Hawk synthesizes it all

You think about Coleman Hawkins's place in the scheme of American musical history:  Kansas City theater pit orchestras, Jesse Stone's Blue Serenaders, Mamie Smith's Jazz Hounds, the great 1924 lineup of Fletcher Henderson's Orchestra, with Hawk and Louis Armstrong and Don Redmond. The big band years, the stay in Europe.  The mid-40s collaboration with Thelonious Monk.



This is from the early 1960s.  The great R&B and jazz session guitarist Mickey Baker laying down what is pertinent,   ("Love is Strange" - Mickey & Sylvia)

Also interesting to consider that this performance took place in Belgium where, twenty years earlier, Django Reinhardt had brought a five-piece ensemble into a Brussels recording studio under the menacing eyes of Nazi guards.  Jazz proved able to live in that tumultuous town.



One principle reason we can think of Hawk as one of the the most consummate of the consummate in the jazz realm:  He never stopped growing.