Released on jazz label Prestige's "Swingville" imprint (allegedly even more composed of hastily-assembled blowing sessions, which were then scalped to junkie jazz musicians looking to make a quick buck, than were Prestige's other releases), Night Hawk is a blowing session between --duh-- the Hawk/ Bean and Lockjaw.
But man-- it is fun.
You know the great thing about music? I mean, I suppose, one of the great things?
It doesn't wear out.
Ever, pretty much.
I'm sorry, I'm being vague:
Think of your favorite shirt, or shoes, or pants, or whatever.
Knowing what you know now, don't you wish that you knew how awesome those Pumas, or Nikes, or American Apparel or Gap jeans or whatever, would be when you bought them? If you'd known they'd be the thing you wore after work every day for like 5 years, wouldn't you have bought 5 of them?
Night Hawk is like that shirt and jeans and shoes all in one. Except it's still brand new, and undecayed!
I know every goddamn note of this fucker the same way I know what my favorite Pumas, American Apparel and Wal-mart jeans feels like.
It's two tenor pros --one Eldritch, one newer but unafraid of the Old One-- fucking with each other, and laughing while they do.
From a jazz/tenor nerd's standpoint, it's wonderfully disparate and fascinating because both of the featured players have similar sounds-- a metal mouthpiece with a fairly-pliable reed, resulting in a sometimes-harsh-always-bright sound. It's awesomely intellectually and viscerally entertaining the way they still sound so different, when their "setups"' are so obviously similar.
"Night Hawk" and "In a Mello Tone" (the second-most played song on my iTunes ever) are highlights, but as I usually refrain, they're all good tracks: they display clearly (and nearly assuredly spontaneously) two clever, articulate tenor players enjoying and being stimulated by each others' company.
--Horn
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