Coleman Randolph Hawkins was born in St. Joseph, Missouri on November 21, 1904 and died May 19, 1969. He began taking piano when he was five years old. Also known as "Bean" and "Hawk", he was to become a colossus of the tenor saxophone and, hence, of jazz.

Early in his career, he recorded with tenor star Sonny Rollins and played with many artists, including Eric Dolphy, Duke Ellington, Tommy Flanagan, Bud Powell and Pee Wee Russell. In 1943, he formed a sextet which included Thelonious Monk and Benny Harris. In February 1944, he led an early bebop recording session which featured Don Byas, Dizzy Gillespie and Max Roach. (He even made an appearance on Max Roach's inflammatory, We Insist! Freedom Now suite.) During 1944 and 1945, Coleman Hawkins spent most of his time on the west coast with a band that included Sir Charles Thompson and Howard McGhee.

In 1950 and 1954, he was a featured soloist on Norman Granz's Jazz At The Philharmonic (JATP) tours to Europe. He was also part of the 1957 JATP tour and the Seven Ages of Jazz tours in 1958 and 1959. He played on television (The Tonight Show, 1955 and The Sound of Jazz 1957) and recorded prolifically, beginning with a series of albums for the subsidiaries of the Prestige label in 1958, and followed by several for the Impulse label, including his only collaboration with Duke Ellington (1962).

Coleman Hawkins heard Oscar Peterson play for the first time at the Café St-Michel in Montreal and immediately wanted to take him to New York to introduce him to Roy Eldridge, Duke Ellington and others. Later, he was to travel to Europe with Oscar Peterson's trio (1968). 1

Coleman Hawkins' powerful and original style was largely responsible for the popularity of the tenor saxophone as a jazz instrument. He absorbed musical ideas from many non-saxophonists, including his fellow band members. Most important among these were the smooth melodic lines and advanced sense of swing of Louis Armstrong, and the harmonic ideas of Art Tatum. Coleman Hawkins was a brilliant musical thinker who was remarkably open to new developments in jazz as well as to "classical" influences; this was reflected in both the membership and repertory of his groups.

He played on the last JATP tour (1967) and toured with Oscar Peterson in 1968, though, by this time, he was increasingly prone to bouts of depression and drinking, exacerbated by a refusal to eat. His death from pneumonia in 1969 marked the end of an era; he was a jazz master whose lifework stretched across six decades of the history of the genre. 2

Selected Recordings

Coleman Hawkins and Roy Eldridge at the Opera House (1957, Verve 8266)
Walker; Playboy Jazz All-Stars Album (1959, Playboy 1959A)
Body and Soul: Duke Ellington Meets Coleman Hawkins (1962, Imp. 26)

Footnotes

1 Lees, Gene.   Oscar Peterson: The Will to Swing.   Rocklin, California: Prima Publishing & Communications, 1990.

2 Kernfeld, Barry.   The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz.   London: Macmillan Press Ltd, 1988.

O.P. & Friends