Coleman Hawkins - Night Hawk

Released - 1961

Genre - Jazz

Producer - Esmond Edwards

Selected Personnel - Coleman Hawkins (Tenor Saxophone); Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis (Tenor Saxophone); Tommy Flanagan (Piano); Ron Carter (Bass); Gus Johnson (Drums)
Standout Track - Night Hawk

For me, the point of this little blog is to write about some of the records that are most personal to me, that have most affected me or captivated or excited or moved me. A lot of those will be well-known albums that have appeared on countless "Greatest Albums" lists over the decades, but I think an important thing to keep a handle on are the records that you wouldn't find except by deliberately looking for them or by accidentally stumbling upon them - sometimes the cheap CD in the bargain bucket at the charity shop can accidentally end up meaning so much more to you than Sgt. Pepper's ever could, because for some reason it starts to feel special that you found it when there was no reason for you to do so.

So I'm keen to include records like this in here - it's an obscure thing and again, not for the first time on this list, belongs to a genre that I'm relatively ignorant about. (If you're getting tired of me trying to say things about albums I'm not fully equipped to really discourse on, just wait til we get to the 70s and I am gonna go nuclear on this). But it's a strange little piece that I've come back to again and again. I think I first discovered it in around 2008, when my obsession with rock music from the 1970s onwards was really starting to take hold and a funny little childhood voice at the back of my mind started to feel guilty for not paying an equal amount of attention to jazz music and classical music, both genres that had played a key part in my upbringing and in the music that generally surrounded me as a child. I went back home to Salisbury during a Christmas break from uni and asked my mum and step-dad for recommendations of good jazz music I should listen to, just to keep that particular musical part of my brain working. They went and dug out this, and it's felt enormously important to me ever since, as an item that kept me anchored to the music my family and I loved for many years.

One thing should be made clear - this album is by no means revelatory, or a significant departure from the traditional forms and moulds of jazz music at the time. There are the same walking bass parts and brushed drum parts, the same lightly meandering piano lines, with the twin sax lines of Coleman Hawkins and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis exploring the melodies over the top. It probably sounds not dissimilar from a vast number of jazz records released at that time and earlier, and certainly breaks no new ground for Hawkins, who by this stage was coming towards the end of his recording career, slipping ever further into alcoholism and a long way from his initial glory days as the "First President" of jazz sax, as crowned by Lester Young. But it's absolutely perfect at what it does - Hawkins's and Davis's tones are rich and assured throughout, and the rhythm section is totally confident and self-assured and allows ample room for them to play around over the top of it. It's never demanding or challenging music, it's always pleasant and effortlessly cool, and simply one of the easiest things to relax to that I own, without ever becoming languid or downbeat. Like I say, it could so easily be almost any other jazz sax-based album, but it wasn't - it was this one that my step-dad uncovered, and it was this one that helped me to keep a fixed point in my mind to remind me of how important this genre of music is, and how it can do things to you that no other music can. For that reason, though it won't appear on a great number of "Greatest Albums of All Time" lists, it appears on mine.

Track Listing:

1. Night Hawk (Coleman Hawkins)

2. There Is No Greater Love (Isham Jones & Marty Symes)

3. In a Mellow Tone (Duke Ellington & Milt Gabler)

4. Don't Take Your Love From Me (Henry Nemo)

5. Pedalin' (Ken McIntyre)