Most achingly-beautiful music

'64 Miles Davis Quintet My Funny Valentine live. One of the most stunningly beautiful live jazz recordings of the 1960s. Miles and co. (esp drummer Tony Williams) are breaking out of the more confined song forms of the 50's but are still playing the classic Quintet repertoire. Miles' treatment of the melody is deep, introspective, and will make you weep at times and laugh out loud at others. When the tempo kicks up and Ron Carter comes in for the turnaround....watch out, you may jump out of your chair and cheer. I have the complete concert on a double CD set called the "Complete Concert", but the material was originally released on two separate albums, "My Funny Valentine" had all the ballads and med tempo stuff and "Four and More" had the burners. If you have not heard this please do yourself a favor and check it out.

"Not Alone" by Patty Griffin off of the Living with Ghosts cd.

(it's the last track and you don't want it to end)

I could cite many, many examples, but here are three that stand out:

Eva Cassidy's version of "Over the Rainbow." A sublime performance of a classic song by an unbelievable singer. This one always gives me shivers.

"Can't Hardly Wait" by the Replacements. One of Paul Westerberg's best songs, wonderfully recorded by the great Jim Dickenson.

"Backstreets" by Bruce Springsteen. Incredibly dramatic and dynamic track, with a tour-de-force vocal performance. This is the song that really got me to start LISTENING to music -- noticing how a song was put together, arrangements, instrumentation, harmonies, dynamics, etc. They don't call him the Boss for nothing.

Jlindquist - You are right on with Cassidy's Over The Rainbow! I can tear up just thinking about how she sings it, let alone listening to her actually sing it. Makes Judy's version sound like the idle dream that little girls have. Eva's IMHO expresses the yearnings of a grown woman! Hard to believe it was a 'production' as opposed to something spontaneous! :-)

Ditto Satie's Gymnopedies 1-3; add Prince's, When You Were Mine and The Rolling Stone's, Moonlight Mile.