Coleman Hawkins Centennial Collection CD

This DVD/remastered audio CD set, released on the anniversary year of Hawkin's 100th birthday, includes extremely rare live performance footage of the Hawk in action.

This release includes a bonus DVD featuring live performance footage.
Personnel: Coleman Hawkins (saxophone); Don Redman (vocals, clarinet, alto saxophone, baritone saxophone); Eddie Condon (banjo); Pee Wee Russell (clarinet); Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Navarro (trumpet); Glenn Miller (trombone); Fletcher Henderson, Hank Jones (piano); Gene Krupa, Max Roach (drums).
The RCA Bluebird Centennial Collections are, for the money, neat packages. In addition to a single disc covering an artists' career for the label, there is also a bonus DVD with rare TV, documentary and video footage. In the case of Coleman Hawkins, the man credited with bringing the tenor saxophone into the jazz world as a solo instrument, the 20 tunes picked here reflect the fully developed voice of the soloist in 1939 on his seminal recording "Body and Soul." Hawkins is also presented here as a focal point of McKinney's Cotton Pickers on Don Redman's "Where There's a Will" from 1929, the Mound City Blue Blowers from that same year ("If I Could Be With You One Hour Tonight," and "Hello Lola"). Hawkins is also heard in the company of Fletcher Henderson and Lionel Hampton from 1934 and '39 respectively. The rest of the material comes form the 1940s when Hawkins was making records under his own name like his seminal "Angel Face," a beautiful and moving read of Harold Arlen's "I Love You," and "Bouncing With Bean," with his octet in 1940. The tunes from the '50s offer Hawkins both as a leader and as a featured soloist with Billy Byers ("The Bean Stalks Again" and "There Will Never Be Another You") and with the Henry "Red" Allen All-Stars ("Love Me or Leave Me"). Along the way are Hawkins classics such as his brilliant version of "April in Paris" recorded at Webster Hall in 1956 accompanied by Osie Johnson, Hank Jones, Urbie Green, Barry Galbraith and Arnold Fishkin with a string section. From that same session comes a quartet reading of "Body and Soul" to close the set, with Jones playing celeste in addition to piano. The DVD features five performances of Hawkins on various television programs from 1950s. Of these, his "Lover Man," from a pilot is worth the purchase price all by itself. Highly recommended. ~ Thom Jurek
There are numerous Coleman Hawkins compilations on the market, but THE CENTENNIAL COLLECTION encapsulates the span of Hawk's career (from 1929's hot- swing "Wherever There's a Will, Baby" to 1963's hard-bop duet with Sonny Rollins "Just Friends"), giving an excellent, condensed overview of the jazz legend's music. The disc represents Hawkins's stylistic blueprint for the modern use of the tenor sax, which is blazingly clear on early takes of "Hello Lola" and "Dinah." (Hawkins was arguably the first to establish a unique vocabulary and an utterly distinctive voice on the instrument.)
Moreover, Hawkins was a tirelessly imaginative player who constantly reinvented his own tunes, always searching for new ideas (he was one of the few swing players to adapt readily to bop), as one can hear on the rhythmically and harmonically advanced improvisations of 1956's "There'll Never Be Another You." Hawk is justifiably loved for his ballad playing, and THE CENTENNIAL COLLECTION includes stellar examples, particularly 1934's tone-perfect "Hocus Pocus" and his undisputed masterpiece--the '39 recording of "Body and Soul." Hearing the balance, beauty, and intensity of this tune is worth the price of admission alone. Fortunately, there are 19 other fine tracks, and a bonus DVD of archival footage to boot.