60.
Although Hartman himself didn't live long enough to succeed with a comeback, his music received a boost 15 years after his death when Clint Eastwood featured several Hartman numbers in the soundtrack to The Bridges of Madison County. More recently, jazz singer Kurt Elling released a live "re-imagining" of the Hartman-Coltrane collaboration, Dedicated to You: Kurt Elling Sings the Music of Coltrane and Hartman. For this effort Elling won the 2010 Grammy for Best Vocal Jazz Album, the first male to do so since 1993.
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