"A Passage for Trumpet" is a Twilight Zone episode that's not usually considered to be among the best of the series, but it has a thoughtful, moving story that's excellently written and acted, making it easy to recommend. Writer Rod Serling imbued the same pathos into alcoholic jazz-man Joey Crown as he did with the boozy Henry Corwin from the outstanding "The Night of the Meek". No one could capture the sense of the downtrodden urban man like Serling, and his most personal and effective scripts always seem to center on a character of this sort. Joey Crown is indeed downtrodden, run under by his own sensitivity and the liquor he uses to drown it. Only his music makes the world tolerable, but Crown has sacrificed even that to the bottle.
Jack Klugman as Joey Crown turns in the best of his four TZ appearances, though only barely edging out his fine work in "In Praise of Pip". I think it's the best performance he ever put on film, alongside his role in the film classic "Twelve Angry Men". He doesn't just wear his shabby tuxedo, he becomes it, wrinkles, stains and all. His propensity to go way over the top is well controlled, and he gives a mostly restrained and appropriately melancholy turn as the sad drunkard Crown. The only other actor with more than a few lines is the great John Anderson. Usually menacing, here he is uncharacteristically amiable and cool as a mysterious, goateed horn player who carries an important message for Crown.
This episode doesn't have any of the Twilight Zone's more famous twists, and the end is even predictable, but the story is lovely and the characters are sympathetic and likable. Be sure to catch Klugman's monologue about why Joey Crown drinks, and likewise the heartfelt advice that Anderson's character delivers to a repentant Crown -- it's classically great Serling prose, and really wonderful stuff. 8/10.