Our Lindy 3 and 4 teachers Peter and Julia present us every Monday with an Album of the Week, always including some amazing historical context and fun trivia. This made us really enthusiastic about learning more about the culture and the music. So we thought we’d share the love by putting all of them on our website.
This is the Album of the week for the 4th of February. Johnny Hodges and his Orchestra: Castle Rock.
Listen to the album on Spotify
Listen to the album on Youtube
Peter:
“It’s AotW time! This week we chose an album by the alto sax player Johnny Hodges.
He drew inspiration from Sidney Bechet and played in various bands (including Chick Webb’s, who you’ll recognize from adopting Ella Fitzgerald) before joining Duke Ellington’s band in 1928 and really taking off as a star soloist. He stayed for the majority of his career which ended by his passing away in 1970.
The exception to that is 1951-55, a phase in which he left the band for a while and recorded some albums with his own band. Our album of the week is from this phase!
As with so many other artists, Johnny Hodges is known to the broader public for his ballads featuring his virtuous soft sound. However, we as dancers of course love his more pumping numbers, like so many on this album – Castle Rock, Jeep is Jumpin’, Sideways, Something to pat your foot to, Wham…
His musical genius is underlined by the fact that he’s said to not (or hardly) have been able to read notes, but apparently only needed to hear something once to perfectly play and improvise over it.
Next to featuring on countless Ellington numbers, he also led some recording sessions with the Dukesmen but without the Duke himself, such as ‘Duke’s in bed’ (featuring a very cool version of ‘Take the A-train’) and
Johnny Hodges had two nicknames: Jeep and rabbit! Jeep is part of several song names (Jeep is jumpin’, jeep’s blues, jeep bounced back), but the origin story of rabbit is quite funny – apparently he liked his sandwiches with lettuce and tomato. It (and his amazing solo skills) is showcased by the song ‘Meet Mr. Rabbit’
Another thing standing out about Johnny Hodges was his stoic expression while playing – seemingly untouched by the great sound he produced.”
Julia:
“He is one of my favorite musicians and there are so many great songs on this album. Sooo gooood!!”
Peter:
“Julia also found this amazing recording of him in the concertgebouw in Amsterdam!!! 1958 – perfectly unphased expression as mentioned before”
Thank you very much for sharing this with us Peter and Julia!
