Home » Jazz Articles » Coleman Hawkins
Jazz Articles about Coleman Hawkins
Max Roach: We Insist! Freedom Now Suite
by Chris May
Re-released following the passing of drummer Max Roach in August 2007, We Insist! Freedom Now Suite (Candid, 1960) remains a work of enduring musical and social importance. Notwithstanding Roach's central role in the creation of bop, or his later hard bop explorations with trumpeter Clifford Brown, it is, by some margin, the most perfectly realised album he recorded. 1960 was the year in which black Americans' struggle for civil rights reached critical mass. In February, anti-segregationist lunch-counter sit-ins ...
Continue ReadingColeman Hawkins: The Hawk Relaxes
by Samuel Chell
Coleman Hawkins had every right to rest on his laurels by the time of this 1961 recording. But The Hawk Relaxes finds the father of the tenor saxophone--aka Hawk or Bean--doing anything but clinging to his perch. He may no longer be soaring in search of prey but he's gliding on buoyant and vital air-streams, performing to near-perfection an all-ballad program that rewards the attentive listener at each turn.
When the history of the tenor saxophone was being ...
Continue ReadingColeman Hawkins: At Ease with Coleman Hawkins
by Matt Cibula
In this crazy run-around world where we never really have time to stop and appreciate all the good things in our lives, it is pretty hard to make time for Coleman Hawkins. But that is precisely why it is so important to do so. They really never invented a saxophone player better than him, and very few musicians have ever gotten closer to what jazz is supposed to be.
At Ease with Coleman Hawkins, originally released in 1960, is like ...
Continue ReadingColeman Hawkins: Body and Soul Remixed!
by John Eyles
This release seems likely to re-open a heated debate and cause controversy. Should classic and famous jazz performances--such as Hawk's “Body and Soul --be treated with reverence and respect and be left in peace? Or can they be used as source material for further explorations, however remote from the mood and spirit of the original? Yes, I know this is not a new debate (or a particularly fruitful one?). One only has to think of the animated reaction to Bill ...
Continue ReadingColeman Hawkins: The Hawk Flies High
by David Rickert
Many of the great improvisers from the swing era were unable to hurdle the bebop fence into relevance in the fifties, but Coleman Hawkins continued to create worthwhile records up until the end of his life. How? Not by changing his style to suit the times, but by demonstrating that his approach could fit into a variety of contexts. Thus he was able to gig with Coltrane and Monk where others might have faltered. But Hawkins also continued to lead ...
Continue ReadingColeman Hawkins: The Centennial Collection
by Joel Roberts
Though it won't get the attention of the recent Duke Ellington or Louis Armstrong centennials, the 100th anniversary of Coleman Hawkins' birth, coming up on November 21, certainly warrants celebration from jazz fans. Dubbed the “father of the tenor saxophone," Hawkins was a vital force on the jazz scene for five decades, moving through the swing era to bebop and beyond. Bluebird's “Centennial Collection" begins and ends, appropriately enough, with two renditions of the tune Hawkins is ...
Continue ReadingColeman Hawkins and Chu Berry: Coleman Hawkins and Chu Berry: Tenor Giants
by Mike Neely
Coleman Hawkins and Chu Berry: Tenor Giants offers first rate performances of a familiar master and introduces to many the small group recordings of a tenor who shared solo time with Lester Young in the Count Basie Band. This GRP reissue features two Coleman Hawkins sessions, of 1940 and 1943, and two Chu Berry recordings, of 1938 and 1941. In addition to the headliners' outstanding tenor solo work, outstanding trumpet work of either Roy Eldridge, Cootie Williams or “Hot Lips" ...
Continue Reading
