1959 · Album
Play The Prettiest Gershwin
Recorded Stuttgart, 1958 · Verve · Produced by Not specified in provided data
Hodges Plays It Straight With Gershwin
A late-career choice that shows Hodges comfortable with standards, backed by strings in Stuttgart.
By 1958, Johnny Hodges had spent decades as Duke Ellington's lead voice, a saxophonist whose tone could turn a melody inside out with just the smallest shift in vibrato. This album sits in his later years, after he'd already proven everything he needed to prove in the big band setting. What's interesting here is how straightforward it is. Hodges doesn't reinvent Gershwin—he just plays it, letting his instrument do what it does best: make a song sound inevitable.
Recorded in Stuttgart with orchestral accompaniment, the album takes Gershwin standards and wraps them in lush arrangements that could feel saccharine in the wrong hands. Instead, Hodges cuts through. His tone remains warm and slightly sardonic, the kind of voice that makes even familiar material feel like he's telling you something private. The strings are there to support, not to smother. It's a solid, professional effort—the kind of session that worked because everyone knew their job.
This isn't a peak moment or a discovery. It's a capable musician doing what musicians do in the studio: taking good material and playing it well. AllMusic rated it 3.5 out of 5, which lands about right—respectable work that doesn't particularly challenge or surprise, but doesn't disappoint either. For listeners already familiar with Hodges' work with Ellington, this offers a different context to hear his voice, stripped of the ensemble complexity and placed against a different kind of backdrop.
