Coleman Hawkins in Madrid (October 13, 1964)

In my post from February 25, I recalled the story of the two Coleman Hawkins concerts in Barcelona that took place on October 14, 1964 and November 11, 1967 at the Palacio de la Música, both of them musically unsuccessful.

In the former, Hawkins played as part of the Mainstream Jazz Group, one of the ensembles integrated in the European Tour of the Newport Jazz Festival, being the rest of the musicians Harry 'Sweets' Edison (trumpet), Sir Charles Thompson (piano), Jimmy Woode (bass) and Jo Jones (drums).

This group had played the day before in Madrid, at the Carlos III theatre, with similar almost chaotic results. It was Juan Pedro Bourbon, owner of the mythical Whisky Jazz club, who did manage to bring this Mainstream Jazz Group to Madrid.

Juan José González, veteran jazz enthusiast and faithful reader of this blog who attended this concert 45 years ago, recalls how Jo Jones left the stage a few minutes after the concert started, reportedly saying "I don't want to play with that old man!". According to Juan José, Hawk got on the stage walking clumsily and started the concert playing in kind of a bebop style, very different from the way this group had been playing before, and this infuriated Jo Jones. Harry Edison, on his feet, took one of the sticks and started to keep the rhythm on the cymbals, while Coleman Hawkins and Sir Charles Thompson soloed, and then he played his solo choruses with a two-men rhythm section, no drums.

In the November issue of Aria Jazz magazine, an article called "Two Empty Seats" was published, in reference to Jo Jones' and Juan Pedro Bourbon's, who went to the police to report Jo Jones for breach of contract. Bourbon wrote "I regret to say that the great Coleman Hawkins turned up at the Carlos III completely drunk" in the Aria Jazz article.

According to the ABC (Spanish newspaper) TV listings, the following two programs of Discorama (Sunday, October 18 and Sunday, October 25) were dedicated to Coleman Hawkins. Discorama used to be recorded at the studio and, so far, I haven't been able to find any confirmation whether these programs were telecasts of the concert at the Carlos III or they were studio recordings. Any help would be much appreciated.

Coleman Hawkins in Barcelona: Oct. 1964 & Nov. 1967

For the high and mighty hawk, the 1964-1969 years were a mixed bag of peaks of fertile creativity and periods of critically poor health condition, the latter clearly predominating in his last three years, due to alcoholism and a bad (or better, the lack of any) diet.

The Barcelona jazz aficionado from the 60s was extremely blessed to be able to attend two different Coleman Hawkins performances in just three years, though neither of them was musically successful, for two different reasons: battle of egos between Hawkins and Edison in the October 1964 concert and extreme physical weakness in the November 1967 date.

On October 14, 1964, Coleman Hawkins played at the Palacio de la Música Catalana (Barcelona) as part of the Mainstream Jazz Group, one of the ensembles integrated in the European Tour of the Newport Jazz Festival. The rest of the musicians were Harry 'Sweets' Edison (trumpet), Sir Charles Thompson (piano), Jimmy Woode (bass) and Jo Jones (drums). Reportedly, unrest from Hawkins and Edison was obvious during the concert, and every time Edison started a solo, Hawkins went backstage to handle his bottle of cognac. Jo Jones spent half the concert having murderous looks at both hornmen and the other half trying to keep the music alive. Albert Mallofré's review for the weekly magazine Destino highlighted Edison's brilliant playing and Hawkins' bad shape and pointed out that the winner was clearly Jo Jones. Reportedly the concert ended with a strong ovation that turned into annoyance and deception when Hawkins refused to play an encore.

On November 11, 1967, Coleman Hawkins played again at the Palacio de la Música, this time as part of the II Festival Internacional de Jazz de Barcelona. In late 1967, after his serious health issues from several months before (reaching its worst at the Oakland concert on June 30 after which he was hospitalized in Los Angeles the next day), Hawkins managed to make a European Tour, promoted by Norman Granz. The first round of dates was a series of concerts with the Oscar Peterson Trio (Sam Jones on bass and Bobby Durham on drums). According to his biographer John Chilton "Hawk was not in a robust mood for any of the shows, but he was generally in command of his saxophone. When he couldn't get what he termed 'the right kind of food' he went without, and inevitably this produced some uneven performances". This november 11 concert was one of them, and Hawkins was booed by a number of people in the audience. See Alberto Mallofré's review for La Vanguardia for more details.

Sad but true, the Hawk didn't fly high this time.