November.

Older brother of autumn.

Magical and possibly the best month of the year, like everyone else.

Slushy-snowy, chilled out by the first timid frosts, gray and black, shrouded in early darkness, therefore gloomy, and impossibly independent.

November needs no one.

Against.

Everyone and everyone needs it.

He is a harbinger.

Winter's little brother's guide.

Commander of Apprehension.

When the first blessed snow falls on the ground, when it covers up our former doubts and fears, when it approaches the windows and doors, settles down on narrow platbands and cornices with a white transparent collar, and then falls uncontrollably, carrying the white light into the white distance, then it will be all clear.

And we will say: “Winter.

Winter has come to us. "

And with her the New Year, and chores, and vanity, and looking back: did you have time, did not have time?

Well, okay! .. Well, nothing, nothing, in the new year we will pile up!

Let us turn our wings to fate.

The villain will already know ...

It will be so in December.

And so it will be throughout December.

But in November ...

It is still possible in it.

The presentiment of the holiday is immeasurably greater than its coming.

Premonition, not anticipation.

Waiting is full of longing and sadness.

Premonition is the fuel for our souls.

There is very little sun and stars, and the wind strives to get into your ears and whistle there until you are stupid.

But still.

Very soon.

The first month of winter will come.

And the world will decide to live anew.

Having matured a little.

Changed a little ...

Time to go home.

We all have to go home.

And what is there - at home?

In such and such dullness, darkness, turmoil of the heart and bad weather?

And at home is a house.

The warmth of the hearth, candles, cozy rugs underfoot in woolen socks.

And on them, on socks, there are bullfinches, rowan twigs, balls, stars, funny deer brothers ... Music worthy of the gods, mulled wine in ribbed and hot ruby ​​glasses in the light, books in slides - both on the table and on the floor - where you have to.

Silence and contemplation of slowness, infinity and the inevitable flow of time - how and how will you stop it?

Is it just memories?

Music.

The most important of the healing remedies against mental spleen and autumn blues.

Jazz.

An elusive melody of purity and deceptive monochromaticity of sound, which forever settles both in the head and in the memory.

Vinyl albums of a long-gone era of energy and excesses.

Sugary goodness and the amber glow of lamp technology enclosed in glass.

Time to be alone.

If it is midnight and there is no need and desire to collapse immediately to sleep.

There was one person in the world, the genius of the tenor saxophone.

I guess he's always ready to join night owls like us - Mr. Coleman Hawkins.

He was born a very long time ago, on November 21, 1904 (by the way, he would have turned 117 yesterday), in St. Joseph, a town in Missouri, and what else was there to do besides music?

Coleman Hawkins seemed to be even lucky: he was born into a Negro family with a conditional "average" income, and therefore music at a fairly decent level (after graduating from school, studied harmony and composition for two years) he studied from the age of four, at nine he played the piano well, cello and saxophone (every day improving in playing the latter to complete exhaustion), at 12 he shone at school concerts, and at 14 - in bars in East Kansas. Now it all looks a little ... uh ... unrealistic, but in that era - it was just right.

Once I mentioned (in the column about Big Joe Turner) about Mamie Smith, the first black diva in history to record a personal record - the sweetest Crazy Blues, a hot little thing that is quite relevant (in terms of the intensity of passions) today.

So there you go!

In the summer of 1921, Miss Mamie Smith came with her band to Kansas City, where she turned up a successfully pleasant and courteous young man of 17 years old, an excellent master of the tenor saxophone, and even trained in musical literacy - our Coleman Hawkins.

The diva appreciated the young talent, took it with her to the stage - and this is how Hawkins' first big concert took place.

By the way, he will tour with Mamie Smith throughout 1922.

Next will be the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, where Hawkins will masterfully duplicate clarinet and bass saxophone. An unexpectedly strong influence on Hawkins will be played by the trumpet player Louis Armstrong (he accepted Fletcher Henderson's invitation the second time and, joining his orchestra, actually gave him a second, jazz life).

In 1934, Hawkins accepted the unexpected invitation of Jack Hilton, the British king of jazz, and, having signed a contract, went on tour with his orchestra to London, and then traveled all over Europe with him, returning to America only in 1939, where he burst out Thunder: Hawkins, perhaps without realizing it, recorded one of the most iconic jazz compositions - Body and Soul.

It would seem cute, but nothing more, a thing from the 30s.

But how did he do it!

The most famous melody in the interpretation of Coleman Hawkins was almost not guessed, everyone seemed to be catching the beautiful intonations of something they had heard and incredibly familiar, as if in a dream they were following a thin, elusive thread of sound, but ...

Incredible beauty.

A fantastically gentle tenor saxophone monologue.

And such an old, now incomparable thing, which has acquired a second, perhaps, its main life.

This is how it was born (maybe not quite so, but any of the legends requires at least a small share of holy pathos) bebop - a fashionable and pretentious jazz style of complex improvisations and rapid tempos, following the more general harmony of a musical composition, leaving the original melody somewhat aside.

Anyway, it was definitely one of the first glimpses of bebop.

Coleman Hawkins adored Bach from childhood.

In particular - performed by the Catalan (where he only got hold of records) cellist and conductor Pablo Casals (in the world of classical music he is considered one of the most outstanding cellists of all time).

Maybe this is the secret of success, the secret of free movement from the statics of the given to the comprehension of any, even the simplest melody in its development?

Coincidentally or not, Hawkins has been called the "Picasso of Jazz" more than once.

And his passion for a new, always unexpected reading of the classics of the style is a confirmation of this.

In the early 40s, Hawkins played in the Count Basie group, later, in the mid 40s, he worked with Teddy Wilson and Roy Eldridge, Thelonious Monk and Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Max Roach.

And finally, in the late 40s, he falls into the orbit of the greatest jazz impresario Norman Granz, who invites him on a concert tour across America - the legendary Jazz at the Philarmonic, which opened the way to fame for dozens of true stars.

Throughout the 50s, Hawkins toured tirelessly across Europe and the United States. Performs, absolutely brilliantly, at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1956 (the founder of the festival, pianist and producer George Wayne, unfortunately, left us in September of this year), and in 1957 (in one day, October 16) writes on Verve Records the album Coleman Hawkins Encounters Ben Webster, beyond the level of snobbery and charm, as if throwing down a little lazy, rather daring challenge to the whole world: “What are you listening to, foolish children? Isn't it time for you too ... "

The recording is unique in the richness of communication between two tenor saxophones - Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster (we will certainly return to it in one of the future texts).

This is a conversation, a long autumn conversation about life in all its visible and not very facets.

A conversation, masterfully and exceptionally unobtrusively supported by Oscar Peterson on piano and Ray Brown on double bass.

Percussion - the legendary Alvin Stoller.

This is an important album for the month of November.

Warming.

Giving hope in the impenetrable darkness of autumn.

There are others.

Stock up on time and fluffy blankets: November evenings are still quite ahead.

The Hawk Swings, an album from 1960, is the quintessence of swing, one drop enlivens even ... You get the idea.

On the trumpet - truly brilliant, fused with the instrument, it seems, both physically and mentally, Ted Jones, one of the main orchestra members of Count Basie.

The talented Eddie Costa - keys and vibraphone.

The Hawk Relaxes, an album of 1961, forms a state of deepest, meditative relaxation, when from the first notes, from the first song, you yourself seem to be in the studio and everything happens here and now, with you and without you, somewhere in your memories, in Summer and the Sun, and maybe in Childhood Almighty ... Kenny Burrell's guitar is thin, only emphasizing the melody, the movement of sound ...

Duke Ellington Meets Coleman Hawkins - the album was recorded in one day, August 18, 1962, and this is what The New York Times writes about it (in 1995): “... one of the great Ellington albums, one of the great Hawkins albums and one of the great albums of the 1960s ... "

There is nothing to add here, except perhaps the obvious: Duke Ellington and Coleman Hawkins are both at the peak of form and creative power.

In addition to Ellington (piano) and Hawkins (tenor saxophone), there are only six people in the studio - Johnny Hodges (alto saxophone), Harry Carney (baritone saxophone, bass clarinet), Lawrence Brown (trombone), Ray Nance (cornet, violin), Aaron Bell (double bass), Sam Woodyard (drums).

Density and simultaneous lightness of sound, transparency and purity of keyboards, constant roll call of saxophones, clarinet, violin ... The experience of long searches, the experience of being in jazz - as a way of life, as its philosophy.

Is your mulled wine ready?

The record is on the turntable, and you are on the couch?

November.

The best of our months.

The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.