Midnight in Harlem

"Midnight in Harlem" opens with the kind of guitar figure that immediately places you somewhere specific — not literally Harlem, but a particular emotional geography that the name conjures: urban, late, slightly dangerous, deeply beautiful. Derek Trucks' slide playing here achieves something extraordinary, sustaining notes until they ring like struck metal, the tone so pure it is almost electronic except for its warmth. Susan Tedeschi's vocal enters unhurriedly, matching the temperature of the guitar, and what follows is less a performance than a conversation between two instruments that happen to include a human voice and a guitar. The lyrics paint in impressionistic strokes — figures moving through night streets, the particular loneliness and freedom of the city after midnight — without telling a complete story, leaving room for the listener to furnish the specifics from their own experience of urban nights. The rhythm section provides forward motion without acceleration, keeping the groove from ever becoming comfortable enough to become predictable. There is a cinematic quality to the whole thing, a sense of being inside a scene rather than listening to a description of one. This is the music you hear when you are walking back to wherever you are staying from somewhere you wished you could stay longer, the city still alive around you, the night doing what night does to ordinary feelings.