The Hawk Still Flies

If Louis Armstrong distinguishes himself as the first jazz soloist in the modern sense of the term, Coleman Hawkins is in some ways the first soloist with a style listeners today would recognize has modern. Had he lived, he would be 107 today. He died in 1969, half a year shy of his 65th birthday.

he joined Mamie Smith and her Jazz Hounds in 1921, then left a couple years later for Fletcher Henderson's band, before Louis Armstrong joined. He seems to have first recorded in 1925 (with Fletcher). From Wikipedia:

In the late 20's, Hawkins also participated in some of the earliest interracial recording sessions with the Mound City Blue Blowers. During the time with Henderson, he became a star soloist with an increasing amount of star solos on record. While with the band, he and Henry "Red" Allen recorded a series of small group sides for ARC (on their Perfect, Melotone, Romeo, and Oriole labels). Hawkins also recorded a number of solo recordings, with either piano or with a pick-up band of Henderson's musicians in 1933-34, just prior to his European trip. He was also featured on a landmark Benny Goodman February 2, 1934 session for Columbia, which also featured Mildred Bailey as guest vocalist.

It was by the mid-30's that Hawkins was the undisputed star of saxophone, and he was invited to join Jack Hylton's band as a star soloist. Hilton was sort of England's Paul Whiteman. The pay was large, and so Hawk went to London. Lester Yound took his place in Fletcher's band before ascending to true greatness in the Basie band, and he more than made a mark on the literature of tenor saxophone.

Hawkins came back to the US in '39, playing mostly in small groups in MYC. On October 11, he cut a very significant recording of "Body And Soul". What Wagner's Tristan and Isolde is to 20th Century Music, "Body and Soul" is to bebop: a prototype that at once belongs to its time and the future. Hawkins' command of subsitute chords, passing chords, and other structured dissonances was masterful, and "Body and Soul" became to tenor saxophonists what Eddie van Halen's "Eruption" would become to a later generation of stadium rock guitarists. It is an expressive masterpiece as well as an intellectual one:



A recently unearthed radio transcription from 1939 of him playing "Body" is mindboggling. A lot of what he's playing is advanced to the point of sounding as if he'd been listening to 60's Joe Henderson. Except that it's about 25 years before Joe Henderson.

By 1944, Hawk was among the earliest cutting full on bebop, and became the first bandleader to record Thelonious Monk, heard here. Funny to hear Monk so unapologetically fleet-fingered.



Hawk was an Old Lion, but the style he had put forth on "Body" kept him both contemporary and tied to tradition. Here his is with Charlie Parker.



Through the fifties and sixties, he cut with older players like Pee Wee Russell, with younger guys like Sonny Rollins and Monk, cut great modern(ish) records as a small group leader, did some (not enough but more than most) TV, and passed away leaving an incredible legacy.

"Body and Soul" was his signature, and here he is playing it in 1967. Humble yourself: