Things You Are" and his riff "Stuffy" as if his life depended on it, accompanied by one of the best bop-oriented rhythm sections imaginable. Essential stuff.
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Ben Webster, only four years Hawkins's junior, was perhaps Hawkins's greatest disciple, with a sound so identifiable and a sensibility so inimitable that the notion of discipleship is misleading. He was without peer as a ballad player, having learned as much, or more, about phrasing from alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges (his sectionmate in the Duke Ellington orchestra, where Webster was a star member from 1940 to 1943) as from Hawkins, and his blues playing was also hard to match. This big, hard-drinking, pool-playing man, one of whose nicknames was "The Brute," was in fact one of the greatest lyric voices in the history of the music. His playing on ballads could have a tenderness and a romantic quality that were all the more moving for the sense of strength that lay behind them. Flip the coin and his sound could swell with passion and force.
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For an example of Webster at his all-time best, proceed directly to
Soulville
(Verve 833 551-2). The 1957 set consists of a slow, after-hours blues (the title track), a charging, medium-tempo blues, three stunningly lyrical ballads ("Time on My Hands," "Where Are You," and "Ill Wind" - on this kind of material Webster was unbeatable), and relaxed readings of the standards "Lover Come Back to Me" and "Makin' Whoopee.'' He is accompanied by Oscar Peterson's piano, Herb Ellis's guitar, Ray Brown's bass, and Stan Levey's drums. This is one of the most cohesive "mood" albums ever recorded. For good measure, Verve included three informally recorded piano solos by Webster - two stride pieces and a boogie-woogie - that break the deep mood of the rest of the album but which are fun to have anyway.
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For more Webster on this level, pick up
Art Tatum: The Tatum Group Masterpieces, Volume 8
(Pablo PACD-2405-431-2), from a series of group recordings that Tatum led in the mid-1950s with such guests as Benny Carter, Lionel Hampton, and trumpeter Roy Eldridge (the Eldridge set runs the Webster a fairly close second).
Volume 8
features Webster with Tatum, bass, and drums in one of the very best encounters of this sort in the history of the music. Where some of Tatum's other guests in the series tried to match him technique-for-technique, run-for-run, Webster underplayed it, singing the gorgeous melodies with his fullest sound, a perfect complement to the pianist's florid, multinote approach. Together they play the most beautiful of popular standards, like "Gone with the Wind," "Have You Met Miss Jones," "My
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