Today and Now
| Today and Now | ||||
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| Coleman Hawkins studio album | ||||
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Publication |
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| Label (s) | Impulses! Records | |||
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Format (s) |
LP, CD |
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Title (number) |
7th |
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running time |
40:01 |
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| occupation | ||||
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Studio (s) |
Rudy Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs |
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Today and Now is a jazz album by Coleman Hawkins , recorded on September 9-11, 1962 at the Rudy Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs , and on Impulse! In 1963 ! Records has been released. In 1996 the album produced by Bob Thiele was re-released as a compact disc ; Michael Cuscuna was responsible as producer .
History of origin
After Coleman Hawkins only recorded one album under his own name ( The Hawk Relexes , Prestige ) in 1961, the saxophonist made a number of his own recordings the following year, including three for the young Impulse label. Hawkins played the quartet LP On Broadway for Prestige in January 1962 ; after a European tour followed in August a longer engagement at the New York club The Village Gate , where the album Hawkins! Live! At The Village Gate! ( Verve ) was recorded.
Thiele, who had worked as a producer for the Impulse label since November 1961, had called two of his “personal heroes” in 1962 in order to win them over to recordings for Impulse: Duke Ellington and Coleman Hawkins. In fact, Thiele produced a Hawkins LP with Ellington and his musicians ( Duke Ellington Meets Coleman Hawkins ) on August 18th. Thiele took advantage of the beginning bossa nova wave for the Impulse album Desafinado , which Hawkins recorded with members of his then working band and Barry Galbraith in September 1962. Hawkins played in a quartet with pianist Tommy Flanagan , bassist Major Holley and drummer Eddie Locke , who also accompanied him on his tours that year, also in September for Impulse's album Today and Now , which Coleman Hawkins later described as his favorite record . In January 1963, when the Village Gate engagement ended, Hawkins disbanded the quartet.
Track list
- Coleman Hawkins Quartet: Today and Now (Impulse A (S) -34, Impulse 11842)
- Go Li'l Liza (Traditional, arr.Hawkins) - 6:25
- Quintessence ( Quincy Jones ) - 4:46
- Don't Love Me (Bill Katz, Pauline Rivelli, Ruth Roberts) - 4:40
- Love Song from "Apache" ( Johnny Mercer , David Raksin ) - 4:14
- Put on Your Old Gray Bonnet (Stanley Murphy, Percy Wenrich ) - 9:51
- Swingin 'Scotch (Coleman Hawkins) - 5:32
- Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree (With Anyone Else but Me) (Sam H. Stept, Lew Brown, Charles Tobias) - 4:33
- Tracks 1 to 4 were recorded on September 9, 1962, tracks 5 to 7 on September 11, 1962.
Awards and reception of the album
Today and Now received the Dutch Edison Jazz Award in 1964 , and the British music magazine Gramophone wrote that same year, in contrast to many other recordings in his later years, in which he sounded either boring or overly modern and "funky", fortunately for Today and Now : “Hawkins was captured on record at a moment when both his enthusiasm and sense of identity were strongest. This is, without going too mildly, an exceptionally good LP on which Hawkins constructed solos that are built with the right amount of inevitability. He also shows this sense of light and shadow, of tonal contrasts that has characterized his playing since the 1930s. ”In the author's opinion, the three titles Quintessence, Don't Love Me and Love Song are slowly and very simply laid out; on the latter track Hawkins does little more than play the theme , "but with a richness of tone and a sense of timing , which makes the music unmistakably Hawkins'", such as in the baroque decoration of Don't Sit Under The Apple Tree , where "the most unbelievable of material is transformed into another example from the hand of the master". Hawkins "meanders delicately" through the other two titles mentioned, as well as through an extended version of Put On Your Old Gray Bonnet , which here is more like a blues reminiscent of Thelonious Monk than a fifty year old pop song. The tenor saxophonist is most impressive on the more aggressive side of his style, as heard in the faster tracks on the album, Swingin 'Scotch and (best of all) in Go Li'l Liza . The author notes that Major Holley is getting too much into Slam Stewart-style routine, especially with his hum. Tommy Flanagan, on the other hand, contributes “crisp, intelligent solos”, especially in his introduction to Put On Your Old Gray Bonnet . Eddie Locke also drums with "appreciable swing ."
Stephen McDonald rates the album with four stars at Allmusic and is of the opinion that it is a re-release of "a very likeable and beautifully played recording by the Coleman Haowns Quartet"; The album is "not the most overwhelming title in the Hawkins catalog, but at least the album has the advantage of being both audible and worth a closer look."
In Teddy Doering's opinion, the first track Go Li'l Liza describes the mood of the entire album, “happy, relaxed, swinging, and at the same time highly concentrated.” “Holley's bowed bass solos and Locke's springy drumming” would also add a lot to the mood. contribute. Swingin 'Scotch (a version of the evergreen Loch Lomond ), Apple Tree and Gray Bonnet play a similar role . Quintessence , Apache and Don't Love Me , on the other hand, are ballads , performed in Doering's opinion with the “Hawkins-typical depth of feeling and perfect accompaniment of Flanagan.” The author underlines the importance of the then 32-year-old pianist for the veteran Hawkins, for whom he Raised support and understanding when, for example in Liza, he “ tries again brief outbreaks into the avant-garde .” Hawkins had “a congenial dialogue partner” in Flanagan, wrote Doering, “while Holley was one of the most reliable and swinging bassists of those years in the mainstream area , who could also contribute original solos in the best Slam Stewart manner. "
Richard Cook and Brian Morton, who in their Penguin Guide to Jazz gave the album the highest rating as the only one in Hawkins' late work, describe it as a great record "despite the not very promising material"; Hawkins seems to love Put on Your Old Gray Bonnett and sounds “like he could play it every night.” The Love Song from “Apache” is characterized by one of the most beautiful introductions Tommy Flanagan has ever played. Overall, Hawkins' tone is not yet the typical eighth note game that makes his later recordings so annoying.
In the liner notes of the album, the critic Stanley Dance described the saxophonist's playing stance on the last four tracks with the French expression "déchaîné" (English "unchained" or "let loose", German: unleashed ):
- " He was enjoying himself and he played with anbandon thart seemed altogether effortless. Indeed, on two numbers he ignored both the clock and control room signals and soared on regardless, hence the fades . "
literature
- John Chilton : The Song of the Hawk: The Life and Recordings of Coleman Hawkins. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1993 ISBN 0-472-08201-9
- Teddy Doering: Coleman Hawkins. His life, his music, his records. Oreos, Waakirchen 2001, ISBN 3-923657-61-7
References and comments
- ↑ Chilton, p. 329
- ^ Ashley Kahn The House That Trane Built. The Story of Impulse Records . London 2006, p. 77
- ↑ a b Doering, p. 211 f.
- ↑ Illustration and information about the album at Verve Music Group
- ↑ Contemporary review in Gramophone February 1964, p. 89 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ In the original: Not always the most compelling title from the Hawkins catalog, the record at least has the virtue of both being listenable and worthy of somewhat deeper inspection.
- ^ Review of the album Today and Now on Allmusic . Retrieved October 18, 2012.
- ^ Doering, Coleman Hawkins, p. 62.
- ↑ Quoted from Cook / Morton, 686 f.
- ^ Stanley Dance, Liner Notes
