Coleman Hawkins Quartet: Today and Now, 1962

In his fan-club website, Swedish pianist Jan Lundgren recently reviewed one of Coleman Hawkins's late-career albums, the often underappreciated Today and Now (go here, then check out the 26 April 2016 entry). Says Lundgren, "It's a classic jazz recording which must surely rank as one of the best-sounding albums ever made. Today and Now is perhaps not the most obvious choice for many of Hawkins' fans, but it's definitely one of my all-time favorites. Everything on this disc sounds wonderfully good, and I wonder if I've ever heard a better sax sound on record. . . The music is generally on the soft side, which makes it the ideal record to sit back and relax to." Lundgren is definitely right on all counts: the sound of this album is crisp and clear, the song choices favor a slower, more relaxing mood over uptempo swingers, and yet, the record remains one of the least discussed and remembered in Hawkins's discography. By the time he cut these seven tracks at the Rudy Van Gelder studio in 1962, the Hawk had long been regarded as a jazz legend, one of the leaders of the stylistic transition from swing to bop, and was revered by anyone who ever picked up a saxophone. He was also pushing sixty, had developed a drinking problem, and the quality of his recorded output had become rather erratic. No matter, though—when he was in good form, Hawkins could still make the magic happen, particularly in a small-group setting. And on these two sessions, the Hawk sounds relaxed, engaged, and in complete command of the instrument.

Today and Now is one of Hawkins's three albums for Impulse (the other two are Desafinado and Wrapped Tight) and it was recorded over the course of two sessions in Englewood Cliffs, NJ, on September 9 and 11, 1962. These two dates find Hawkins on tenor saxophone in the company of Tommy Flanagan on piano, Major Holley on bass, and Eddie Locke on drums. It's an excellent quartet, but from the beginning it becomes clear that Hawkins is the main attraction. The repertoire is rather unusual, with a few swinging tracks thrown in among the ballads. The opener, the traditional tune "Go Lil' Liza," is a good excuse for Hawkins to improvise on the agreeable melody, with a couple of solos from Holley (played arco) and Flanagan, who is always classy and engaging. "Swingin' Scotch" is basically a series of variations on the Scottish air "Loch Lomond," and the old evergreen "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree" is taken at a pleasing light tempo by the quartet. In the Hawk's hands, the old-timer "Put On Your Old Grey Bonnet" becomes a soulful, bluesy affair, and the three remaining tracks (the ballads "Quintessence," "Don't Love Me," and "Love Song from Apache") are definitely the highlights of the album, even if "Apache" may seem like an unlikely choice at first. On all three, but particularly on Quincy Jones's "Quintessence" and the little-known "Don't Love Me," Hawkins sounds relaxed and introspective, with a breathiness of tone that is perfectly suited to the tunes. As on the rest of the album, the accompaniment by Flanagan, Holley, and Locke is superb. As Lundgren rightly points out, this album is a good choice for relaxation, and its overall high quality, I would add, makes it deserving of more praise and critical attention.

The Voice of Johnny Hartman, 1963

As wonderful as the 1963 album John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman is (undoubtedly one of the all-time classic jazz vocal albums) my introduction to the unique sound of Johnny Hartman's voice came via another record, one he cut for Impulse two years later, in 1965—The Voice That Is! As soon as I heard it, I was hooked, and I only discovered Hartman's timeless collaboration with Trane a little later and was similarly awestruck. Hartman was essentially a jazz-inflected pop singer, a stylistic heir to Billy Eckstine by way of Frank Sinatra, to whom the title of The Voice That Is unequivocally alludes. The smooth, deep voice reminds us of Mr. B., while his way with a ballad is clearly influenced by the young Mr. S. Indeed, until he cut his celebrated LP with John Coltrane, Hartman had been trying to make it primarily as a balladeer, straddling the fence between jazz and pop, as we can hear on his excellent (and quite underrated) debut album, Songs from the Heart (Bethlehem, 1955), with Ralph Sharon on piano and Howard McGhee on trumpet. Before that, he had worked with Earl Hines and Dizzy Gillespie, and up until signing with Impulse in the early 1960s, he had made records with strings and with the likes of Erroll Garner and Perez Prado. But then he co-led that famous session with Coltrane, and everything changed for him: all of a sudden, Hartman's star began to rise, but he was seen primarily as a jazzman now, not a pop singer, which opened many doors for him, but at the same time closed some others. There were many venues that began booking him as a jazz vocalist, but that left him out of other venues that wouldn't get anywhere near a singer associated with jazz.

Fortunately, the success of John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman prompted Impulse to record Hartman more extensively, and The Voice That Is, cut at Rudy Van Gelder's studio in September 1964, is actually his third outing for the label. The LP was the product of two different sessions, both produced by Bob Thiele. The first one took place on September 22 and finds Hartman accompanied by Hank Jones on piano, Barry Galbraith on guitar, Richard Davis on bass, and Osie Johnson on drums. The setting here is rather similar to what we can hear on his previous album, I Just Dropped By to Say Hello, and the songs are mostly intimate ballads ("My Ship," "These Foolish Things," "It Never Entered My Mind") that Hartman handles with ease and elegance. There's a mid-tempo number, "The More I See You," that proves Hartman can swing when he wants to, and a lovely version of Bill Evans's "Waltz for Debby" (Gene Lees's beautiful lyrics sound tailor-made for Hartman) that is one of the highlights of the album and makes me wish that the vocalist had done an LP with Evans, like Tony Bennett and Monica Zetterlund did. The same quartet appears again on the second session, held on September 24, except for the fact that Bob Hammer, who handles the arrangements as well, replaces Hank Jones on piano. Also, the lineup is augmented with Dick Hafer on reeds, Phil Kraus on marimba, Howard Collins on guitar, and Willie Rodriguez on percussion, and so the rhythms become more unusually exotic, as on the catchy "The Day the World Stopped Turning," which features a beautiful flute solo by Hafer, and Henry Mancini's lesser-known "A Slow Hot Wind," whose very charming melody is subtly punctuated by Kraus's marimba. On this session Hartman took a stab at more contemporary songs, such as Ennio Morricone's "Funny World," Bart Howard's "Let Me Love You," and "Sunrise, Sunset," from Fiddler on the Roof, which closes the album. Frank Loesser's "Joey. Joey, Joey" is another good example of a tune that doesn't usually turn up on vocal jazz albums (Sammy Davis, Jr. did it as a duet with Brazilian guitarist Laurindo Almeida, for instance) but then The Voice That Is simply isn't a typical vocal jazz record. Hartman made a few more recordings in the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, before his passing in 1983, including some excellent Coltrane-inspired sessions in Japan, yet he sadly never achieved the kind of recognition that his talent should have warranted. Luckily, we still have his albums, and The Voice That Is remains one of his freshest and most satisfying efforts.

Recommended Reading

The only book-length biography of Johnny Hartman currently available is Gregg Akkerman's excellent The Last Balladeer: The Johnny Hartman Story (Scarecrow Press, 2012). You may find it here.

Johnny Hartman Online Discography

Mr. Akkerman and my friend Noal Cohen collaborated on a very thorough Johnny Hartman discography, which you may find here.

Jutta Hipp and Zoot Sims, 1956

German pianist Jutta Hipp met versatile saxophonist Zoot Sims sometime in the 1950s in Germany, precisely during a European tour of the Stan Kenton band, of which Sims was a member at the time. Born in Leipzig in 1925, Hipp had been playing in her native country and recording only occasionally since the end of WWII. That is, until she met Sims and critic Leonard Feather, who persuaded her to move to New York City. Upon her arrival stateside in 1955, she encountered harsh criticism from both jazz fans and critics who believed that her playing style was too close to that of Lennie Tristano and, particularly, that of Horace Silver. But by 1956, when she appeared at the Newport Jazz Festival and cut this impressive session with Sims at Rudy Van Gelder's New Jersey studio, she seems to have set out to prove her critics wrong.

Zoot and Jutta

Indeed, on Jutta Hipp with Zoot Sims, released on Blue Note in 1956, Hipp stays away from the influence of Tristano and Silver, and her sound is full of swing on uptempo numbers ("Wee Dot," "Almost Like Being in Love," "Too Close for Comfort") and of restrained melancholy on "Violets for Your Furs," the only ballad of the session. The group is rounded out by Jerry Lloyd on trumpet, Ahmed Abdul-Malik on bass, and Ed Thigpen on drums, and this quintet setting is perfect to showcase Hipp's delicate playing. Lloyd provides an original composition ("Down Home") and Sims another one ("Just Blues"), and even though Sims's tenor saxophone is accorded more space than Hipp's piano, it is Hipp that creates the wistful, easy-going atmosphere that makes this album a winner. The 2008 CD reissue adds two tracks from the session that never made it onto the original LP ("These Foolish Things" and "'S Wonderful"), thus offering everything that Hipp and Sims recorded together. Hipp, who was also a talented painter, would inexplicably retire from the New York jazz scene shortly after leading this session, and this very recommendable quintet album is definitely the highlight of her meager, though very interesting, discography. Anyone who enjoys her collaboration with Sims should definitely look up her live cuts At the Hickory House (Blue Note, two volumes), as well as the recordings she made in Germany before moving to the U.S., which can be found on Frankfurt Special (Fresh Sound) and Lost Tapes: The German Recordings 1952-1955 (Jazzhaus).

Little Johnny C.: Johnny Coles on Blue Note, 1962

Though he was an extremely exciting and versatile player, Johnny Coles remains one of the most underappreciated trumpeters in jazz history. This is possibly because, although he participated in numerous sessions as a sideman, he cut very few albums as a leader, much preferring to enhance the records of others with his beautiful playing. Born in Trenton, NJ, in 1926, Coles began his career working in a rhythm and blues setting with the likes of Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, Bull Moose Jackson, Earl Bostic, and Gene Ammons, which surely goes a long way toward explaining his cool, bluesy approach to playing both the trumpet and the flugelhorn. Over the years he would work alongside giants such as Gil Evans, Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington, and Ray Charles, to name just a few, always managing to stand out due to his highly personal style but hardly ever getting the chance to lead his own sessions. His first album as a leader was 1961's The Warm Sound, and in 1962 he cut his only—and arguably best—record for Blue Note, Little Johnny C. By this time he'd been performing and making records with arranger Gil Evans and had come into contact with pianist Duke Pearson, who was instrumental in putting together the Blue Note dates and who contributed five of the six songs in the album.

The LP was recorded over the course of two sessions held at Rudy Van Gelder's studio in July and August 1962 and finds Coles in a sextet setting along with Pearson (piano), Leo Wright (alto sax and flute), Joe Henderson (tenor sax), Bob Cranshaw (bass), and Walter Perkins (drums). Drummer Pete LaRoca replaces Perkins in the August session. The three tracks on the first side of the album were cut at the July date, and they all derive from the blues idiom, particularly "Little Johnny C." and "Jano," both written by Pearson. "Hobo Joe," written by Henderson, also has a blues structure but adds a very engaging Latin beat. Pearson contributed all the compositions recorded at the August date (as well as the very interesting liner notes for the album, by the way), and these include "My Sweet Passion," a sort of waltz that fits Coles's sensitive playing perfectly and that features a nice flute solo from Wright, and "Heavy Legs," an uptempo tune that is one of the highlights. The album closes with "So Sweet My Little Girl," a ballad that Pearson apparently wrote for his daughter and that showcases Coles's cool approach to slow numbers. After this magnificent, though sadly forgotten, outing, Coles would only record one more album under his name and would retire from playing professionally in 1989, about 8 years before his death, which occurred in December 1997 in Philadelphia.