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Between January 1951 and August 1955, alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges took an extended vacation from Duke Ellington and led his own ensembles in a remarkably fruitful series of recording sessions produced by Norman Granz. Volume three in the Classics Johnny Hodges chronology opens with four outstanding tracks cut on February 28, 1951. Since Hodges was still drawing a salary from Ellington during the session that took place on January 15, these are the first recordings he made as an independent artist after severing the professional umbilicus that had tethered him to Duke’s orchestra since the late ’20s. Johnny Hodges was one of Ellington’s cardinal voices, and musically, they more or less grew up together; even when technically separated, both men continued to make music that reflected a glowing spectrum of shared sensibilities. Most of the Hodges/Granz bands were peppered with Ellingtonians, and several are in evidence here; trombonist Lawrence Brown, drummer Sonny Greer, Billy Strayhorn sitting in at the piano on “Globe Trotter” and tenor man Al Sears serving as “musical director” and booking agent. The session of March 3, 1951 opened with “Castle Rock,” Searsy’s gutsy self-portrait in R&B that made it onto entertainment industry charts and into jukeboxes for a little while as a “hit.” The rest of these recordings were fated to exist as they do today — as excellent music suspended in an amorphous category stamped with the word “jazz”; marginalized by a mainstream pop culture obsessed with star vocalists, specious spectacle and anything pasted over with the meaningless word “new.” These recordings made by a series of septets under the leadership of Johnny Hodges in New York and San Francisco during 1951 and 1952, feature (in addition to the artists already mentioned) such able practitioners as trumpeter Emmett Berry, saxophonist Flip Phillips, bassist Red Callender, drummer J.C. Heard and Ellington vocalist Al Hibbler — and these timeless performances still await wider recognition. (arwulf arwulf/AllMUsic).

Track listing:

1 Good Queen Bess
2 Jeep’s Blues
3 Solitude
4 The Jeep Is Jumping
5 Castle Rock
6 Sophisticated Lady
7 Globe Trotter
8 Gentle Breeze
9 Sideways
10 A Pound Of Blues
11 Wham
12 Who’s Excited
13 Sweeping The Blues Away
14 Day Dream
15 Standing Room Only
16 Below The Azores
17 Tenderly
18 Sweet Georgia Brown
19 Duke’s Blues
20 Tea For Two
21 This Is My Night To Love
22 What I’m Gotchere

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Label: Classics (11) – CLASSICS 1389
Series: The Classics Chronological Series – 1389
Format: CD, Compilation
Country: France
Released: 2005