Cocktail Trane

What happens when you take the cocktail lounge jazz gentre and place a genius on tenor saxophone in the middle of it ? Something pretty similar to this compliation cd, Coltrane for Lovers. Obviously put together as a marketing ploy to garner sales from some kind of yuppie market ( there are still yuppies aren't there, even if they no longer go by that name ) the musicianship still makes it a worthwhile listen. Eleven ballads, with Coltrane's standard quartet including McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones etc on most of them, augmented on three tracks by the velvet baritone vocals of Johnny Hartman and on two others Duke Ellington is the pianist. Even when Coltrane is just stating the melody more or less straight, the tone and control of the playing is wonderful. Since the tracks are ballads, he can't be said to "cut loose" on any of them but the improvisations show great taste and imagination and you realise that what you are listening to is more than just run of the mill.