Coleman Hawkins - Desafinado: Bossa Nova and Jazz Samba

Part of the Impulse Best 50! Series. Japanese exclusive 24-bit 96khz digitally remastered reissue of 1962 album. Packaged in a limited edition miniature LP sleeve. Album Description

A Solid Session

Very tasteful playing by Hawkins and company here; Hawkins keeps things simmering, but never boils over like he does in some of his straight-ahead playing. His efforts are balanced by Barry Galbraith's melodic nylon-sring guitar solos (John Collins sticks to rhythm guitar for this date).

A couple of things keep it from being a classic, though this isn't to say that the album isn't successful (Scott Yanow at Allmusic calls the album "a major success"). First, There is almost no variation in tempo throughout the album. The players, while complete pros, were all new to the bossa, and you get the feeling that once they found a groove that worked, they didn't want to abandon it. However, this could be a good thing if you wanted to clean house or entertain with the record on in the background (I don't mean that as an insult to the music).

Second, Coleman takes on a couple of tunes Getz had so recently recorded definitive jazz bossa versions of ("Desafinado" and "One Note Samba"), and the rest of the repetoire is familiar bossa fare (except the standard "I Remember You" and a couple of originals written for the album). I agree with Yanow that "O Pato" is particularly strong here.

I think an album that is very similar but, to my mind, a small notch better is Ike Quebec's "Bossa Nova Soul Samba", recorded about three weeks after this Coleman Hawkins (both were fall of 1962). Ike Quebec had the imagination to turn a couple of light classical pieces (Dvorak's 9th Sym "Goin' Home" melody and Liszt's "Liebestraum") into bossa, and he any Kenny Burrell contributed some nice originals to that album, which has no bossa warhorses on it. Too bad Lester Young didn't live long enough to try his hand at bossa nova. And also too bad that Ben Webster never cut a session like this too. To hear Ben on a quasi-bossa, try "While We're Dancing" from "See You at the Fair". May 27, 2008

Sounds Like A Lot Of Other Bossa CDs; Good Though

even in late 1962 nothing about the bossa nova was all that new. although the liner notes for desafinado focus on hawkins fresh take on the genre, there is nothing groundbreaking about this cd (even considering its initial release date). that doesn't make it a bad listen though - quite the contrary really. hawkins plays though many enjoyable standards like "one note samba", "desafinado" and "o pato (the duck)". he also smokes through some lesser charted numbers like "samba para bean", "stumpy bossa nova" and "un abraco no bonfa (a tribute to bonfa)" - joao gilberto's tribute to luiz bonfa. what's most refreshing though is his brazilian takes on usually non-samba tracks like "i'm looking over a four leaf clover" and "i remember you". hawkins playing is smooth and relaxed and his tone is rich and mellow - typical coleman hawkins. July 26, 2005

Bean Rides Again...

Bossa nova flourished in the early 1960's, and dozens of jazz musicians jumped on the bandwagon, but only a small handful did it with any originality. Even the attempts by guys like Miles Davis and Quincy Jones fell short, but when Coleman Hawkins gets his hands on the sound, it works suprisingly well. Hawkins legendary tone on the tenor sax differs vastly from Stan Getz's smoother sound which epitomized the jazz samba movement in many people's eyes. But the Hawk blows admirably through eight songs either from the bossa nova catalogue or inspired by the sound. The wonderful thing about this album is that there wasn't a serious attempt to smooth out the rough edges, and so this music sounds even more genuine and original. A nice band as well, with the two guitars of Barry Galbraith and Howard Collins, Major Holley on bass, Eddie Locke on drums and a rare appearance on the claves by Tommy Flanagan, normally a pianist. Though this music isn't on the level of 'Getz/Gilberto' as far as interpretation of the music, it is an interesting and distinctive approach rather than a rehash, and even more evidence of the versatility of the king of the tenor sax. July 1, 2000

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