I know it’s all just standards.

But Ringo’s Sentimental Journey is utterly charming.

We really should talk more about how he turns to this project as therapy as the band is falling apart. It’s pure nostalgia in a bottle but with Ringo jazz drumming and just having fun with it singing and adding these cute little improv bits. Blues Turning Grey Over You is a highlight for the “I just lost myself there, child!” laugh at the end.

It’s all utterly charming.

It’s a really cool collaboration too. He recruited different musicans arrange each piece (including Paul, who arranged Stardust, perhaps before the breakup drama heats up). George Martin produces and gets the big band together. They start recording more sporadically at first, starting Oct 1969. Night and Day, Stormy Weather (which got left off the final album but I love he tried it), Stardust, and Dream, all recorded before Christmas. The rest are Jan-Mar 1970.

It gets ripped to shreds by the rock cred sector. But Ringo using this as a grief project, sorta returning to childhood in the midst of a blow for comfort, feels more honest and healthy than he gets credit for. It’s also brassy af. This is the height of “fuck jazz,” and Ringo’s just like “so what? I’ll do what I like.”

George said he liked it. John slagged him off for it in interviews, but I bet he secretly liked it too. Not sure whether Paul ever commented on it given the dual release drama. He does his own standards album decades later, after it becomes a thing artists do. But when Ringo does it in 1970? No one was doing that.