Jazz being the esoteric art that it is, many of its major artists were similarly obsessed with other forms of divining — numerology, tarot readings, enneagrams and especially astrology. John Coltrane included references to the zodiac in his composition "Fifth House," while pianist Horace Silver riffed on things astrological on his classic album Horace-Scope.
Truth be known (pun intended), all those wonderfully vague notions in the daily horoscope sound pretty funny when you apply them to the music as manifesto. So, today being a good time to put words into action as Mercury makes a creative sextile aspect to Mars — no idea what that means — here are five jazz songs that might inspire you to ask your fellow jazz fan, "What's your sign?"
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Copyright 2009 WBGO
