This is what dominates the sky tonight. The photograph snapped by an inadequate camera merely suggests its chilly magnificence.
Hoagy Carmichael captured the mood the winter moon generates. This is from his 1956 album with the Pacific Jazzmen. Art Pepper has the first chorus on alto saxophone, with muted trumpet by Don Fagerquist. Jimmy Rowles is the pianist.
Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...
A Winter moon is mysterious and lovely seen through the “glass” of the chilled air. Your photo shows it; Carmichael’s melody captures it… but the Harold Adamson lyrics are a letdown. Rather than stripped away like leaves from the tree branches, “deceptively” simple (as some might say), I’d rate the words in this late piece as only simple, approaching barren. Chacun a son gout, of course, but I think Art Pepper was right to revisit Hoagy’s song as instrumental mood music (played with strings even)*. Beauty sufficient unto the day… and Winter night.
*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgP38dJfquI