American tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins was one of the leading jazz saxophonists of the 1920s and 1930s. Considered the father of the jazz tenor saxophone, he was noted for the full-bodied sound of his music.

Hawkins was born in Saint Joseph, Missouri, and as a child he was a gifted musician. In 1922, Mamie Smith spotted him in a theatre pit orchestra in Kansas City and hired him to play with her Jazz Hounds. Hawkins stayed with Smith until 1923, and appeared on some of her records. After leaving The Jazz Hounds, he played with Wilbur Sweatman and then made his first recordings with Fletcher Henderson. He joined Henderson's Orchestra in 1924 and stayed with him for the next ten years. As a member of Henderson's orchestra, he played with a deep tone and introduced an intimate, melodic style that sharply contrasted with the percussive style popular in vaudeville orchestras. In addition to his work with Henderson, he recorded with McKinney's Cotton Pickers, and with Red McKenzie's Mound City Blue Blowers in 1929. When he left Henderson in 1934 he moved to Europe, and stayed there until 1939 playing first with Jack Hylton's Orchestra in England and then traveling and recording throughout the continent. In 1937 he appeared on a famous recording date with Benny Carter, Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli. In 1939 as World War II started, Hawkins wisely returned to America. He recorded a version of "Body and Soul" in 1940 that became his most famous record.

Hawkins was one of the few Hot Jazz musicians who made the shift to Be Bop in the Forties. He hired Thelonious Monk for his quartet in 1944 and lead an early bop recording session the same year which included Dizzy Gillespie. He also hired Miles Davis and Max Roach to play on his bands early in their careers. In 1946 he recorded with J.J. Johnson and Fats Navarro. By the early 1950s, the innovations of Lester Young and Charlie Parker made Hawkins' style seem a bit old fashioned. However Hawkins was able to adapt to the changing currents in Jazz again, when he teamed up with Roy Eldridge. Throughout the rest Fifties and Sixties he appeared on records made by Thelonious Monk, Max Roach, Eric Dolphy and John Coltrane. In the early 1960s Coleman Hawkins recorded with Duke Ellington, and made a record with Sonny Rollins. Battling severe alcholism, Coleman Hawkins still managed to express powerful emotion through his instrument. He continued to play right up to just weeks before his death in 1969.

Coleman Hawkins was a brilliant musical thinker who was remarkably open to new developments in jazz as classical music, reflected in both the personnel and the repertory of his groups. He carved out a style for the instrument that dominated jazz for decades and himself influenced every jazz tenor player to come.

This biography information was from technoir.net