Red Hawk

After the success of Gladiator, it wasn't unusual to see director Ridley Scott turn to Hans Zimmer again for the score to Black Hawk Down, his fierce adaptation of Mark Bowden's account of the tragic 1993 American military intervention in Somalia. What was more surprising was the schedule Scott imposed on the German-born composer: 15 days to write, arrange, and record the film's nearly two hours of music. The results of Zimmer's miraculous two-week musical campaign not only belie those constraints; they instantly take their place alongside The Thin Red Line as some of the most compelling music he's produced. The gambit here is simple–portray the combatants as two warring tribes, with their native musics locked in a tense dance for domination.

Other than an album for the Italian Red label the previous March, this CD from the defunct Black-Hawk label was the first to feature trumpeter Tom Harrell with the Phil Woods Quintet. At this point in time, bassist Steve Gilmore and drummer Bill Goodwin had been with the band since its beginning 12 years before, while pianist Hal Galper was a five-year veteran. The repertoire on the set is quite strong, with a pair of less-played Duke Ellington pieces (the beautiful "Heaven" and "Azure") being performed along with Dave Brubeck's "The Duke," Sam Rivers' "222," the standard "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You" and Harrell's "Occurrence." Phil Woods sounds quite inspired throughout the date by Harrell's presence, giving him another horn to work off of.

Throughout a career that spanned more than 40 years, Coleman Hawkins consistently maintained a progressive attitude, operating at or near the cutting edge of developments in jazz. If Hawk's versatility came in handy when he backed Abbey Lincoln during Max Roach's 1960 We Insist! Freedom Now Suite, he took on an assignment of challenging dimensions when in 1963 he cut an entire album with Sonny Rollins in the company of pianist Paul Bley, bassists Bob Cranshaw and Henry Grimes, and drummer Roy McCurdy. Coleman Hawkins and Sonny Rollins each virtually defined the tenor saxophone for his respective generation…