Johnny Hodges was born on July 25, 1906. A giant of jazz in his own right, Hodges was the most famous of Duke Ellington’s sidemen, and it was long said that Ellington was the envy of bandleaders far and wide for the privilege he enjoyed in presenting Hodges on a virtual nightly basis for forty years. Notwithstanding a four-year run as the leader of his own combo in the early fifties, the Cambridge-born, Boston-raised saxophonist worked with Duke from 1928 until 1970.
Ellington composed and arranged dozens of pieces that showcased Hodges’ powerful blues playing and his peerless artistry on ballads, many of which were fashioned from licks and melodic ideas first played by the saxophonist. Hodges helped popularize such Ellington songs as “Warm Valley,” “Prelude to a Kiss,” “Sentimental Lady,” and “Come Sunday.” And several of Billy Strayhorn’s best-known works, “Day Dream,” “Passion Flower,” “After All,” “Blood Count,” “Isfahan,” “A Flower Is A Lovesome Thing,” and “The Star-Crossed Lovers,” were immortalized through Hodges’ exquisite lyrical skills.
For The World of Duke Ellington, Duke told Stanley Dance, “Johnny Hodges has complete independence of expression. He says what he wants to say on the horn and that is it. He says it in his language, which is specific, and you could say that his is pure artistry.“
Hodges was equally renowned for his blues playing, which ranged from sensual and declamatory to mocking and sardonic. He died during a visit to his dentist on May 11, 1970, only days after recording “Blues for New Orleans,” the opening movement of Ellington’s New Orleans Suite. He was 63, and like the man who’d recorded scores of blues by then, was still playing the style with total conviction.
Known by the dual nicknames Rabbit and Jeep, his admirers were a diverse lot. John Coltrane, who began his career playing alto saxophone, cited him as his first influence and was a sideman in Hodges’s band in 1953. In a 1960 interview with Downbeat, Trane said, “He still kills me.” Coltrane remembered the band for its “true music. I never forget that. It really swung.” Lawrence Welk, whom Hodges recorded with in 1966, said, “He plays from the heart rather than from the notes…and he plays the prettiest saxophone of anyone I know.” Welk would surely have appreciated Charlie Parker’s description of Hodges as the “Lily Pons of his instrument.” Clark Terry echoed Duke in saying, “Above all, he’s always true to himself.”
In 1952, Norman Granz, who’d encouraged him to leave Ellington two years earlier, produced a studio jam session featuring the alto triumvirate of Hodges, Parker, and Benny Carter (in that solo order), as well as the tenor players Ben Webster and Flip Phillips. Webster reached his mature style in the early forties when he came under Hodges’s influence as a member of the Ellington Orchestra. At the time of Hodges’s death, Webster said, “You pick up any record he made, he was always in tune. He showed me how to play my horn. That’s what I tried to do– to play Johnny on tenor.”
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgW1DOTy75o
When Hodges returned to the Ellington fold in October 1955, Duke revived several of his signature tunes including “The Jeep Is Jumpin’,” “Stompy Jones,” and “Jeep’s Blues.” The latter was judiciously utilized to follow the sensational performance of “Diminuendo in Blue” and “Crescendo in Blue” by the Ellington Orchestra at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1956. Paul Gonsalves’s 27-chorus solo connected the two (“the wailing interval”) igniting a frenzy in the crowd, and Duke called for a tune that would both enchant and calm the past-curfew gathering. “Jeep’s Blues” was the right call, and captured on record, it stands as one of the greatest monuments of Hodges’s art. The tune remained in the book, and Duke invariably mentioned the “Newport Jazz Festival album” (his biggest seller) when he introduced it. On the occasion of this 1957 performance, he added, “I’m sure if you’ve heard of the saxophone, ladies and gentlemen, you’ve heard of Johnny Hodges.” As Hodges preaches, listen for Duke encouraging him to “Tell ’em what happened! Tell ’em what happened!”
For all the expressiveness of his playing, Hodges was a notoriously impassive figure on stage. But as one astute reader observed today on Facebook, “It never showed on his face, but that multi-textured sound had to come from some deep, deep soul.” In Dance’s volume, Rabbit’s colleague Harold “Shorty” Baker knowingly offered this summation of his artistry. “Nobody knows what Johnny Hodges feels when he walks out to the mike. He may look as though he’s on his last walk to the gallows, but he appreciates the applause and thanks the audience with a million dollars worth of melody.”