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Top Albums by Johnny Hodges
Hodges started playing with Lloyd Scott, Sidney Bechet, Lucky Roberts and Chick Webb. When Ellington wanted to expand his band in 1928, Ellington's clarinet player Barney Bigard recommended Hodges, who was featured on both alto and soprano sax. His playing became one of the identifying voices of the Ellington orchestra. Hodges left the Duke to lead his own band (1951 – 1955), but returned to the large ensemble shortly before Ellington's triumphant return to prominence – the orchestra's performance at the 1956 \Newport Jazz Festival.
Hodges was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was mostly self-taught, although he did take lessons on soprano saxophone with Bechet. He was one of the prominent Ellington Band members who featured in Benny Goodman's legendary 1938 Carnegie Hall concert. Goodman described Hodges as "by far the greatest man on alto sax. that I ever heard." Charlie Parker called him "the Lily Pons of his instrument."
Ellington's practice of writing tunes specifically for members of his orchestra resulted in the Hodges specialties, "Confab with Rab", "Jeep's Blues", "Sultry Sunset", and "Hodge Podge". Other songs recorded by the Ellington Orchestra which prominently feature Hodges' smooth alto saxophone sound are "Magenta Haze", "Prelude to a Kiss", "Haupe" (from Anatomy of a Murder) – note also the "seductive" and hip-swaying “Flirtibird,” featuring the "irresistibly salacious tremor" by Hodges, "The Star-Crossed Lovers" from Ellington's Such Sweet Thunder suite, "I Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good)", "Blood Count" and "Passion Flower".
Generations of saxophonists turn to 1963 recording The Great Paris Concert, in which Hodges' lyrical poise is captured well, particularly on "On the Sunny Side of the Street".
He had a pure tone and economy of melody on both the blues and ballads that won him admiration from musicians of all eras and styles, from Ben Webster to John Coltrane, both of whom played with him when he had his own orchestra in the 1950s, to Lawrence Welk, who featured him in an album of standards. His highly individualistic playing style, which featured the use of a wide vibrato and much sliding between slurred notes, was frequently imitated. As evidenced by the Ellington compositions named after him, he earned the nick names Jeep and Rabbit – according to Johnny Griffin because "he looked like a rabbit, no expression on his face while he's playing all this beautiful music."
Hodges' last performances were at the Imperial Room in Toronto, less than a week before his death from a heart attack. His last recordings are featured on The New Orleans Suite, incomplete on his death.
In Ellington's eulogy of Hodges, he said, "Never the world's most highly animated showman or greatest stage personality, but a tone so beautiful it sometimes brought tears to the eyes—this was Johnny Hodges. This is Johnny Hodges."
1946: Passion Flower
(RCA) with Willie Cook, Roy Eldridge, Quentin Jackson, Russell Procope, Ben Webster, Sam Woodyard
1951: Caravan
(Prestige Records) with Taft Jordan, Harold Baker, Juan Tizol, Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, Oscar Pettiford, Sonny Greer
1951: Castle Rock
1956: Ellington at Newport
1958: Blues-A-Plenty
(Verve Music Group)
1959: Side by Side
(with Duke Ellington)
1959: Back to Back
(with Duke Ellington)
1961: Gerry Mulligan Meets Johnny Hodges
1961: Johnny Hodges with Billy Strayhorn and the Orchestra
(Verve) with Aaron Bell, Jimmy Hamilton, Cat Anderson, Eddie Mullens
1961: Gerry Mulligan Meets Johnny Hodges
1961: Johnny Hodges with Billy Strayhorn and the Orchestra
(Verve) with Aaron Bell, Jimmy Hamilton, Cat Anderson, Eddie Mullens
1961: Johnny Hodges at Sportpalast
Berlin Pablo Records) with Ray Nance, Lawrence Brown, Al Williams
1964: Everybody Knows Johnny Hodges (
Impulse! Records)
1967: Triple Play
1964: Everybody Knows Johnny Hodges (
Impulse! Records)
1967: Triple Play
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