| Hawkins! Eldridge! Hodges! Alive! At the Village Gate! | ||||
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| Live album by Coleman Hawkins, Roy Eldridge, Johnny Hodges | ||||
| Released | 1962 | |||
| Recorded | August 13 and 15, 1962 | |||
| Venue | Village Gate, NYC | |||
| Genre | Jazz | |||
| Length | 72:50 | |||
| Label | Verve V/V6 8504 | |||
| Producer | Creed Taylor | |||
| Coleman Hawkins chronology | ||||
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Hawkins! Eldridge! Hodges! Alive! At the Village Gate! is a live album by saxophonists Coleman Hawkins and Johnny Hodges with trumpeter Roy Eldridge which was recorded at the Village Gate in 1962 and released on the Verve label. [1] [2]
Coleman Randolph Hawkins, nicknamed "Hawk" and sometimes "Bean", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. One of the first prominent jazz musicians on his instrument, as Joachim E. Berendt explained: "there were some tenor players before him, but the instrument was not an acknowledged jazz horn". Hawkins biographer John Chilton described the prevalent styles of tenor saxophone solos prior to Hawkins as "mooing" and "rubbery belches." Hawkins cited as influences Happy Caldwell, Stump Evans, and Prince Robinson, although he was the first to tailor his method of improvisation to the saxophone rather than imitate the techniques of the clarinet. Hawkins' virtuosic, arpeggiated approach to improvisation, with his characteristic rich, emotional, loud, and vibrato-laden tonal style, was the main influence on a generation of tenor players that included Chu Berry, Charlie Barnet, Tex Beneke, Ben Webster, Vido Musso, Herschel Evans, Buddy Tate, and Don Byas, and through them the later tenormen, Arnett Cobb, Illinois Jacquet, Flip Phillips, Ike Quebec, Al Sears, Paul Gonsalves, and Lucky Thompson. While Hawkins became well known with swing music during the big band era, he had a role in the development of bebop in the 1940s.
John Cornelius Hodges was an American alto saxophonist, best known for solo work with Duke Ellington's big band. He played lead alto in the saxophone section for many years, except the period between 1932 and 1946 when Otto Hardwick generally played first chair. Hodges was also featured on soprano saxophone, but refused to play soprano after 1946, when he was given the lead chair. He is considered one of the definitive alto saxophone players of the big band era.
David Roy Eldridge, nicknamed "Little Jazz", was an American jazz trumpet player. His sophisticated use of harmony, including the use of tritone substitutions, his virtuosic solos exhibiting a departure from the dominant style of jazz trumpet innovator Louis Armstrong, and his strong impact on Dizzy Gillespie mark him as one of the most influential musicians of the swing era and a precursor of bebop.
