1961 · Album
Night Hawk
Recorded End of 1960 · Swingville · Produced by Not specified in source material
Two Tenors, One Night, No Compromise
Hawkins played with the kind of control and invention that made even a standard sound fresh.
Night Hawk catches Coleman Hawkins and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis in a straightforward blowing session — two heavyweight tenors taking turns on a set of jazz standards, recorded near the end of 1960. There's no gimmick here, no string section or unusual arrangement. Just two players who knew how to swing hard and could do it night after night without breaking a sweat.
What matters on a record like this is the playing itself, and Hawkins delivers. A DownBeat reviewer singled out his work on "There Is No Greater Love" as the session's peak, praising his sense of form and rhythmic construction — qualities the critic noted were exceptional even by Hawkins' own standards. That's the kind of specific praise worth paying attention to. It means he wasn't coasting. He was engaged, inventive, playing with the kind of control that made even familiar material sound worth hearing again.
This is a solid mid-career date, not a turning point or a late-period rediscovery. If you already love Hawkins' sound and want to hear him in an intimate, no-frills setting, it delivers exactly that. The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings gave it three and a half stars, which is respectable without overstating the case. It's the sort of album that works best if you come to it knowing what you want — a focused hour of two professionals doing the job they'd been hired to do, and doing it well.
Who's playing
Ron Carterdouble bass
Tommy Flanaganpiano
Eddie “Lockjaw” Davistenor saxophone
Coleman Hawkinstenor saxophone
Gus Johnsondrums
Where next?
More by Coleman Hawkins
Duke Ellington Meets Coleman Hawkins 1963
♫
The Hawk Flies High 1957
Coleman Hawkins and Confrères
The Hawk Relaxes 1961
The musicians on this record
Their own records, close in time
