Coleman Hawkins Quartet - Today and Now (1962) [Jazz][mp3 320][h

Coleman Hawkins Quartet - Today and Now
Year: 1962
Label: Impulse (Master Session, 20bit remastered, 1996)
Total time: 40:00
Bitrate: 320 kbps

Coleman Hawkins - Today and Now
A very nice digital reissue of a very congenial and nicely played Coleman Hawkins Quartet release. 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. ~ Steven McDonald, AMG

Coleman Hawkins has a distinctively mellow sound, which on this disk he applies to both some gorgeous ballads (Quintessence and Don't Love Me) and some upbeat so-called "folk" songs (especially Go Lil' Liza and Swingin' Scotch). I heard Go Lil' Liza playing as background at a Briazz one day and it just captured me immediately, and thanks to Amazon I was able to track this down. There are so many incredible jazz LP recordings that were made in the period 1955-70 or so where great musicians like Hawkins would just bring some musicians into a studio (or in this case Rudy Van Gelder's living room), look over some charts, work out some arrangements rather quickly and then lay down some amazing, improvised tracks like these. The playing is flawless yet totally spontaneous. There is a sense on the one hand that the players have spent many nights on stage, but that they are approaching this music with humility, just as curious as we are how it will all turn out. The bassist on this recording has a fine time, it seems, humming along with his angular solos, which if nothing else demonstrates the fluidity and brilliance of these musicians. They were improvising, yes, but they knew exactly where they were going. This disk is nicely packaged, but nothing has been added... no alt. takes, and no new liner notes to augment Stanley Dance's original notes. No need; you get your money's worth as it is. ~ John Stodder, Amazon.com

Personnel:
Coleman Hawkins (Tenor Saxophone)
Tommy Flanagan (Piano)
Major Holley (Double Bass)
Eddie Locke (Drums)

Coleman Hawkins Quartet - Today and Now Tracks:
01 Go Li'l Liza (Traditional) 6:25
02 Quintessence (Quincy Jones) 4:46
03 Don't Love Me (Bill Katz/Pauline Rivelli/Ruth Roberts) 4:41
04 Love Song From 'Apache' (David Raksin/Johnny Mercer) 4:14
05 Put On Your Old Grey Bonnet (Stanley Murphy/Percy Wenrich) 9:52
06 Swingin' Scotch (Coleman Hawkins) 5:33
07 Don't Sit Under The Apple Tree (Lew Brown/Sam H. Stept/Charles Tobias) 4:29