Hodge Podge: The Best of the Duke's Men, Vol. 1 [Import]

Johnny Hodges | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 27, 2000)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Definitive Spain
• ASIN: B00004U304
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,190,229 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Jeep's Blues

2. Rendezvous With Rhythm

3. Pyramid

4. Empty Ballroom Blues

5. Swingin' in the Dell

6. Jitterbug's Lullaby

7. The Jeep Is Jumpin'

8. Krum Elbow Blues

9. I'm in Another World

10. Hodge Podge

11. Dancing on the Stars

12. Wanderlust

13. Swingin' on the Campus

14. Dooji Wooji

15. Savoy Strut

16. Rent Party Blues

17. Dance of the Goon

18. Good Gal Blues

19. Finesse

20. Kitchen Mechanic's Day

See all 27 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Embarrassment of Riches, July 14, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Hodge Podge: The Best of the Duke's Men, Vol. 1 (Audio CD)

No saxophonist had a more beautiful, richly varied tone or played more elegantly than Johnny Hodges. This marvelous collection from 1938-39 features Hodges leading a small group culled from Duke Ellington's band: Cootie Williams on trumpet, Lawrence Brown on trombone, Harry Carney on baritone saxophone, Duke Ellington on piano, Billy Taylor on bass, and Sonny Greer on drums. The tunes are classic jazz, most of them composed by Ellington and Hodges. It's real gin-mill boogie-woogie stuff, with piquant harmonies and infectious melodies. Utterly irresistible! Many of the tracks feature Hodges on soprano sax, an instrument he abandoned after about 1942, and nobody, before or since, has made it sound so good. (Check out track 19, "Finesse", the loveliest saxophone ballad I've ever heard.) Since buying this disc three months ago, I've played it over 200 times and not only have I NOT tired of it, I grow more and more attached to it with each listening. This is a desert-island disc if ever there was one.

Definitive Records has remastered this album from the original 78s, so the CD has some slight surface noise but it preserves the musicians' tone color intact, unlike many remasterings by RCA and Columbia, whose excessive use of "noise reduction" technology has ruined many of their Ellington reissues.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a real tried and true classic, September 8, 2003

By 

"douglasnegley" (Pittsburgh, Pa. United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hodge Podge: The Best of the Duke's Men, Vol. 1 (Audio CD)

I have this LP, on Epic, and it is titled "Hodge Podge:Johnny Hodges and his Orchestra" (featuring Duke Ellington, Lawrence Brown, and Cootie Williams). The '38-'39 recordings are utterly classic, however there are only 16 tracks on the LP. What makes this LP so endearing to me, though, is the double-wide picture, very clear and present on the cover, of the chorus girls kickin' it up on the floor ar the Cotton Club. You can see every expression on every face, as well as some of the customers. And of course the liner notes are ever-important. I will get this CD for the many extra cuts, but I will never let go of this LP!