Coleman Hawkins

COLEMAN HAWKINS (ts), with:
Ben Webster , Georgie Auld (ts), Charlie Shavers, Dizzy Gillespie (tp), Bud Johnson (bs), Oscar Pettiford(b), Max Roach (d), among others...

New York, February & May, 1944

4****Penguin Guide

This 1944 session is a hallmark album in jazz, considered by many to be the very first bebop recording. Most critics site the second track, "Woody'n You." For the first time, we hear Dizzy Gillespie in full bloom (not merely a disciple of Roy Eldridge). Indeed, there is a whiff of something new emanating from this music, and it probably comes from the meeting of the old guard (Hawkins) with the then burgeoning impresarios of jazz bassist Oscar Pettiford, drummer Max Roach, and of course, Dizzy. Other strongly bop-inflected tracks include "Salt Peanuts" and "Bu Dee Daht."

Hawk wanted to top himself on "Body & Soul," the tune that he had become so identified with. Whether or not he did is debatable. Nonetheless, the endearing legacy of RAINBOW MIST is the emergence of a whole new style of jazz, today known as bebop. An extra bonus: four tracks by Hawkins with fellow tenor men Ben Webster and Georgie Auld tagged onto the end of this CD.


14 tracks: including: Rainbow Mist/ Woody’n You/ Bu Dee Daht/ Disorder at the Border/ Yesterdays/ Feeling Zer/ ... and more.

“Marvelous and very swinging collection with Dizzie Gillespie, Oscar Pettiford and Max Roach, with a beautiful new treatment of Body and Soul, here renamed into Rainbow Mist, plus some fine sessions with fellow tenorists Ben Webster and Georgie Auld”.
- Henk De Boer (All About Jazz)