Johnny Hodges The alto (and sometimes soprano) saxophonist Johnny Hodges was from Cambridge, Massachusetts, but he learned the blues that permeated everything he played from his boyhood idol and mentor, the New Orleans master, Sidney Bechet. Hodges played with Bechet and Chick Webb before joining Duke Ellington in 1928 and afterwards he sometimes took time off to lead small groups under his own name. But for all but a few years of its existence he was a mainstay of the Ellington Orchestra—and the instantly identifiable source of one of its most distinctive sounds. No one in the band swung harder than Hodges did, but he was best known for a lush, sinuous, sensuous way with ballads that provided an ideal soundtrack for romance. "Don't leave me alone with Johnny," the wife of a fellow band member once warned her husband. "When he plays I want to open up the bedroom door." "Our band will never sound the same," Ellington said when Hodges died. Night after night for almost four decades, he continued, "Johnny Hodges never once over-did, never under-did. He just played alto saxophone." Count Basie Roy Eldridge Ella Fitzgerald Benny Goodman Earl Hines Johnny Hodges "Papa" Jo Jones Charles Mingus Joe "King" Oliver Max Roach Sonny Rollins Fats Waller View press release for more information.