Swing-Era Dossier

Erskine Hawkins

1914 – 1993

Born

July 26, 1914, Enon Ridge section of Birmingham, AL. Given name Erskine Ramsay Hawkins — named after the Birmingham coal-and-steel industrialist Erskine Ramsay, a major benefactor of Birmingham City Schools who was rewarding Black families with savings accounts for naming children after him. One of five children of Edward and Cary Hawkins. Father Edward was killed in action in France with the American Expeditionary Force in WWI; the family then moved in with Cary's relatives across the street from the Tuggle Institute, a private school for African American boys.

Died

Nov 11, 1993, at home in Willingboro Township, NJ, age 79. Heart failure (per his nephew John Hawkins, in the Tampa Bay obituary). Buried at Elmwood Cemetery and Mausoleum, Birmingham.

Instruments

Trumpet (primary, from age 13). Earlier: drums (from age 7), then trombone, then saxophone — all under the school band director at Tuggle Institute, where he attended from age 6. The 'Bama State Collegians later billed him for his "extraordinary high-note range" — his upper-register screaming work is what made the band sit up.

Nicknames

"The 20th Century Gabriel" — for his stratospheric high-note trumpet playing. Gabriel the archangel will sound the horn on Judgment Day; the implication was that Hawkins could match him. Used on band billing by 1938: "Erskine Hawkins (the Twentieth-Century Gabriel) and His Orchestra."

Bands / years

Tuggle Institute school band (Birmingham, c. 1920–1925) — drums, trombone, sax.
Industrial High School band, Birmingham (graduated 1930). Now Parker High.
'Bama State Collegians at Alabama State Teachers College, Montgomery (1930–c.1934). Arrived on a tennis scholarship at 16, dropped tennis to major in music. Of the school's three bands (Collegians, Revelers, Cavaliers), the Collegians were the top tier, led by faculty director J. B. Sims. Graduated 1934; stayed on to teach and play.
'Bama State Collegians featuring Erskine Hawkins (1934–1937) — toured the Northeast 1934, began recording for Vocalion 1936. Hawkins gradually became the band's leader as the student musicians turned pro.
Erskine Hawkins and His Orchestra (1938–1953) — signed to RCA Victor's Bluebird label; band became fully independent of the school. Headlined the Apollo from 1935 (where he married Florence "Flo" Browning), alternated with Chick Webb's orchestra at the Savoy Ballroom, then took over from Webb as Savoy house band in 1939 and stayed nearly a decade. Disbanded in 1953 as the big-band era collapsed.
Quartet / small combos (1953–1967) — pared down to a working group.
Concord Resort Hotel, Kiamesha Lake, NY (1967–1993) — house band for 26 years (Joe Vitale piano, Dudly Watson bass, Sonny Rossi vocals/clarinet, George Leary drums). Played there until shortly before his death.

Active

c. 1930–1993.

Signature tunes

"Tuxedo Junction" (recorded July 18, 1939, Bluebird) — by Hawkins / Bill Johnson / Julian Dash, lyrics Buddy Feyne. Hawkins's version peaked at #7. Glenn Miller's cover (recorded Feb 5, 1940, also on Bluebird) went to #1 and sold 115,000 copies in its first week — a WWII anthem. The Miller version was "a rare case of Glenn adapting another band's hit into an even bigger one."
"After Hours" (recorded June 10, 1940, Bluebird) — written by Hawkins's pianist Avery Parrish, who solos. The tune literally grew out of piano licks Parrish had been adding to the tag of "Gin Mill Special." Instant hit; became the foundational blues-piano standard. Inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.
"Tippin' In" (recorded Jan 10, 1945) — music by his alto/tenor saxophonist Bobby Smith, lyrics Marty Symes. #1 on the Race Records chart for six non-consecutive weeks; #9 pop — Hawkins's biggest pop hit. Bobby Smith and Julian Dash trade choruses.
"Gin Mill Special" (1939) — co-written with Sammy Lowe (Lowe arranged). Dud Bascomb plunger-muted trumpet; Julian Dash tenor. Released as the B-side of "Tuxedo Junction."

Other hits

"Norfolk Ferry" (1940), "Dolomite," "Midnight Stroll," "Swingin' on Lenox Avenue," "Five O'Clock Whistle."

Famous compositions

"Tuxedo Junction" (Hawkins / Bill Johnson / Julian Dash; lyrics Feyne, added later for the cover market).
"Gin Mill Special" (Hawkins / Sammy Lowe).
Most other charting Hawkins-band records were written by his sidemen — Avery Parrish ("After Hours"), Bobby Smith ("Tippin' In") — not by Hawkins. He was a curator-bandleader in the Lunceford / Webb mold.

Interesting facts

"Tuxedo Junction" is a real place — a streetcar crossing in the Ensley neighborhood of Birmingham (the Wylam and Pratt City lines met near Ensley Avenue and 20th Street), named for the adjacent Tuxedo Park company-housing community built in 1899 for Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad workers. The dance hall the song memorialises was the second floor of the Belcher-Nixon Building (1922), the social hub of Black Birmingham. At the Savoy, the band used "Tuxedo Junction" as their sign-off song, which is how it ended up on a record at all.
The famous trumpet solo on "Tuxedo Junction" isn't Hawkins. It's his second trumpet Wilbur "Dud" Bascomb on the open horn — "closely studied and faithfully reproduced by a generation of up-and-coming trumpeters, including Miles Davis, Idrees Sulieman, and Fats Navarro." Hawkins plays the muted trumpet solos that frame it. The solo has been misattributed to Hawkins for 85 years.
Took over from Chick Webb at the Savoy. Hawkins's orchestra alternated nightly with Webb's so dancers never had to stop, then inherited the house-band slot in 1939 as Webb declined.
One of the very few big bands to survive intact into the early 1950s — kept working through the bebop/R&B pivot that killed off most swing orchestras.
Early-career mentor of Ray Charles. A young Charles cited Hawkins as one of his principal R&B-piano influences (Hawkins's pianists Avery Parrish and the band's bluesy after-hours style sat right next to where Charles was headed).
Featured vocalists: Ida James, Delores Brown, and (briefly, 1953) a 22-year-old Della Reese — she joined right at the moment the big band downsized to a combo and left within a year for her solo career.
The Avery Parrish story is a tragedy. Aug 1942 car crash between Pittsburgh and Chattanooga (driving between gigs) killed Hawkins trumpeter Marcellus Green and injured Parrish; a 1943 bar fight (bar stool to the head) hospitalised him for months and left him partially paralysed. Never played professionally again. Found lying in the streets of Harlem; died at Harlem Hospital Dec 10, 1959, age 42.
Inducted Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame 1978 as one of the first five; Alabama Music Hall of Fame 1989.
"Tuxedo Junction" got a second life as the title track of The Manhattan Transfer's 1975 debut LP, where it became their signature.
His father Edward was killed in France in WWI — Erskine grew up without him, raised by his mother Cary and her relatives across from Tuggle Institute, where he learned to play.