I've been listening to a lot of Coleman Hawkins lately. When I first got into jazz in high school, it was Duke Ellington, there was just something about him. While he's easily most known as a "swing" or "big band" composer and bandleader, there's something so SMOOTH about Duke Ellington. So smooth, in fact, that even a 16-year old kid could "get" it, not to mention the same kid almost 20 years later. Lots of range in there, you know what I mean? I think it's part of what made him so successful in his day, there was enough range in his music for the dummies and the snobs alike.
But I wasn't really into "swing" music that much, especially when that weird fad hit in the 90's and people were actually wearing zoot suits and taking swing dance lessons? Remember that? Yes you do. You probably bought that Brian Setzer Orchestra album didn't you? DIDN'T YOU? Anyway, by then I was living with The Piemaker and had been exposed to what I still think of as the apogee of American jazz, the period between 1950 and 1970, including the best of Coltrane, Davis, Mingus, etc. To a 20-something, swing music lacked the sort of raw spirituality, the passion, the searching quality of more "out" jazz.
But man--there's something to be said for smoothness, even so. John Coltrane was an extraordinary musician, moreso an extraordinary composer and soloist. But the early guys, new as their artform was, had an impossibly perfect technique; they were the Bachs and Beethovens of the early 20th century--and remember that in a very real sense they just made jazz up. Bach and Beethoven had hundreds of years of development preceding them to take advantage of; Fats Waller and Art Tatum and Duke Ellington likely had living relatives who had been slaves.
Slaves! Crazy.
Anyway, check out my man Coleman "Bean" Hawkins, playing the standard "Body and Soul." If you're not into jazz necessarily, just pay attention to his breathing, how much air he puts into each note. Pretty amazing.
Oh yeah I almost forgot to mention, I put some more sketchook pages up in my Flickr set collecting my entire last sketchbook.
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I've been listening to a lot of Coleman Hawkins lately. When I first got into jazz in high school, it was Duke Ellington, there was just something about him. While he's easily most known as a "swing" or "big band" composer and bandleader, there's something so SMOOTH about Duke Ellington. So smooth, in fact, that even a 16-year old kid could "get" it, not to mention the same kid almost 20 years later. Lots of range in there, you know what I mean? I think it's part of what made him so successful in his day, there was enough range in his music for the dummies and the snobs alike.
But I wasn't really into "swing" music that much, especially when that weird fad hit in the 90's and people were actually wearing zoot suits and taking swing dance lessons? Remember that? Yes you do. You probably bought that Brian Setzer Orchestra album didn't you? DIDN'T YOU? Anyway, by then I was living with The Piemaker and had been exposed to what I still think of as the apogee of American jazz, the period between 1950 and 1970, including the best of Coltrane, Davis, Mingus, etc. To a 20-something, swing music lacked the sort of raw spirituality, the passion, the searching quality of more "out" jazz.
But man--there's something to be said for smoothness, even so. John Coltrane was an extraordinary musician, moreso an extraordinary composer and soloist. But the early guys, new as their artform was, had an impossibly perfect technique; they were the Bachs and Beethovens of the early 20th century--and remember that in a very real sense they just made jazz up. Bach and Beethoven had hundreds of years of development preceding them to take advantage of; Fats Waller and Art Tatum and Duke Ellington likely had living relatives who had been slaves.
Slaves! Crazy.
Anyway, check out my man Coleman "Bean" Hawkins, playing the standard "Body and Soul." If you're not into jazz necessarily, just pay attention to his breathing, how much air he puts into each note. Pretty amazing.
Oh yeah I almost forgot to mention, I put some more sketchook pages up in my Flickr set collecting my entire last sketchbook.
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