D. Coleman

Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster first met at a Kansas City jam session at which Hawkins finally encountered his match in local tenors Webster, Herschel Evans, and Lester Young. The all-night meeting has become the stuff of legend (and a continuous thread in Robert Altman's film Kansas City, though there it's reduced to two tenors). Recorded by Norman Granz, this 1957 meeting supports the two with fine accompaniment that includes Oscar Peterson, Ray Brown, and Herb Ellis. The material includes the great "Blues for Yolanda," with a honking, squeaking solo that suggests Hawkins is the father of all R&B tenor saxophonists as well as those in jazz, while "Rosalita" has an engaging Latin beat…

Continuing Contemporary Records’ 70th anniversary celebration, Craft Recordings is proud to announce the release of the new box set, Ornette Coleman – Genesis of Genius: The Contemporary Albums : 2-LP, 2-CD and digital formats out March 25. The sets feature two seminal releases, 1958’s Something Else!!!! The Music of Ornette Coleman and 1959’s Tomorrow Is the Question! The New Music of Ornette Coleman. These albums transformed an unknown jazz visionary from the hinterlands into the talk of the New York scene.

Coleman Hawkins - The Hawk In Paris (1956) {RCA–Bluebird 07863-51059-2 rel 1993}
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© 1956, 1993 RCA / Bluebird / BMG | 07863-51059-2
Jazz / Bop / Mainstream Jazz / Saxophone

This CD is a major surprise. Hawkins had always wanted to record with a large string section and he received his wish on the majority of these 12 romantic melodies, all of which have some association with Paris. The surprise is that he plays with a great deal of fire (his doubletiming on "My Man" is wondrous), and that Manny Albam's arrangements mostly avoid being muzaky and quite often are creative and witty. What could have been a novelty or an insipid affair is actually one of Coleman Hawkins's more memorable albums.

Recognized most for his keyboard work but also a composer, producer, arranger, and vocoder-armed vocalist, Brandon Coleman is among the flock of jazz-rooted musicians hatched out of Los Angeles during the early 2000s. The musician is connected with virtually all West Coast luminaries of his generation – Kamasi Washington, Ryan Porter, Miles Mosley, Thundercat, and so on – and has ventured stylistically afield with Babyface and Anthony Hamilton among those who have sought his talent. Moreover, Coleman is likely the lone link from smooth jazz stalwart Boney James to polyglot experimentalist Flying Lotus, the latter of whom featured him on Until the Quiet Comes and You're Dead!, and issued Resistance on his Brainfeeder label. This is actually Coleman's second album as a leader. His first, Self Taught, received a low-key release in 2011 and a few years later was reissued in Japan. Like it, Resistance enables Coleman to indulge in his affinity for late-'70s/early-'80s electronic funk from a jazz perspective. As a teenager, around the time he started learning to play, his head was spun by Herbie Hancock's vocoder-ized Sunlight, and that work, as well as other openhearted moments of the master's catalog from Man-Child through Lite Me Up, informs the material here. Considering Coleman's rare spotlight, truckload of stockpiled gear (20 instruments, just for himself), and accommodation of fellow instrumentalists and background singers numbering in the dozens (including many L.A. players), Resistance is extraordinarily condensed.

On this record (one incidentally that Hawkins, who is his own harshest critic, ranks among his best) we have a group of musicians who complement the master quite successfully. On trumpet is Emmett Berry, a Fletcher Henderson and Count Basie alumnus who has played and recorded with just about anybody you can think of. The trombonist is young Eddie Bert who was a member of such major bands as those of Charlie Barnet, Woody Herman, Benny Goodman, Stan Kenton and Red Norvo. On piano, Billy Taylor, a student of a great Art Tatum and a 52nd Street cohort of Hawkins. Tatum, generally acknowledged to be the supreme wizard of the keyboard, has called Taylor "the best young pianist in the country"…

Many of vibraphonist Milt Jackson's Atlantic recordings are long overdue to appear on CD, and that certainly includes Bean Bags, which features a meeting with the great tenor Coleman Hawkins. Assisted by a top-notch quartet (pianist Tommy Flanagan, guitarist Kenny Burrell, bassist Eddie Jones, and drummer Connie Kay), Bean Bags romps through "Stuffy," "Get Happy," a pair of Jackson originals, and two fine ballads, with "Don't Take Your Love From Me" being particularly memorable.

Coleman Hawkins - Hawkins! Eldridge! Hodges! Alive! At The Village Gate! (1962) {Verve 513 755-2 rel 1992}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 450 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 171 Mb
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© 1962, 1992 Verve / PolyGram | 513 755-2
Jazz / Mainstream Jazz / Hard Bop / Swing / Saxophone / Trumpet

From the mid-'50s until Coleman Hawkins's death in 1969, the tenor-saxophonist frequently teamed up with trumpeter Roy Eldridge to form a potent team. However, Hawkins rarely met altoist Johnny Hodges on the bandstand, making this encounter a special event. Long versions of "Satin Doll," "Perdido" and "The Rabbit in Jazz" give these three classic jazzmen (who are ably assisted by the Tommy Flanagan Trio) chances to stretch out and inspire each other. The remainder of this CD has Eldridge and Hodges absent while Coleman Hawkins (on "new" versions of "Mack the Knife," "It's the Talk of the Town," "Bean and the Boys" and "Caravan") heads the quartet for some excellent playing. Timeless music played by some of the top veteran stylists of the swing era.

Many of vibraphonist Milt Jackson's Atlantic recordings are long overdue to appear on CD, and that certainly includes Bean Bags, which features a meeting with the great tenor Coleman Hawkins. Assisted by a top-notch quartet (pianist Tommy Flanagan, guitarist Kenny Burrell, bassist Eddie Jones, and drummer Connie Kay), Bean Bags romps through "Stuffy," "Get Happy," a pair of Jackson originals, and two fine ballads, with "Don't Take Your Love From Me" being particularly memorable.