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Swing-Era Dossier

Johnny Hodges

1907 – 1970

Born

July 25, 1907, Cambridgeport neighborhood, Cambridge, MA. Given name John Cornelius Hodges. Parents John H. and Katie Swan Hodges, both originally from Virginia. Grew up in Boston's South End in the same circle as future Ellington bandmates Harry Carney, Charlie Holmes, and Howard E. Johnson — a remarkable saxophone microclimate for one neighborhood. Mother was a skilled pianist; started on piano and drums before switching to soprano sax around 14. Mostly self-taught.

Died

May 11, 1970, Manhattan, age 62. Collapsed in a dental surgeon's office mid-procedure — got up from the chair to use the bathroom and never came back. Certificate of death lists hypertensive cardiovascular disease (high blood pressure → heart failure) with cardiac hypertrophy. Last performances: Imperial Room, Toronto, less than a week earlier. The "dentist's chair" image is the popular version; he had actually stepped out of it.

Instruments

Alto saxophone (his voice). Soprano saxophone until 1940, then refused to touch it on a recording date for the next 30 years (see facts). Clarinet occasionally in the early Ellington years (the famous 1928 "The Mooche" clarinet trio with Bigard and Carney). Started on drums and piano as a kid. Horns: Conn 6M in the 1940s; Buescher 400 later; a rare silver-plated, engraved Vito LeBlanc Rationale alto (serial 2551A) in his last years.

Nicknames

  • "Rabbit" — origin disputed and probably overdetermined. Hodges's version: outran truant officers and won 100-yard dashes as a kid. Harry Carney's version: rabbit-like nibbling on lettuce-and-tomato sandwiches. Tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin's version: "he looked like a rabbit, no expression on his face while he's playing all this beautiful music." All three may be true at once.
  • "Jeep" — given by Ellington altoist Otto "Toby" Hardwick after Eugene the Jeep, the dog-like creature with the oversized head and big nose introduced in E.C. Segar's Popeye strip in 1936. The shared traits (small body, big nose, says little) were the joke. The nickname then generated the tunes: "Jeep's Blues" (1938), "The Jeep Is Jumpin'" (1938), and "Confab with Rab."

Bands / years

  • Lloyd Scott, Luckey Roberts, Chick Webb, and Sidney Bechet (NYC, 1924–1928) — including warm-up sets at Bechet's Club Basha and Club Bechet, sometimes in duet.
  • Duke Ellington Orchestra (May 18, 1928 – March 1951; August 1955 – May 1970) — joined at 20 on Barney Bigard's recommendation; lead alto and the band's most-featured soloist for ~40 years.
  • Johnny Hodges & His Orchestra (1951–1955) — Norman Granz convinced him he could make more money out front; he poached Lawrence Brown (trombone) and Sonny Greer (drums) out of Ellington with him. John Coltrane sat in the tenor chair briefly in 1953 and again on the July 2 and August 5, 1954 studio sessions at Radio Recorders, Los Angeles — the only Hodges-band studio dates with Coltrane on the stand. Hodges hated the paperwork and the front-man role; rejoined Ellington August 1955.
  • From 1937 he had also run a Hodges-led small group inside the Ellington band ("Johnny Hodges and His Orchestra — An Ellington Unit") that cut the original small-group versions of "Jeep's Blues," "Hodge Podge," "Day Dream," "Passion Flower," and "Things Ain't What They Used to Be."

Active

c. 1924–1970.

Signature tunes

  • "Jeep's Blues" (1938) — Hodges/Ellington. Recorded March 28, 1938 by the Hodges small group. Ellington used it as the show-stopping encore at Newport 1956, restoring his and the band's career.
  • "Passion Flower" (1941) — Billy Strayhorn (sole composer). Recorded July 3, 1941 with the Hodges small group; Strayhorn arranged.
  • "Warm Valley" (1940) — Ellington, written specifically as a Hodges ballad feature; reinvented his reputation as a lyrical, "sweet-toned" player.
  • "Prelude to a Kiss" (1938) — Ellington (music), Irving Gordon & Irving Mills (lyric).
  • "Day Dream" (1939, recorded Nov 2, 1940) — Strayhorn (with John Latouche lyric). Ellington was credited on the 78 label but is not generally counted among the composers.
  • "Things Ain't What They Used to Be" (1941) — Mercer Ellington (Duke's son), lyric by Ted Persons. Born of the 1941 ASCAP radio strike that forced Duke offline; Mercer and Strayhorn filled in. Hodges debuted it July 3, 1941.
  • "Blood Count" (1967) — Strayhorn, his last completed composition. Originally titled "Blue Cloud"; finished from a hospital bed while Strayhorn was down to 80 pounds. Ellington debuted it at Carnegie Hall in March 1967 with Hodges on the alto solo; Strayhorn died May 31, 1967. Hodges then recorded the definitive version on Ellington's And His Mother Called Him Bill (August 1967). David Hajdu calls it "a wrenching moan, its pedal-point bass evoking the rhythmic drip of intravenous fluid."
  • "Castle Rock" (1951) — his one solo-career hit, #3 R&B. The kicker: it's a tenor showcase. Co-written by Al Sears, and Sears took the solo, not Hodges.

Famous compositions

Mostly head-arrangements co-credited with Ellington, in the standard Ellington-band manner:

  • "Jeep's Blues" (with Ellington) — Hodges takes the first four bars then improvises the rest of the 12-bar form; the "head" is essentially his.
  • "The Jeep Is Jumpin'" (1938, with Ellington).
  • "Hodge Podge" (1938, with Ellington) — originally titled "Stomp" on the score.
  • "Squatty Roo" (1941, with Ellington).
  • "Confab with Rab" (with Ellington).
  • "Castle Rock" credited to Hodges/Sears/Drake.

Interesting facts

  • Sidney Bechet apprenticeship, 1922. At 14, his older sister took him to see Bechet in Jimmy Cooper's Black and White Revue at a Boston burlesque house. She introduced them; Bechet handed him a soprano sax and asked him to play something. Hodges played "My Honey's Lovin' Arms." Bechet was impressed enough to give him formal lessons. Hodges later warmed up for Bechet at Club Basha (1925) and played duets with him — the only major influence he ever credited.
  • Refused to play soprano for 30 years, then almost broke the streak for Bechet. Hodges quit soprano in 1940 — the standard explanation is that the alto had become his identity and the soprano fingering was distinct enough to feel like a separate instrument. The poetic kicker: Ellington's last project before Hodges died was New Orleans Suite (1970), with a planned movement called "Portrait of Sidney Bechet" that would have featured Hodges back on soprano for the first time since 1940. He died before the session. The four "portrait" movements were finished without him.
  • John Coltrane called him "the world's greatest saxophone player" and his first model on the horn. Coltrane was briefly Hodges's tenor sideman in 1953–54 — a fact that reorganizes the usual jazz timeline (the future Giant Steps leader as employee of a swing-era Ellingtonian).
  • Charlie Parker called him "the Lily Pons of his instrument" — the operatic-soprano comparison being a higher compliment than it sounds.
  • Benny Goodman, from the stage at his 1938 Carnegie Hall concert: "by far the greatest man on alto sax that I ever heard."
  • Stone face, liquid sound. Hodges famously played the most emotional ballads in the band with zero facial expression — Chaplin/Keaton-class deadpan. The contrast was the show.
  • Couldn't (or didn't) read music fluently — a pure-ear player in a band of professional readers. Like Chick Webb, who first hired him.
  • Down Beat polls: Best alto saxophonist 10× in the readers' poll, 7× in the critics' poll.
  • Master of portamento — the slide between notes that became his trademark; described as "slide-trombone" phrasing on a saxophone.
  • Ellington's eulogy: "a tone so beautiful it sometimes brought tears to the eyes... Because of this great loss our band will never sound the same."
  • The 1951–55 own-band detour was Norman Granz's idea. Granz told Hodges he'd make more money as a leader. He didn't, really; Castle Rock was the only hit, the front-man role didn't suit him, and he was back with Duke by August 1955.

Sources