Soul Station Feature: Coleman Hawkins & Django Reinhardt

Stardust

Coleman Hawkins, one of the greatest and most important jazz sax players, very much wanted to tour Europe in the 1930s, and after several planned trips fell through, he still found a way. He toured there for five years and did not return to the US until 1939. He made recordings in the UK as well as France and indeed, one of the most memorable on those discs is his version of Stardust. Stardust had been famous since the early 1930s and made very memorable by Louis Armstrong. The Hawkins version is a spare, beautiful affair, with Stephane Grappelli on piano and Django Reinhardt on guitar. In my estimation, it is just as unforgettable as the one by Armstrong.

DJ Pi/Paul Yamada