Coleman Hawkins Band at the Spotlight Club,
52nd Street, New York City, c. 1944.

Courtesy of the Frank Driggs Collection.

 

“Body and Soul”

Coleman Hawkins and His Orchestra

1939

Hawkins’s magisterial performance on this jazz standard is among the most popular and widely imitated on record. His huge sound, by turns warm and hard-driving, established the tenor saxophone as one of the music’s central voices, and his modern sensibility set the stage for the innovations of bebop.