In the early 1960's I had the pleasure of seeing Coleman Hawkins do a two hour Friday matinee at the Showboat in Philadelphia (near the famous South Street of Orlons fame). He was magnificent, elegant and in a weekly series of matinees that included Charles Lloyd, John Coltrane, Wes Montgomery, Roland Kirk, Mongo Santamaria, Horace Silver and the great stars of the blossoming of acoustic jazz in the early sixties, the man who invented the jazz tenor sax as a solo instrument held his own playing to a very demanding audience in this small club around the corner from Pep's who had matinees on Mondays. It was a buffet of magic music in those days and the only place in Philadelphia to dine on such delights.

and right from the starting notes of the very first track, you know it's gonna be a good one. With Major Holley by his side, getting notes out of his upright that you probably didn't know existed, they can do no wrong. Then, they go right into Quincy Jones' "Quintessence" and brother, you know you're in the right place. It only gets better from there, except, of course, when it ends. But then, you just start it all over again.

This was recorded during the same two-week session that also gave us the outstanding "Desafinado" release, so, if you're interested, pick up that cd as well because it makes a very-good companion piece to this and, as always, you can't get too much of the Hawk. Plus, the Hawk playing the bossa-vibe simply must be heard to be believed. It's amazing. Dare I say it puts Getz to shame? No, I can't say that, but it's definitely dam* tasty.

You gotta get this now if you're still considering. You will definitely not regret it.

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.