One of the great things about Taylor Hawkins is his…shirtless body, really.
Tramaine Hawkins has been a mentor, a confidante and an example of greatness. She has been through a lot in her life, and her career has spanned over 50 years. To me, that's what you call a legend.
When I heard Coleman Hawkins, I learned to play ballads
I appreciate men like Ben Webster and Coleman Hawkins very much.
A young tenor player was complaining to me that Coleman Hawkins made him nervous. Man, I told him Hawkins was supposed to make him nervous! Hawkins has been making other sax players nervous for forty years!
When I heard the truth about my name was not Cassius Clay, like I knew a black man in America named John Hawkins. Now, you know who John Hawkins was. He was a slave trader from England. But the white people of that time, if one had five slaves and his name was Jones, they would be called Jones' property. [. . . ] Now that I'm free, now that I'm no longer a slave, then I want a name of my ancestors.
Chano Pozo created the role of the conga soloist in the modern band, somewhat th way Coleman Hawkins created the solo tenor sax.
As much as I think John Coltrane belongs on the list, I think without Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young, both of whom defined improvising on the tenor sax, there would not have been the evolution of the craft by John Coltrane.
