Customer Reviews:

Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0

For Fans Only:

As a BIG fan of Johnny Hodges, I was disappointed in these recordings. As is frequently the case with boxed sets, there was too much thrown in. The early work, while of interest to fans, contains too many weak tracks, some of them so poorly mastered that you hear a loud hiss. His soprano sax efforts from the 30s, marred by commercial sounding vocals, are mostly forgettable. This should have been edited down to a 2CD set. Somehow the recording quality of even the later sides fails to capture the uniqueness... more info

Bargain of the Decade:

Johnny Hodges was one of the 3 or 4 greatest jazz saxophonists of all time. No one ever matched his beautiful tone, fluid technique, or sheer elegance. This amazing bargain set contains 4 CDs with 94 tracks featuring Hodges leading a small band of Duke Ellington's best musicians (Cootie Williams, Billy Strayhorn, Lawrence Brown, and Duke Ellington himself) dating from 1937 to 1952. (The last disc contains some rare recordings of Hodges on hiatus from Ellington's Orchestra, leading his own band.) The tunes... more info

Tracks:

1. Foolin' Myself
2. Sailboat in the Moonlight
3. You'll Never Go to Heaven
4. Peckin'
5. My Day
6. Slivery Moon and Golden Sands
7. Jeep's Blues
8. If You Were in My Place (What Would You Do?)
9. I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart
10. Rendezvous With Rhythm
11. You Walked Out of the Picture
12. Pyramid
13. Empty Ballroom Blues
14. Lost in Meditation
15. Blues Serenade
16. Love in Swingtime

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