Sonny on Hawk's "Body And Soul"

[mjzee]

It's hard today to fully appreciate how different Coleman Hawkins's "Body and Soul" sounded when it hit Harlem jukeboxes in late 1939. On that three-minute record, Coleman took a popular torch song and, with his tenor saxophone, turned it into a personal statement without ever losing track of the original melody. Wow, that was completely new, and it really changed me.

I first heard "Body and Soul" when I was 10 years old. I was standing outside the Big Apple Bar on the corner of 135th Street and Seventh Avenue, across from Small's Paradise, and heard it on the jukebox through an open window.

More here:

WSJ

Or Google:

Transformed, 'Body and Soul'

[paul secor]

It might be interesting to read how certain musicians were influenced by certain records. Might not make a book but certainly a long article.

[JSngry]

The Louis Jordan influence has been a part of Rollins' playing from the beginning, and he's never attempted to back away from or disavow it, ever, quite the contrary, but...it's real, and it's huge, still. Those stabby things he's always playing, and the braying tonal effects, those have never left Sony's playing, and if he'd never mention Louis Jordan, I don't think you'd necessarily think to make the connection, but doggone it, he always does, even in this article about Coleman Hawkins,and hello, there they are, freakin' obvious, then!

Do you ever get over your first true love? Should you?