A1 - Bean In Orbit
A2 - After Midnight
A3 - Hassle
B1 - Moodsville
B2 - Stalking

Recorded in 1960

Coleman Randolph Hawkins (1904 – 1969), nicknamed "Hawk" and sometimes "Bean" is joined here by George Duvivier, Osie Johnson, Eddie Costa and Thad Jones for these five selections featuring After Midnight and Moodsville. The ideas, the technique, the style, leave no doubt that Hawkins is still the titan of the tenor. "The Hawk" cuts loose, with virility and inventiveness, on a group of his own original tunes. His work is fiery on the upthings; lush and spellbinding on the ballads. At all times, he is very much the inspired "Hawk." Listen to the heart and soul of "the most influential reed man in the world." 

"Actual playing experience on the job is the best way to learn to think. Improvising is playing with a lot of thought behind it; but none of the hard work that goes into thinking should show up in your playing. Too often improvising is really copying. To really improvise, a musician needs to know everything - not only his instrument, but harnony, composition, theory, the whole works. It's more important than ever today. When you don't have the control (of your instrument), you can't incorporate the ideas that you hear and feel into your style. That's what's wrong with so many of the players coming up today. Sure... I was advanced for my time in those early days, for just that reason - I had studied hard since I was five, and studied classics all my life, and it gives me an advantage over the other fellows I was playing with." - Coleman Hawkins

The "golden age" of recordings was from 1955 to 1965, at the beginning of the LP and the stereo era, where pure vacuum tube amplification helped produce recordings demonstrating unparalleled fidelity and warmth, lifelike presence and illumination.

This Pure Pleasure LP was remastered using pure analogue components only, from the original analogue studio tapes through to the cutting head and was pressed with virgin vinyl at Pallas.