Jazz Junctions - Body and Soul

Guy Barker continues to explore the history of jazz, focusing on the turning points and pivotal events that have shaped the genre, and discovering some great stories and larger-than-life characters along the way. With his seminal recording of Body and Soul on 11 October 1939, Coleman Hawkins changed jazz. Never before had a musician played with such daring over a popular song, his fluid improvisation almost instantly departing from the original melody both harmonically and rhythmically, in a way that signalled a departure from the customs of 1930s jazz. Despite Hawkins' not thinking much of the performance at the time, the record was extremely popular; but more importantly from a historical perspective, Hawkins became an inspiration to a younger generation of jazz musicians, most notably Charlie Parker. Hawkins had sown a seed in the mind of the young upstarts who would go on to change the shape of jazz, and the importance of this recording of Body and Soul should not be underestimated. Guy Barker examines Coleman Hawkins' place in jazz and his legacy, by way of brand new interviews with Billy Taylor, Albert 'Tootie' Heath, Kenny Burrell, Ira Gitler, Junior Mance, Roy Haynes, Bill Crow, Dick Hyman, Ted Gioia, Gunther Schuller, Dan Morgenstern, and Geoffrey Smith; and of course, rare archive of the man himself, Coleman Hawkins.