Ellington Meets Hawkins

Duke Ellington, Coleman Hawkins, Duke Elington & Coleman Hawkins | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 24, 1995)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Grp Records
• ASIN: B000003N7P
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #80,062 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Duke Ellington and Coleman Hawkins were both involved in unusual collaborations in the early 1960s, often with much younger musicians: Ellington with Max Roach and Charles Mingus (Money Jungle) and with John Coltrane; Hawkins with Roach and Sonny Rollins. As surprising as any of those inter-generational sessions, however, is this 1962 meeting between Ellington and Hawkins, if only because it hadn't happened before. With a band of Duke's greatest veterans--alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges, baritone saxophonist Harry Carney, trombonist Lawrence Brown, and Ray Nance on trumpet and violin--it's classic small-group Ellingtonia with one essential difference. "Limbo Jazz" and "The Ricitic," pulled together for the occasion, are playful tunes with touches of lounge Latin. The latter becomes a delightful dialog focused on Nance's violin and Hawkins and Ellington's inspired accompaniment. The finest moments come with "Mood Indigo," a beautiful vehicle for Hawkins's warmly rambunctious tenor, and "Self-Portrait of the Bean," an Ellington-Strayhorn tribute that Ellington only finished in the studio on the day of recording. Rising to the special moment, Hawkins invests the ballad with extraordinary depth and grace. --Stuart Broomer

Product Description

Part of the Impulse Best 50! Series. Japanese exclusive 24-bit 96khz digitally remastered reissue. Packaged in a limited edition miniature LP sleeve. --This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars UNDER-RATED MASTERPIECE, February 3, 2001

By 

Tom W. Rhody (Oregon United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ellington Meets Hawkins (Audio CD)

All too often, some jazz that is deliberately quirky, dissonant,and quasi-ugly (if not outright ridiculously annoying) is extolled over jazz that is beautiful, haunting, intricate but melodious. Philip Larkin, modern British Poet and Jazz critic, has touched upon this trend in his critical essays on jazz. Larkin makes a convincing case for how ridiculous this trend can be: gee, this stuff sounds angry, ugly, but if I listen to it twenty times and become inured to it, why then I'm a genius and so is/are the musicians. If you are like me, and don't buy this approach to jazz, you will love this CD. This CD is my favorite; it is beyond 5 stars. No, it is markedly not "awesome," it is beautiful, articulate, mellow, joyful jazz. Ray Nance should be double underlined in the Amazon review above. Why isn't there a retrospective CD of this man's work? Perhaps because the music he made with horn, violin, and voice was simply too "accessible"? My all time favorite version of "Solitude," which is my all-time favorite jazz piece is on this album with Nance playing violin as only Nance can play it. If you thought the writer James Joyce was at his best in his DUBLINERS, and found his ULYSSES to be an egregious, pretentious bit of flim-flam, you will love this CD. I never get tired of hearing the beauty and cooperative interplay among Ellington, Hawkins, and Nance on this underated masterpiece.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars exultation, August 7, 2001

By 

NotATameLion (Michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ellington Meets Hawkins (Audio CD)

Duke Ellington and Coleman Hawkins have given water to the dry riverbeds of my soul. The songs assembled together on this disc may well be some of the coolest, smoothest music that I have ever heard.

Songs like "Mood Indigo," "Self Portrait"--my favorite song on the disc, and "Solitude." Will slip their way into your heart and change it. This is the musical equivalent of a cool stream. Its current never fails to bear me away through landscapes of imagination. I can see why Thomas Merton sometimes meditated to Ellington...

On the other hand, you have some really spirited, less meditative stuff here too. Tunes like "Limbo Jazz" and "The Jeep Is Jumpin'" show off Duke and Hawk's ability to jam. There is not a weak track on this disc!

Music this wonderful and varied never fails to make me marvel at the creativity of the Lord of the Dance...

As Psalm ninety-six says: "Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; Let the sea roar, and all it contains Let the field exult, and all that is in it. Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy" (v. 11-12).

So it is here. I give this wonderful disc a hearty recommendation. Get a copy today.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Duke Elegant meets Soul Man Hawkins, April 7, 2005

By 

Todd E. Garland "Deacon Blues" (Webster Springs, WV United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ellington Meets Hawkins (Audio CD)

If music isn't universally seen as the highest art form, we still find ourselves transported by it. The most elegiaic ballad and the catchiest pop song are able to take us to different worlds, remind us of lovers, stir us up, soothe our souls, wound, heal, and all in the span of a few minutes. And so we find ourselves reaching for image and metaphor to describe, if not explain, just what great music does to us, for us, with us.

And this is great music. All the songs are Ellington compositions, so you're already benefiting from one of the most important American composers of the 20th century. What makes this album so great, though, is the band . . .

This small combo is a band with which Ellington was very comfortable. Hawkins seamlessly weaves in his playing, although he had never before sat in with these gentlemen. The styles of playing differ in texture among these fine players, but the performances fit, rely on each other, ultimately elevate one another, because this handful of artists share a vision stemming from their pure love of music.

These are musicians and composers of such talent that their playing never seems or sounds like solo performances. I think they were all working together on the same painting, or nine separate paintings to be more precise, well eleven actually since we know sadly that there were two lost performances. But painting they were, all together on the same work. And they come up with a masterpiece of skill, soul, heart, and mind.

This is intelligent jazz, but you don't have to think about it to enjoy it. This is soulful music, but not melancholy.

When my daughter's husband, Jules, gave me this album for Christmas I eagerly anticipated hearing and enjoying two musicians I love and respect play together. During my first listenings I wanted to hear more Ellington. I realized after a while that his notes are perfectly placed to accent, accentuate and encourage. He's the consumate leader and fan at the same time.

At times I've listened to this album several times in a row. It sounds different every time, because the playing is so alive it changes within the listener's ears.

I told Jules that this one album could teach me everything there is to know about jazz. Maybe that's a slight over-statetment. Maybe. But only slightly.