Hawk - complete 1962 studio recordings (Fresh Sound)

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

CD Universe sent me an e-mail to say this was coming out in a few days.

Well, it's been out since February over here, but I didn't know, so, thanks CD Universe but I won't buy it from you

Four albums and I haven't got any of them. 3 are Moodsville albums:

Good old Broadway - MV23

No strings - MV25

Make someone happy - MV31

Today and now is an Impulse job, which I used to have and enjoyed before financial pressure hit

'Good old Broadway' and 'Make someone happy' were issued (with a couple of tracks from 'No strings') on 'On Broadway' (PR24189 - which I've had in my wish list for a few years ) but I think the rest of 'No strings' has remained unissued on CD (surely not?). So, as I love Hawk's Prestige material, this is a worthwhile reissue, as far as I'm concerned. Everything comes to he who waits - but then you've got to carpe diem!

MG

So, when I went to order it, found it's not coming out here until 15 April. Oh well, I'll carpe diem later, then

[king ubu]

Hm, to be honest I find "On Broadway" one of the weakest of the many Prestige releases from those years ... as I have it and "Today and Now", I will certainly not downgrade by going Fresh Sound anyway.

[sonnymax]

One is left wondering which transfers Jordi chose to steal, um...borrow. Everything has been remastered and available before, except for the two tracks from No Strings that didn't appear on the reissues On Broadway and In A Mellow Tone. No matter, I'll just bide my time until a peer "borrows" from Jordi and shares it with the rest of us in the public domain.

[Larry Kart]

Just listened to "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" from "Good Old Broadway." Far more than a mere reading of that tune IMO, though Hawkins only plays on the in and out choruses. Check out the stern, stiffening rhythmic gestures during the second eight bars of the first chorus. Leonine, magnificent. Monk would have dug it, I think; there was some kinship between Hawkins approach to this material and Monk's to standards on his solo recordings of this period, not in terms of influence but of affinities.

[jazztrain]

Larry,

To go off on a slight tangent, the comment about Monk's approach to standards brings to mind one of my favorite late Hawkins recordings (Sirius, on Pablo), on which Hawkins has a version of "Just A Gigolo" that never fails to move me. It has a world weary, "been there, done that" sense about it. Hawkins also recorded it in 1961 on "The Hawk Relaxes" shortly before the period covered by the reissue that is the subject of this thread. Monk was clearly fond of the tune, having recorded it as early as 1954 and playing or recording the tune numerous times thereafter (including a solo version).

Come to think of it, many of the tunes on "Sirius" were also recorded by Monk, including two others in solo versions ("Don't Blame Me" and "Sweet and Lovely"). Hawkins and Monk clearly admired one another and had a certain compatibility (think of their version of "Ruby My Dear") or "affinity" in approach as you mention.

[Larry Kart]

Larry,

To go off on a slight tangent, the comment about Monk's approach to standards brings to mind one of my favorite late Hawkins recordings (Sirius, on Pablo), on which Hawkins has a version of "Just A Gigolo" that never fails to move me. It has a world weary, "been there, done that" sense about it. Hawkins also recorded it in 1961 on "The Hawk Relaxes" shortly before the period covered by the reissue that is the subject of this thread. Monk was clearly fond of the tune, having recorded it as early as 1954 and playing or recording the tune numerous times thereafter (including a solo version).

Come to think of it, many of the tunes on "Sirius" were also recorded by Monk, including two others in solo versions ("Don't Blame Me" and "Sweet and Lovely"). Hawkins and Monk clearly admired one another and had a certain compatibility (think of their version of "Ruby My Dear") or "affinity" in approach as you mention.

Pretty sure I have "The Hawk Relaxes" and will check out that track. BTW, my memory of the album, corroborated IIRC by Dan Morgenstern, is that the young (age 21) Andrew Cyrille almost sabotaged the date, much to Hawkins' annoyance, by playing in a ricky-tick, hotel band manner, as though he thought that was what an "old guy" playing standards required. OTOH, in his bio of Hawkins, John Chilton writes: "...the unconventional punctuations from Cyrille preclude any displays of lethargy."

[JSngry]

Check out the Jaws/Hawk date, "In A Mellotone" especially. The feel HAS to change between Lock & Hawk, no way for it NOT to. A changed feel doesn't mean a lesser feel, but it sure as hell means a transition.

And that's Gus Johnson!.

So I'd not blame Cyrille for doing what he thought needed to be done. Hawk was not one of those guys who came to the time, if you know what I mean. The time came to HIM, and if you think that's no small feat, try to make time your bitch time your own self, and good luck with that. Not even Hawk could keep it up forever, but hey...

[Larry Kart]

Check out the Jaws/Hawk date, "In A Mellotone" especially. The feel HAS to change between Lock & Hawk, no way for it NOT to. A changed feel doesn't mean a lesser feel, but it sure as hell means a transition.

And that's Gus Johnson!.

So I'd not blame Cyrille for doing what he thought needed to be done. Hawk was not one of those guys who came to the time, if you know what I mean. The time came to HIM, and if you think that's no small feat, try to make time your bitch time your own self, and good luck with that. Not even Hawk could keep it up forever, but hey...

Yes, but if I'm recalling correctly what Dan said, Cyrille came into that date with a dismissive attitude. If so, it was not a matter of what he thought needed to be done musically but what he felt like doing socially -- i.e. demonstrate his indifference to/separate himself from these old farts and their musical ways by playing in a rather corny, near two-beat manner. Again, I'd have to listen again to be sure I'm not exaggerating, but I do recall thinking at the time something like "What the heck does he think he's doing?"

P.S. This was 1962, and perhaps Cyrille (he was only 21) thought that if wasn't Trane or the like, it was a moldy fig thing.

[mjzee]

Check out the Jaws/Hawk date, "In A Mellotone" especially. The feel HAS to change between Lock & Hawk, no way for it NOT to. A changed feel doesn't mean a lesser feel, but it sure as hell means a transition.

And that's Gus Johnson!.

So I'd not blame Cyrille for doing what he thought needed to be done. Hawk was not one of those guys who came to the time, if you know what I mean. The time came to HIM, and if you think that's no small feat, try to make time your bitch time your own self, and good luck with that. Not even Hawk could keep it up forever, but hey...

Yes, but if I'm recalling correctly what Dan said, Cyrille came into that date with a dismissive attitude. If so, it was not a matter of what he thought needed to be done musically but what he felt like doing socially -- i.e. demonstrate his indifference to/separate himself from these old farts and their musical ways by playing in a rather corny, near two-beat manner. Again, I'd have to listen again to be sure I'm not exaggerating, but I do recall thinking at the time something like "What the heck does he think he's doing?"

P.S. This was 1962, and perhaps Cyrille (he was only 21) thought that if wasn't Trane or the like, it was a moldy fig thing.

Somebody should ask him.

[JSngry]

But Cyrille came out of the Mary Lou Williams gig, right?

So either he was misinterpreted or else she rurnt him for any of all that, ya' know?

I think of Sonny in "kill your father" mode (to use Paul Bley's phrase) on the RCA date, and...that's some deep stuff, that Sonny & Hawk would almost literally "go to war" like that, a war based in love, not hate. I think of Pres getting some literal abuse heaped on him for not playing like Hawk, and how Pres wasn't trying to kill anybody, but people felt threatened, including motor-burning-up Hawk. I think of how Hawk would just refuse to be beaten by anybody but himself on his own terms. What kind of a guy was this, anyway, this guy who refused to be beaten and never refused you the chance to try?

No easy answers there, but I have to conclude that Coleman Hawkins was not - and still isn't - any trifling matter, musically or otherwise (otherwise being perhaps even the more important). Music comes and goes, but a serious motherfucker - that serious of a motherfucker - that needs to be thought about, and no, don't expect easy answers, because there are none, at least that are worth a damn over the long haul.

[Larry Kart]

But Cyrille came out of the Mary Lou Williams gig, right?

So either he was misinterpreted or else she rurnt him for any of all that, ya' know?

I think of Sonny in "kill your father" mode (to use Paul Bley's phrase) on the RCA date, and...that's some deep stuff, that Sonny & Hawk would almost literally "go to war" like that, a war based in love, not hate. I think of Pres getting some literal abuse heaped on him for not playing like Hawk, and how Pres wasn't trying to kill anybody, but people felt threatened, including motor-burning-up Hawk. I think of how Hawk would just refuse to be beaten by anybody but himself on his own terms. What kind of a guy was this, anyway, this guy who refused to be beaten and never refused you the chance to try?

No easy answers there, but I have to conclude that Coleman Hawkins was not - and still isn't - any trifling matter, musically or otherwise (otherwise being perhaps even the more important). Music comes and goes, but a serious motherfucker - that serious of a motherfucker - that needs to be thought about, and no, don't expect easy answers, because there are none, at least that are worth a damn over the long haul.

You're saying Cyrille gigged with Williams before that Hawkins recording date, which I believe was Cyrille's first? His bio says that his previous professional experience was backing singer Nellie Lutcher, and that he had met and then played with Cecil Taylor in 1958.

[JSngry]

Not sure of the exact chronology, but Cyrille definitely worked with Mary Lou early in his career. That much can be gathered from various liner notes, and liner notes never lie, right?

And even if they do, here's AMG, which is even more reliable than bad liner notes!

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/andrew-cyrille-mn0000752246

Cyrille began playing drums in a drum and bugle corps at the age of 11. At 15, he played in a trio with guitarist Eric Gale . For a period in his teens, Cyrille studied chemistry before enrolling in Juilliard School of Music in 1958. In the late '50s and early '60s, he worked with such mainstream jazzers as Mary Lou Williams, Roland Hanna, Roland Kirk, Coleman Hawkins, and Junior Mance[.

All I can tell you "for sure" though is that Cyrille playing with Mary Lou Williams before hitting it with Cecil is what has passed for "common knowledge" in my world, such as any of that may be. How that relates to Hawk in 1961 (not 1962), though, hey, I could be wrong. But between drum & bugle corps, Eric Gale, chemistry, and Julliard, I still say you can't fault a man for trying, especially a drummer. A drummer that doesn't try is no drummer at all in my book.

That, and that he - the apparently always trying (in some form or fashion) - Andrew Cyrille - totally kicks ass on Hot Line, which has no bearing on this matter whatsoever. But still.

[Larry Kart]

Well, the proof (up to a point and/or in a sense) is in the listening, and I haven't yet had a chance to re-listen to "The Hawk Relaxes." OTOH, I don't care that much one way or another about this, was just mentioning what I recall myself and recall being told about that date. Speaking of Hawkins of that period, though, do you know the stuff he played at the Playboy Jazz Festival in 1959, with IIRC Eddie Higgins, Bob Cranshaw, and Walter Perkins. Good God!

http://www.amazon.com/COLEMAN-HAWKINS-QUARTET-CHICAGO-BLOWIN/dp/B00154KX48

[JSngry]

Yeah, Hawk was fierce, yet always logical. Not unlike Roscoe Mitchell, if that makes sense.

[Larry Kart]

Yeah, Hawk was fierce, yet always logical. Not unlike Roscoe Mitchell, if that makes sense.

Yes, like Roscoe -- absolutely.

[jeffcrom]

Pretty sure I have "The Hawk Relaxes" and will check out that track. BTW, my memory of the album, corroborated IIRC by Dan Morgenstern, is that the young (age 21) Andrew Cyrille almost sabotaged the date, much to Hawkins' annoyance, by playing in a ricky-tick, hotel band manner, as though he thought that was what an "old guy" playing standards required. OTOH, in his bio of Hawkins, John Chilton writes: "...the unconventional punctuations from Cyrille preclude any displays of lethargy."

I'm just finishing up a spin of The Hawk Relaxes. I don't hear what Cyrille is doing as "ricky-tick, hotel band manner" at all. Rather, Chilton is on the right track - Cyrille sounds young and rambunctious - a little too ready with the fills on ballads; a little too ready to go into double time, but not consciously old-fashioned . "I'll Never Be the Same" contains his most idiosyncratic fills.

I like music where every element is "right," but I also like music where one or more players are somewhat subversive and give the music a little "goose."

[jlhoots]

The High & Mighty Hawk is still one of my all time favorites.

[paul secor]

Pretty sure I have "The Hawk Relaxes" and will check out that track. BTW, my memory of the album, corroborated IIRC by Dan Morgenstern, is that the young (age 21) Andrew Cyrille almost sabotaged the date, much to Hawkins' annoyance, by playing in a ricky-tick, hotel band manner, as though he thought that was what an "old guy" playing standards required. OTOH, in his bio of Hawkins, John Chilton writes: "...the unconventional punctuations from Cyrille preclude any displays of lethargy."

I'm just finishing up a spin of The Hawk Relaxes. I don't hear what Cyrille is doing as "ricky-tick, hotel band manner" at all. Rather, Chilton is on the right track - Cyrille sounds young and rambunctious - a little too ready with the fills on ballads; a little too ready to go into double time, but not consciously old-fashioned . "I'll Never Be the Same" contains his most idiosyncratic fills.

I like music where every element is "right," but I also like music where one or more players are somewhat subversive and give the music a little "goose."

I'm with Jeff on this one. Sounds to me like Hawk was particularly inspired, Burrell and Bright are playing suportive roles, and a young drummer was trying to goose things up a little. To say that he "almost sabotaged the date" is over the top, at least to my ears.

[Chuck Nessa]

Me too. Dan missed this one.

[Larry Kart]

OK, I finally listened again, and while I don't hear it quite as I did back when, and, yes, that "Just a Gigolo" is wonderful, Cyrille does sound relatively ricky-tick and/or stiff to me on "I'll Never Be the Same" and "Under a Blanket of Blue. On the latter in particular, there's just no reason I can see for him to open and close his hi-hat that often and that regularly at that tempo.

[sgcim]

I bought the "Moodsville" Hawk w/ Eddie Costa and Thad Jones on vinyl years ago, and the sound was so bad, I never listened to it again.

Just recently I heard the CD of this 1960 date, and couldn't believe how great it was!

The contrast of Thad and Hawk was fascinating, and hearing EC with Hawk was better than hearing Monk with Hawk. EC's comping for Hawk sounded so spontaneous AND matched to what Hawk was playing, that you felt like they did a vulcan mind-meld!

They even got another pianist to comp for EC when he played only vibes.

[Larry Kart]

I bought the "Moodsville" Hawk w/ Eddie Costa and Thad Jones on vinyl years ago, and the sound was so bad, I never listened to it again.

Just recently I heard the CD of this 1960 date, and couldn't believe how great it was!

The contrast of Thad and Hawk was fascinating, and hearing EC with Hawk was better than hearing Monk with Hawk. EC's comping for Hawk sounded so spontaneous AND matched to what Hawk was playing, that you felt like they did a vulcan mind-meld!

They even got another pianist to comp for EC when he played only vibes.

Many thanks for the reminder sgcim. I have both those old Crown LPs and as fine as they are haven't listened to them much over the years because the sound was so bad (and on top of that my copies also were in nasty shape). Just ordered the CD and now I'll really get to hear this music.

[sgcim]

Just aim your mind at EC's response to Hawk's melodic genius, and you'll be zoned for hours!

I should thank you also for turning me on to Eddie Higgins, and I look forward to hearing his interactions with Hawk.

Both EC and EH epitomize EC's only printed verbal quote, "GOOD JAZZ MUST SWING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Hawk seemed to seek out accompanists like them- Hank Jones, etc...

Both Hawk and Clark Terry showed up at EC's Memorial Concert.

Edited April 7, 2013 by sgcim

[J.A.W.]

I bought the "Moodsville" Hawk w/ Eddie Costa and Thad Jones on vinyl years ago, and the sound was so bad, I never listened to it again.

Just recently I heard the CD of this 1960 date, and couldn't believe how great it was!

The contrast of Thad and Hawk was fascinating, and hearing EC with Hawk was better than hearing Monk with Hawk. EC's comping for Hawk sounded so spontaneous AND matched to what Hawk was playing, that you felt like they did a vulcan mind-meld!

They even got another pianist to comp for EC when he played only vibes.

Many thanks for the reminder sgcim. I have both those old Crown LPs and as fine as they are haven't listened to them much over the years because the sound was so bad (and on top of that my copies also were in nasty shape). Just ordered the CD and now I'll really get to hear this music.Which CD did you order, the Fresh Sound with both Crown albums or the Ace (UK) disc (or was it Boplicity)?

[Larry Kart]

I bought the "Moodsville" Hawk w/ Eddie Costa and Thad Jones on vinyl years ago, and the sound was so bad, I never listened to it again.

Just recently I heard the CD of this 1960 date, and couldn't believe how great it was!

The contrast of Thad and Hawk was fascinating, and hearing EC with Hawk was better than hearing Monk with Hawk. EC's comping for Hawk sounded so spontaneous AND matched to what Hawk was playing, that you felt like they did a vulcan mind-meld!

They even got another pianist to comp for EC when he played only vibes.

Many thanks for the reminder sgcim. I have both those old Crown LPs and as fine as they are haven't listened to them much over the years because the sound was so bad (and on top of that my copies also were in nasty shape). Just ordered the CD and now I'll really get to hear this music. Which CD did you order, the Fresh Sound with both Crown albums or the Ace (UK) disc (or was it Boplicity)?

The Fresh Sound, he said guiltily.