MP3

Coleman Hawkins, To Be or Not to Bop (Wnts). The first great jazz saxophonist was also one of a handful of swing-era giants who successfully embraced bebop, both on and off record. This new mp3-only downloadable collection contains twenty-two of the bop-and-bop-flavored 78 sides that Hawkins recorded in the mid-to-late-Forties with such then-youngsters as Dizzy Gillespie, J.J. Johnson, Hank Jones, Howard McGhee, Fats Navarro, Oscar Pettiford, and Max Roach, including the premiere recordings of “I Mean You,” “Salt Peanuts” and “Woody’n You.” It’s the first time that Hawkins’ key bop recordings have been released in a single-source anthology. Listen and marvel at his ability to ride the wave of a radically innovative new jazz style (TT).