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47 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An astounding value!, May 14, 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: Bebop Years (Audio CD)
This is an excellent compilation of Hawkins' work between 1939 and 1949. Most of the selections date from 1943 to 1947 and were recorded for several record labels, including Victor, Bluebird, Okeh, Brunswick, V-Disc, Commodore, Signature, Keynote, Apollo, Savoy, Clef, Regis, Capitol, Aladdin, Joe Davis, and Selmer. Sidemen include Roy Eldridge, Benny Carter, Cootie Williams, Count Basie, Art Tatum, Oscar Pettiford, Teddy Wilson, Dizzy Gillespie, Budd Johnson, Ben Webster, Earl Hines, Don Byas, John Kirby, Jonah Jones, Buck Clayton, Thelonious Monk, Howard McGhee, Milt Jackson, Hank Jones, Harry Carney and Miles Davis. As you would expect with such a wide variety of source material, the sound quality varies a bit. However, it ranges from good to excellent and in most cases is on par (or identical:)) with the best previous CD issues of the same music. The set comes with a 56 page booklet that includes a lengthy essay with analysis of each session, several photographs, and a very thorough discography (you can read the complete essay and discography at Proper's website). The essay is good, though it could have used some editing. Also, the photos look like they were duplicated from printed sources. The most important thing, however, is that the music is consistently excellent. These discs show Hawkins at his absolute best, whether in a small group, big band, or solo. For the price the set is an astounding value!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nobody ...., June 9, 2010
This review is from: Bebop Years (Audio CD)
... epitomizes the history of jazz better than Coleman Hawkins, from raggedy blues/vaudeville to bebop and a little beyond. Born in 1904, Hawkins jumped school in Kansas City in 1922 to join Mamie Smith's Jazz Hounds on tour to Chicago. Through the late 20s and early 30s, Hawkins was the boss tenor sax in the very popular Fletcher Henderson swing band. Then he spent some five years in Europe, building an enormous popularity for himself there as well as a fervent audience for jazz that has endured to our own times. In 1939, he returned more or less permanently to the USA, and that's where this four-CD survey of his recordings during "The Bebop Years" begins.
Coleman had been a highly reputed journeyman jazzman for two decades when the first track in this box set, Body and Soul, was recorded by RCA in October, 1939. The final track on the fourth disk, Bah-U-Bah, was recorded in Paris, rehearsing for a European tour, in December, 1949. So "The Bebop Years" is not only a compendium of the Hawk's finest sessions -- 88 of them -- over a ten-year period, but also a survey of the evolution of jazz from a "high-toned low-class popular" music to the artistic heights that Hawkins shared with Charlie Parker, Lester Young, Monk, Gillespie, Gordon, and other progressive beboppers. The sax was, of course, the master instrument of the era, and it was Hawkins who first proved what the sax could offer. Hawkins had incredible chops, a rich rolling tone especially in his lower register on ballads, and it was on ballads that he sounded most harmonically adventuresome and original. But Hawk never totally abandoned his swing-era roots. He could play 'hot' or 'sweet' but 'cool' was not in him, and the 50's became a decade of neglect and disappointment for him. Unlike some younger beboppers, nevertheless, Hawkins was robust even to enjoy a revival in the late 50s and early 60s. But the 'avant-garde' of free jazz held no appeal for him. To put it bluntly, he gave up and drank himself to death at age 66 in 1969. The superb film "Round Midnight", starring Dexter Gordon and directed by Bernard Tavernier, depicts the last years of a musician who might well have been Coleman Hawkins.
The remastering of the assorted sessions, some in studios and some live, in this Properbox is extraordinarily clear and realistic. This is a fantastic bargain, a must-have for jazz lovers.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
one major omission, July 24, 2008
This review is from: Bebop Years (Audio CD)
I know I am being picky but there is one MAJOR omission. The session with
trumpeter Fats Navarro that produced the great Half Step Down Please.
Otherwise this is a wonderful collection of a more modern sounding Hawkins. At least they have the Dizzy stuff. Rember Hawkins was on the first bebop recordings and I also believe Monks first session.
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