Jazztone Stories, Part III: The "sleeper" in Coleman Hawkins
Gordon M. Brown | San Diego, CA USA | 04/27/2009
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Just a few days shy of his 50th birthday, tenor sax legend Coleman Hawkins, and five sidemen most of whom were considerably younger, stepped into a studio in New York City to record an album for the Jazztone Society. One gets the feeling that the fledgling Jazztone label had high hopes for this event. The album that ensued--Timeless Jazz: Coleman Hawkins and His All-Stars--was to be Jazztone's first release (J-1201), and of the 12 tracks recorded in that single day, two of them made their way to two different sampler recordings released by the Society.
Little did the Hawk know how his efforts would be served so shabbily by Jazztone's indifferent recording standards, and its hasty demise less than three years after that November day in 1954.
There is much shame in this irony. That's because, by every meaningful measure, "Timeless Jazz" is truly a masterpiece. If Jazztone's liner notes are to be believed, even the Hawk himself held this album in very high regard; according to those notes, "...Hawkins, who is his own harshest critic, ranks [this album] among his best...". Had it not been for the efforts of Jordi Pujol and a handful of other jazz enthusiasts living in Spain, this already endangered specimen could easily have met with untimely, cold, black-hearted extinction. Instead, through Fresh Sound Records, which Pujol heads, the nine tracks of the original Jazztone release were evidently salvaged from existing LP copies, then mastered to digital and released on compact disc in 1989. In the years that followed, the three remaining tracks surfaced on three additional Jazztone recordings.* The 12 tracks were compiled and released by Fresh Sound in 2003 in the recording that's being reviewed here.
For starters, Hawkins could not have assembled a better supporting cast even if the continued existence of The Free World had depended on it. Trumpeter Emmett Berry, a co-player with Hawkins in Fletcher Henderson's band, firmly steeped in the tradition of swing, and whose influences from Louie Armstrong are obvious. Trombonist Eddie Bert, a highly flexible, adaptable musician who, within a year, also did gigs with the Charles Mingus Jazz Workshop. Pianist Billy Taylor, a protégé of Art Tatum who possesses Tatum's fluid style without the distracting embellishments. Bassist Milt Hinton, who over time became the most-recorded jazz musician ever, with more than 1,100 recordings to his credit; and drummer Jonathan "Jo" Jones, part of the notoriously great rhythm section in Basie's band, who distinguishes himself on this occasion by using brushes almost entirely throughout.
The twelve tunes are well-known standards and jazz showpieces, often performed with surprising twists. In "Cheek to Cheek," for instance, the group chose not to take it at all literally, but instead to perform it at a breakneck pace, just as frenetic as the group's interpretation of "Get Happy." (Hawkins can also be heard occasionally making snorting noises with the horn that bring a peevish elephant to mind!) In rather stunning contrast, the Fats Waller tune "Ain't Misbehavin'" (one of six tracks where Hawkins and the rhythm section play as a quartet) is taken slowly, made reflective and contemplative, with none of the implied cheeky mischief that has become cliché in the hands of others. "Time on My Hands," which at eight minutes never made it to the LP release, is another quartet arrangement, languorously and lusciously played, with extremely sensitive and sympathetic interaction between Hawk and Taylor. "Blue Lou" was a staple tune from the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra. But Henderson never conceived an arrangement that smokes like this one does. This is prototypical hard bop, every bit as fresh and exciting as what Miles was doing with Walkin' that same year. Dig the muted horn by Berry, and the locomotive-at-eighty-miles-an-hour effect that Jo Jones generates with nothing more than a pair of brushes.
But what truly impresses about this album is the way Hawkins frequently and unselfishly cedes the musical ground to his younger sidemen. Often the sidemen are allowed to solo first, sometimes with the Hawk providing a gentle "left hand" underneath. An excellent and representative example would be "Out of Nowhere," in which trumpeter Berry begins by tracing out the melody in more or less literal fashion. Then Hawkins takes over with a blazing series of harmonic inventions (the signature of Hawkins' style generally) that shuns the melody entirely. But then, remarkably, all the ensuing soloists take up the gauntlet thrown down by their leader, responding with their own series of inventions, beginning with trombonist Bert, then another brilliant, lyrically fluid series by Taylor. The tune concludes cyclically, as Berry rips out another, very Satchmo-like solo, this time much less literal than his opener, but no less inventive than the others.
"Coleman Hawkins: The Complete Jazztone Recordings 1954" justly deserves the label of "jazz masterpiece" for these and so many other reasons, but also because it fulfills this additional necessary criterion: it contains not a single gram of fat, not even one wasted breath or hint of redundancy. Every moment, from first to last, contributes to the artistic integrity of the whole. That's a remarkable achievement for a package that clocks in at around 71 minutes. (Yusef Lateef's Eastern Sounds and McCoy Tyner's The Real McCoy are two legitimate masterpieces from the '60s that also fulfill this criterion despite being half the length of this album. In contrast, consider a typical album of "millennial jazz," such as Chick Corea's Past, Present & Futures (2001), which is the same length as "The Complete Jazztone Recordings 1954" but which--in spite of its more promising moments--drags itself down like a boat anchor with its enormous preponderance of dead weight. Just because you CAN put 70 to 80 minutes of music on a compact disc, it does not follow strictly that you SHOULD!)
Of the three recordings mentioned here, completists will want to obtain this one even though it's in short supply. It can be obtained directly from Fresh Sound Records if it's not available through Amazon or the vendors linked to Amazon. Fresh Sound's 1989 release of "Timeless Jazz" may be even more collectible due to its scarcity; copies of this CD are already fetching some pretty commanding prices. If neither of these is doable, then by all means spring for the more recent Original Long Play release (and swallow hard whenever you contemplate its unpretty utilitarian packaging). But get this album no matter what. It is almost impossible to recommend it too highly.
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*"Undecided" was originally released on a 7-inch, J-708; "Honeysuckle Rose" on a 10-inch sampler, J-SPEC 100; and "Time on My Hands" on a Concert Hall 7-inch sampler, J-SPEC-700. These facts lend considerable weight to the speculation that Fresh Sound's engineers did not have access to any master tapes or metal dies during the remastering process. For if they had, why not release all 12 tracks back in 1989?
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Track Listings (12) - Disc #1