Coleman Hawkins

When Coleman Hawkins started out, the saxophone was a novelty, a slap-tongue vaudeville gadget. By the time he was done it was the defining voice of jazz, and he’d done most of the heavy lifting himself. He gave the tenor a big, warm, muscular tone and a way of building solos out of the chords that taught everyone who followed.

His 1939 recording of “Body and Soul” is one of the most famous solos in jazz history – two choruses that barely state the melody, instead spinning a fluid, harmonically rich improvisation that listeners and musicians alike recognized as something new. It became a surprise hit and a permanent landmark.

What set Hawkins apart was his curiosity. Where some of his swing-era peers stood still, he leaned toward the young beboppers in the 1940s, led some of the first bebop recording sessions, and kept his playing current into a new age. The elder statesman refused to become a museum piece.

They called him Hawk and also Bean, and for forty years his sound was the gold standard. Every tenor player since has had to reckon with him, one way or another.