The album opens with "In a Mellow Tone," which is as direct an invitation as jazz offers — Ellington's old chestnut from 1940, played at the temperature the title promises. Coltrane doesn't reinvent it. He inhabits it. That restraint is the record's great gift and its great surprise.
"Angelica" is the hidden center of the album for me. It's a ballad written by Ellington specifically for this session, and you can hear him composing toward Coltrane — leaving space in the architecture that Trane fills with long, searching lines. The two of them never seem to be in competition. They seem, genuinely, delighted.
"The Feeling of Jazz" swings in the most old-fashioned sense, and Coltrane swings right back, which he could always do when he chose to — something people forget in the mythology of the sheets-of-sound years.
What's remarkable is what Coltrane doesn't play here. There's no "Giant Steps" harmonic architecture, no modal sprawl, no fire. He comes to Ellington's house and sits down at the table. That's not compromise. That's respect so deep it becomes its own kind of virtuosity.
The whole thing runs under 40 minutes. You'll put it on before bed and find yourself still sitting there when it ends, not quite ready to move.