For more than 40 years, alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges was Duke ELLINGTON’S best and most celebrated collaborator. With a supple, muscular tone and a warm, reflective style, he was a sax classicist, equally adept at swinging the blues (“Things Ain’t What They Used to Be”) or playing sensuous Billy Strayhorn ballads (“Passion Flower”). According to John Edward Hasse, in Beyond Category: The Musical Genius of Duke Ellington, “Hodges ranks as one of the very best alto saxophonists in jazz … and as one of the most unmistakable and gorgeous ‘voices’ of the 20th century.”
Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in July 1907, John Cornelius Hodges began playing piano and drums before switching to the soprano (and later exclusively alto) saxophone at age 14. Appearing in Boston clubs, he attracted the attention of sax legend Sidney Bechet, who became his teacher and mentor. In 1924, he succeeded Bechet in Willie “the Lion” Smith’s quartet. Hodges’ trademark synthesis of irresistible, romantic balladry and impassioned blues-tinged uptempo playing was soon firmly established. Along the way, Hodges acquired the most famous of his many nicknames, “Rabbit” (either because of his fast footwork off stage or his penchant for lettuce and tomato sandwiches).
In 1927, the stone-faced Hodges joined the Ellington orchestra and soon became the Duke’s most famous soloist. Known for his “portamento” technique (gliding gracefully from note to note), he took the lead on hundreds of memorable Ellington tracks, including “Prelude to a Kiss,” “In a Mellotone,” “I Got It Bad (And That Ain’t Good),” and “I’m Beginning to See the Light.” Hodges made several records in the late 1930s and early 1940s, fronting small groups made up of other Ellington members such as Ray Nance (trumpet), Harry Carney (baritone sax), and Duke himself on piano. These all-star sessions produced swing-era masterpieces such as “Day Dream,” “The Jeep Is Jumpin’,” and “Jeep’s Blues.” (“Jeep” was another of Hodges’s nicknames.) Describing Hodges’ apparently effortless style, Ellington told jazz historian Stanley Dance, “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 this is pure artistry.”
By the mid-1940s, readers of Down Beat and Metronome magazines were consistently voting Hodges jazz’s most popular alto sax player. In 1948, while Ellington was touring Britain with a variety show, Hodges took up residency at New York’s Apollo Bar, where he played to full houses night after night. In 1951, after disputes with Ellington’s band, he took a five-year hiatus from Ellington to form his own combo with Lawrence Brown and Sonny Greer (including, for a brief time, John COLTRANE), which quickly produced the hit record, “Castle Rock.”
His return to the Duke’s fold in 1955 helped revitalise the orchestra, and was a major factor in the success of recordings such as Such Sweet Thunder (1957), Jazz Party (1959), and Nutcracker Suite (I960). For the rest of his life, “Rabbit” freelanced in a wide range of group settings, usually with fellow Ellingtonians, but also in a genre-bending meeting with Lawrence Welk’s orchestra. Despite deteriorating health, Hodges continued to follow a punishing schedule, ignoring his warnings. He suddenly died of a stroke in May 1970, during a routine dental visit in New York City. In a tribute to his friend and longtime associate, Ellington rightly said, “Because of this great loss, our band will never sound the same.”
Michael R. Ross
SEE ALSO:
BIG BAND JAZZ; JAZZ.
FURTHER READING
Hasse, John Edward. Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993);
Tucker, Mark, ed. A Duke Ellington Reader (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).
SUGGESTED LISTENING
Everybody Knows Johnny Hodges; Johnny Hodges; Sandy’s Gone; Wings and Things.